A black man arrested in Georgia this week confessed to shooting five white individuals in Georgia and Alabama simply because they were white.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports the 39-year-old man accused of shooting and wounding five people in Alabama and Georgia told police his assaults were racially motivated, and he was targeting white men, a detective testified Monday.
A police detective testified in a preliminary hearing that Justin Tyran Roberts, who is Black, told police that white men had picked on him and wronged him for all his life.
“Basically, he explained throughout his life, specifically white males had taken from him, and also what he described as military-looking white males had taken from him,” Detective Brandon Lockhart testified, according to the newspaper.
Roberts is accused of shooting five individuals in three different attacks in Columbus, Georgia, and Phenix City, Alabama, according to police. Columbus Police Chief Freddie Blackmon stated Sunday that all of the victims are expected to make a full recovery. Police found no evidence that Roberts knew any of his victims, according to the chief.
Roberts appeared in court Monday in Columbus for a preliminary hearing in one of those incidents where a man was shot in the back as he was getting into his vehicle.
Lockhart testified that Roberts said, “I had to have him,” about one of the shooting victims.
Roberts also claimed that such men were “shooting at him in a wooded area with a slingshot,” and the wounds had infected his skin, Lockhart testified. But he said police saw no injuries to substantiate that.
Police said one person was hurt in a shooting Friday night at a hotel in Phenix City. Less than two hours later Friday, three people were shot in Columbus. A fifth person was shot Saturday afternoon.
This is a story that would be all over the news if the races were reversed. It would also be more proof of “white supremacy.” However, because the shooter is black and his victims are white, the mainstream media has paid minimal attention to this story.
Rather than being labeled a vicious racist, this individual is believed to be suffering from mental illness:
Public defender Robin King requested a mental health evaluation for Roberts, saying the man was suffering from delusions.
“The officer’s testimony has demonstrated that Mr. Roberts is having delusions and a disconnect from reality,” King told the judge.
Of course, this is to be expected coming from his public defender. And who knows, he could have been hallucinating. My argument is that if the races were reversed, the man would be a bigot and a liar, not a mentally ill person experiencing hallucinations.
