Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopolous has responded to claims linking comments he gave to reporters days ago and the shooting at a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.
Yiannopolous criticised liberal journalists in a Facebook post, who he said would try to “score political points against” him by noting that he had called for “vigilante death squads” to kill journalists days before the incident.
“You’re about to see a raft of news stories claiming that I am responsible for inspiring the deaths of journalists,” he wrote. “The bodies are barely cold and left-wing journalists are already exploiting these deaths to score political points against me. It’s disgusting. I regret nothing I said, though of course like any normal person I am saddened to hear of needless death”.
He continued: “The truth, as always, is the opposite of what the media tells you. I sent a troll about ‘vigilante death squads’ as a *private* response to a few hostile journalists who were asking me for comment, basically as a way of saying, ‘f*** off’”.
Yiannopolous is referring to reports originally published on the Daily Beast website and the New York Observer — and later picked up by several blogs — in which he is quoted saying he would like to see journalists murdered.
Others noted that he has previously sent anti-semitic and violent messages to members of the media.
“I can’t wait fort he vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight,” he texted the reporter at the Observer, who said he received the message when he reached out for comment on a story from Yiannopolous.
A least five people have been killed and many more were injured when a gunman opened fire at the joint offices for The Capital and the Maryland Gazette newspapers in Annapolis on Thu
It was not immediately clear why the gunman had targeted that particular office building — which houses other businesses as well — and investigators said they expected to be working into the night, and potentially beyond then.
Yiannopolous, hours after that shooting, published his Facebook post, and sought to put the blame for the publication of his comments on the journalists. He repeatedly insisted that the comments made to those reporters were intended to be private, even though he knew that he was speaking to reporters who were seeking public comment from the controversial conservative activist.
