Hawley, who previously opposed a bill in 2021 to expedite the review of hate crimes amid a rise anti-Asian incidents, asked law enforcement officials to investigate the Covenant School shooting as a religiously motivated hate crime.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Tuesday called on federal law enforcement agencies to investigate Monday’s shooting at the Covenant School as a religious hate crime.
On Monday, a shooter opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville, killing six people, including three children. The school was founded in 2001 as a ministry of the Covenant Presbyterian Church, which shares the same address. Hawley cited law enforcement reports that the shooting was “targeted” against the Christian school, which police believe the shooter attended.
“It is commonplace to call such horrors ‘senseless violence,’” Hawley wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “But properly speaking, that is false. Police report that the attack here was ‘targeted’ — targeted, that is, against Christians.”
Hawley previously voted against an anti-Asian hate crime bill that was passed on a 94-1 vote in April 2021 and directed the Department of Justice to expedite the review of such crimes. The measure also tasked the attorney general and the Department of Health and Human Services with issuing best-practices guidance on how to mitigate racially discriminatory language in describing the pandemic.
A spokesperson for Hawley referred NBC News to the senator’s tweet about the bill. At the time, Hawley cautioned it would turn the “federal government into the speech police.” He added that the bill gave “government sweeping authority to decide what counts as offensive speech and then monitor it.”
On Tuesday, Hawley also introduced a Senate resolution to condemn the shooting as a hate crime.
In his letter to law enforcement officials, Hawley wrote that “hate that leads to violence must be condemned. And hate crimes must be prosecuted.”
Nashville Police Chief John Drake that police believe “resentment” over having to attend the Covenant School may have played a role in the shooting. Drake added that police had recovered “writings” and a detailed map of the school and how the shooter would carry out the attack, which they are investigating for a motive.