Milo Yiannopoulos Talks About People ‘Gunning Down Journalists On Sight’ Two Days Before ‘Capital Gazette’ Shooting

At least five people were killed with multiple others injured in a shooting at the Capital-Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, MD, and the shooter has been taken into custody. People quickly started to point out that former Breitbart editor and right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos sent a text this week to an Observer reporter encouraging people to shoot journalists.

“I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight,” Yiannopoulos wrote. Apparently, this is Yiannopoulos’ standard reply when he is asked for a comment. In the Observer article on the subject, Davis Richardson pointed out that Will Sommer from The Daily Beast had also gotten a similar text.

After the shooting was reported, Yiannopoulos took to Twitter. Sorry, I meant Facebook — he was banned from Twitter for inciting trolls to harass Leslie Jones.

“You’re about to see a raft of news stories claiming that I am responsible for inspiring the deaths of journalists. The bodies are barely cold and left-wing journalists are already exploiting these deaths to score political points against me,” Yiannopoulos wrote in a post. “It’s disgusting. I regret nothing I said, though of course like any normal person I am saddened to hear of needless death.”

Yiannopoulos goes on to say that if it is uncovered that the shooter was motivated by his words, it would be the fault of the outlets who published his words, The Daily Beast and the Observer.

Finally, he writes: “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this shooter — just like the last one at YouTube — is another demented left-winger. Let’s hope it’s another transgender shooter, too, so the casualties are minimal.”

Not much is known about the suspect in custody aside from the fact that he is a white male and is believed to have used a shotgun, according to AP.