O’Rourke: El Paso bore brunt of ‘hatred’ and ‘racism’ perpetrated by Trump

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said Saturday that his hometown of El Paso, Texas “bore the brunt” of “hatred” and “racism” perpetrated  by President Trump.

“Not only did El Paso bear the brunt of this hatred and this racism perpetrated not just by white nationalists and terrorists and Klansmen and neo-Nazis but by the very president of the United States of America himself,” the former Texas congressman said at a march in El Paso one week after a gunman killed 22 people in the border city, according to Reuters.

{mosads}“This community also holds the example and the solution to a country that has never been more divided than it is right now,” O’Rourke, who has condemned Trumps rhetoric on immigration, added. “This has been the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the state of Texas.”

Jessica Coca Garcia, who was shot in the legs during the shooting, also addressed the march on Saturday, Reuters noted.

“Racism is something I always wanted to think didn’t exist,” she said, according to the news service. “Obviously it does.”

The suspect in the mass shooting has been tied to a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto that rails against a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

The suspect reportedly told police he targeted “Mexicans” when he opened fire in an El Paso Walmart.

The shooting occurred hours before another in Dayton, Ohio, in the early hours of Sunday morning last weekend.