Six days ago in Miramar Beach, Florida, a group of Chilean students were sitting around the kitchen table in their beach house talking and cooking. The next minute they heard a blast followed by broken glass. Before they knew what hit them, 2 of the students were killed and 3 were critically wounded by gunfire. The shooter, 60 year-old Dannie Baker shot the students through their kitchen window in an act of racist hate. The students, studying in Florida had never seen nor heard of Baker before the attack. According to the county sheriff “there had never been an issue with the victims at the residents or anything of that nature. They were totally harmless and true victims in every sense of the word.”
Whenever these tragedies occur, the first questions that come to mind are, was there a motive behind the crime? And were there any prior warning signs? Sadly in this case the answer to both questions is “yes.” According to a former tenant of his in 2003 he seemed quite mentally stable but he would have dramatic mood swings. Baker was again the tenant’s landlord 2 years later in 2005 when the tenant described him as a person who was on a lot of medications and at some points completely out of his mind.
Baker is described by many as a preacher who would talk about his love of Jesus Christ to anyone he met. Cheryl Rhoads, who cleaned the house across the street, would let Baker into the house she was cleaning so he could talk to her. She noted that he would mainly talk about religion and sometimes pressed her to read books such as Man’s Perfection before God. Cheryl rejected his religious approaches. Perhaps the most telling part of her testimony was when Ms. Rhoads described him as someone she didn’t trust. Referring to Dannie Baker she said, “I told my neighbor and I told my son if anything ever happens to me when I am out cleaning, you go after this man.”
It was not only religion that shaped Dannie Baker’s mind, the right-wing anti-immigrant movement also had a profound and radicalizing affect on him. It was his involvement with the anti-immigrant movement that led him to volunteer for the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2004, but not volunteer for the 2008 McCain campaign. He did however send disturbing emails about national political issues to the Walton County Republican headquarters where he had volunteered 4 years earlier. The emails were so disturbing that they were reported them to the county sheriff. Baker’s neighbor Crystal Lynn was once approached by Baker who asked her if she was “ready for the revolution to begin” and said “if she had any immigrants in her house to get them out.”
It is clear that Baker was disturbed by the group of “immigrants” that had moved near to him. Blinded by racism and insanity he could not comprehend that the Chileans were harmless students. All of the signs were on the wall for Baker whose mental condition combined with the constant flow of anti-immigrant propaganda in the media fueled him into action. This tragic tale is yet another reminder of the dangers of ignorance and prejudice.