Freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., deleted a tweet sympathizing with the 13 inmates recently executed during President Donald Trump’s terms after critics called her out for glorifying violent felons, one of whom was a self-proclaimed white supremacist.
In the tweet, Bush listed the names of the 13 criminals and urged her followers to “say their names.”
“The 13 people murdered by Trump’s death row killing spree,” Bush wrote. “Say their names.”
Several users pointed out the horrific nature of these inmates’ crimes.
For example, Daniel Lewis Lee was a white supremacist convicted of murdering William Frederick Mueller, his wife Nancy Ann Mueller, and his 8-year-old stepdaughter Sarah Elizabeth Powell in Arkansas in 1996.
Similarly, Wesley Purkey confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and then murdering 16-year-old Jennifer Long. He also beat an 80-year-old woman to death.
Instead of remembering the criminals, Americans should remember their victims, others argued.
These people weren’t murdered. They were legally executed after convictions for horrendous crimes, being sentenced to the death penalty, and going through countless appeals. https://t.co/FgOA3Q5p7l
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 17, 2021
Bush did not explain why she deleted her original tweet. Instead, she posted another tweet quoting civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
“I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime…[C]apital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology &, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”
-Dr. MLK, Jr.Thank you @OfficialMLK3https://t.co/v8GHcYKZ0H
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 19, 2021
