Trump tweets condolences for wrong mass killing; North State reaction mixed

After the mass shooting in Tehama County on Tuesday, President Trump went on Twitter to express his condolences about the latest mass murder. However, his tweet referred to Sutherland Springs, Texas, rather than Rancho Tehama, California.

“May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI and Law Enforcement has arrived,” Trump wrote in a tweet posted at 11:34 p.m. Tuesday.

The Sutherland Springs shooting was Nov. 5, when a gunman opened fire at a church, killing 26 people and wounding another 20.

The president’s tweet following the Rancho Tehama shooting was later removed from Twitter, and he has not posted a new tweet about the incident.

Was it a harmless mistake from a president jet-lagged from a long tour of Asia? The White House did not answer a request for comment Thursday.

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The tweet drew widespread news coverage nationwide and criticism on Twitter. 

Here in the North State, residents had widely differing views on the president’s tweet, ranging from calling it “insensitive” and “not news” to Trump doesn’t care about California.

Janet Chandler of Burney gave the president some leeway to make a mistake.

“On the scale of importance, it’s way down there, and I would have given President Obama the same latitude” to make an honest mistake, said Chandler, active with the tea party and the State of Jefferson movement.

Talking about a mistake the president made on Twitter is a distraction from more important issues Trump is working on, such as tax reform and trade issues, Chandler said.

Sally Rapoza, active in North State conservative causes, said in the scheme of things, a mistake on Twitter is not that important.

“He’s made some mistakes. I agree with that, but didn’t he just get back from Asia, too,” Rapoza said. “I think they are just looking for anything to jump on him about.”

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News that U.S. Sen. Al Franken groped a woman was more important than the president’s tweet about  Rancho Tehama, she said.

“The people who are making a big deal about of it are making a distraction,” she said.

But Gregory Cheadle, who has run for Congress as a Republican, said the president’s inability to correctly tweet about Rancho Tehama is a mistake worth noting.

“It’s comical that such an egregious error could be made at that level,” he said.

Cheadle was initially a Trump supporter. During Trump’s visit to Redding during his presidential campaign he called Cheadle out at a rally as “my African American.”

But since then Cheadle has soured on Trump as a president for his positions on race, Cheadle said.

“It’s inexcusable,” he said of Trump’s mistake confusing Sutherland Springs, Texas, with Rancho Tehama.

“You go from Rancho Tehama to Texas, that is inexcusable and then to not correct it?” Cheadle said. “He is too arrogant to say a mistake has been made.”

What if he confused North Korea with South Korea, he asked. “What if he pushes the button and he nukes South Korea rather than North Korea?”

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U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa did not respond to a request for comment on the tweet. And Assemblyman Brian Dahle’s spokesman said the assemblyman had no comment, saying he would prefer to focus on issues affecting North State residents.

The Record Searchlight asked its Facebook audience what they thought of the president’s mistake and got some strong responses, some accusing the paper of being left-leaning and wondering if there wasn’t more important news to cover.

“Stop doing these ignorant propaganda stories you jerks. So sick of media agenda stories,” Kim Delapaz wrote in response to the paper’s request for comment.

But Erin Ortman Francoeur sent a Facebook message with a different point of view.

“It is horrifying that the mass shootings in our country have become so commonplace that the President is so unconcerned that children have been shot in the sanctuary of their school that he doesn't take the time to really think about a response to the horror,” she said.