https://www.nationalreview.com/news/representative-sheila-jackson-lee-denies-responsibility-for-mistakenly-labeling-girls-murder-hate-crime/
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas) refused to take responsibility Sunday for labeling the murder of a seven-year-old African-American girl a “hate crime” before sufficient evidence materialized to support the claim.
Jackson Lee, who encouraged the public to treat Jazmine Barnes’s murder as a hate crime during a rally days after her death, claimed Sunday that her earlier statements, made before the police arrested and charged an African-American man with the murder, were not irresponsible.
While addressing a crowd of hundreds gathered near the Houston, Texas street where Barnes was shot and killed on December 30, Jackson Lee urged her audience to call the murder a hate crime, citing eyewitness accounts that suggested a white man was responsible.
“Do not be afraid to call this what it seems to be — a hate crime,” Jackson Lee said.
On Sunday, Houston Police arrested and charged Eric Black, a 20-year-old African-American man, with the killing. Asked at a news conference Sunday afternoon whether her initial characterization of the murder as a hate crime was irresponsible, Jackson Lee responded, “absolutely not.”