Linux Beach: Why didn't state & federal officials release the name of the Odessa shooter?

Did they withhold his name so they could scrub is social media profile first?

After Texas authorities released the name of the El Paso shooter - Patrick Crusius, we quickly learned that he was a white supremacist Trump supporter, and that he left a racist manifesto that showed that he was strongly motivated by Trump's genocidal rants about immigrates of color "invading" the United States via the southern border. From their decision today, it's clear they wish they hadn't done that.

Santino William Legan,the 19-year old white man who murdered three people of color, and injured a dozen more, in a shooting spree at the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, on July 28, 2019, also seemed to be motivated by white supremacy. In an Instagram post before the shooting, he advised people to read Might is Right, a 1890's pamphlet very popular with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

With Saturday's Odessa/Midland shooter, they didn't repeat that "mistake." They have unveiled a new policy. They are keeping the shooters name a secret, because they “Don’t want to give him the notoriety.” They have only said that he is a white male about 30 years old. They know his exact age, of course.

They want us instead, to focus on the victims, as though that might help us understand why they were shot, and help us prevent such tragedies in the future. That is nonsense.

Never mind that to stop these mass murders we need to understand the motivations of the shooter. Never mind, the shooter may have associates capable of similar actions, and there are undoubtedly people in the shooter's circle that could shed light on that crucial fact - provided they know who the shooter is. Making his name public is not a question of giving notoriety to the dead shooter. It's a question of public safety.

In The making of Trump's American Holocaust, I wrote

US President Donald Trump speaks the language of mass extermination while his administration prepares the infrastructure for it. He calls refugees “invaders." He says the inner-cities are “infested.” By speaking of people of color as an “infestation,” Trump has called forth the “exterminators.” In recent attacks in Gilroy, El Paso, and beyond, we are seeing the frightful results.
...
While Trump talks the language of genocide, his administration is using an immigration crisis it largely created, to justify the building of concentration camps. It tries keep any public knowledge of what it is doing to a minimum, while using the occasional “reveals” to acclimate that public to the inhumane treatment of people of color by its government. And now he has brought back the federal death penalty. That some of his unhinged supporters should “get ahead of the program,” as we have seen recently in Gilroy and El Paso, may be unintended, but it certainly is a predictable consequence of the overall direction he is pointing.

Seth Aaron Ator, the Odessa shooter

So now it looks like they are engaged in a cover-up. Is it because they don't want us to know if this mass shooter is a continuation of that pattern, and another tragic result of Trump's fear-mongering?

UPDATE: Odessa city officials, not state or federal officials, have revealed that the name of the shooter is Seth Aaron Ator, 36, of Odessa, Texas. Now we can begin to unravel this mystery. Check back for future updates.

US Daily Report is saying:

Not much is known about the mass murderer because most of his social media pages seem to have vanished.

And some people have taken to social media to ask why do authorities reveal the identities of killing suspects rapidly when they are black or Muslim, and delay the process when the mass murderer is white.

One person asked: “The black kid’s name was made pubic very fast, but now we have the name of the Texas shooter finally. Seth Aaron Ator. Look I would rather they never shared any of these peoples names, but they can’t have this double standard.”

Another commenter had this to say: “Everything about #SethAtor has been scrubbed off social media why? What are the authorities hiding about this Killer? My Life has been edited about him. What in the hell is going on with this Midland Odessa Shooting Terrorist.”

In my own search, I went straight to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine hoping I would find something there, and while I got four hits on "Seth Aaron Ator," it would appear I got there too late. I got a couple of 404 Not Found errors, one said "Hrm. The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL." Then why store a link to it? One said simply "Purged Account."

And now his Linkedin Profile, which was there only minutes ago (I found it from this Heavy.com piece. "There is one LinkedIn page with Ator’s name attached to it." Why didn't I make a screen shot.) has been replaced with "This profile is not available." This leaves little doubt the his social media profile was being scrubbed even as I was writing this.

For a history of how the second amendment was originally designed as a measure to support slavery, and its application to people of color, see my Murders of Alton Sterling & Philando Castile: No 2nd Amendment rights for blacks.

There is also this, indicating he was a Republican: