Two More Shootings, and More Questions About Political Motivations

By Jim Geraghty

Monday, September 22, 2025

 

At 1:30 p.m. Friday, officers from the Sacramento Police Department responded to reports of shots fired in the vicinity of the offices of KXTV-TV, Sacramento’s ABC affiliate. (You will recall there’s a bit of a controversy over ABC television network’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s show indefinitely.) According to the police, “responding officers observed at least three gunshots into a window of the building. The building was occupied and fortunately, nobody was injured.”

 

Within a few hours, the Sacramento Police believed they had found their man, 64-year-old Anibal Hernandez Santana. (In a perfect irony, the social media posts of the suspect indicate he is an impassioned supporter of gun control.) According to the report from the local ABC affiliate, Santana was charged with “assault with a deadly weapon, shooting into an occupied building, and negligent discharge of a firearm.”

 

The first two charges are felonies, and negligent discharge of a firearm can be a felony or misdemeanor. Note that “negligent discharge” does not mean accidental under California law.

 

Santana was back on the street within a few hours, having posted bail.

 

Now, we keep hearing from California lawmakers that they take gun violence seriously. Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty (notice no ‘h’) shows up at rallies for Everytown for Gun Safety, and before becoming mayor, McCarty was in the state assembly for many years and consistently voted for every measure restricting firearms.

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom regularly brags that his state is “ranked as the number one state in the nation for the strength of its gun safety laws.” Friday afternoon, Newsom issued the statement, “Any act of violence toward journalists is an attack on our democracy itself and must be condemned in the strongest terms. We stand with reporters and staff who work every day to keep communities informed and safe!”

 

And yet . . . here’s somebody who shot into a building, faces three felonies, and yet he’s back on the street in less than a day. How do authorities know this guy doesn’t have access to other firearms? How do they know he won’t attempt to take some other act of violence against ABC employees, with a car or knife or some other weapon? How do they know he isn’t a flight risk?

 

You’re telling me you can get arrested for firing a gun into a building in the middle of the day, and a day later be walking the streets, awaiting your court date? (In Sacramento, “felony cases can take a year or more, depending on various factors.”)

 

California, you keep telling us you want to stop gun violence, but you don’t act like you want to stop gun violence.

 

This shooter is no longer walking the streets, no thanks to local or state authorities. On Saturday, the FBI arrested him.

 

The FBI Sacramento office released a statement Sunday: “Yesterday, FBI Sacramento effected a probable cause arrest of Anibal Hernandez Santana for alleged willful or malicious interference with the communication of a station licensed or authorized by the U.S. government, a violation of 47 U.S.C. § 333. The investigation continues and we are working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to pursue all appropriate charges.”

 

Hernandez Santana’s attorney, Mark Reichel, contended his client is being targeted by the president, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the U.S. Department of Justice because he is “an educated liberal”:

 

“If his social media points are considered radical by you, I guess it depends on your perspective. There’s a lot of this stuff that’s said by the President and you’d have to consider that radical also,” said Reichel. “I think the President and the Trump Justice Department and Pam Bondi aren’t going to let this one go by. . . . Of course, they’re going to grab it and try to bring it into federal court as soon as they can because they’ve got somebody who is an educated liberal who they believe shot at the building.”

 

If California really wants to reduce gun violence, maybe it needs to put a little more effort into keeping people who are charged with multiple gun-related felonies behind bars. California comes down like a ton of bricks on residents who want to buy a gun, but soft as a throw pillow on the guy who actually pulled the trigger.

 

I am reminded of the lunatic who attempted to stab then gubernatorial-candidate Lee Zeldin on stage in New York in 2022, and who within hours was “released on his own recognizance.” (What, was he warned to stay away from steak knives?) The perpetrator was convicted of assaulting a federal officer and later sentenced to . . . three years’ probation. Pretty mild penalty for assaulting a representative, huh?

 

Meanwhile, across the country on Saturday night, a former employee of a country club in Nashua, N.H., returned and started shooting people.

 

This might be just another case of a disgruntled former employee lashing out through violence . . . or maybe not:

 

Some shooting witnesses said they heard Nadeau yelling phrases like “Free Palestine,” but investigators said they do not believe the shooting was hate-related.

 

“We don’t have any evidence at this time that Mr. Nadeau was motivated by hate-based motivation. In fact, I would say that the evidence leads us to believe this was more likely Mr. Nadeau was simply trying to make a number of statements to create chaos in the moment,” New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said.

 

I notice the CNN article about the shooting doesn’t feel compelled to mention what “statement” the alleged perpetrator made:

 

Nadeau, who had not worked at the club for about a year, reportedly made multiple statements during the shooting that authorities believe were designed to create confusion, Formella said. Investigators are still working to understand his motive.

 

The guy’s tearing through a country club, murdered one person, is attempting to murder others, and you’re telling me he was also simultaneously attempting to create confusion about what his actual views on the Middle East were? What, he was a really clever Zionist?

 

For what it’s worth, state Attorney General Formella is a Republican. Maybe the witness misheard the shooter, or maybe “free Palestine” was mixed in with a bunch of incoherent nonsense.

 

I want to trust authorities when they characterize the motives of violent criminals. But it’s difficult, after the U.S. Department of Justice initially released the transcript of the Pulse nightclub shooter’s 911 call but removed references to ISIS because, Attorney General Loretta Lynch claimed, they did not want to “further [the shooter’s] propaganda.”

 

As recently as 2023, the Human Rights Campaign has insisted that the Pulse nightclub shooting was a “an act of LGBTQ+ hate,” ignoring the fact that prosecutors admitted that there was no evidence to suggest that the shooter knew that Pulse was a gay club, and the perpetrator literally declared to a 911 operator, “I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.” We know exactly why that bastard took such abominable violent actions. He told us. Yes, the perpetrator hated gay and lesbian Americans, but that’s because he hated all Americans.

 

Yeah, there’s a good chance that the Nashua shooter was just another garden variety nut, like the Minnesota shooter who believed Governor Tim Walz had ordered him to kill the state’s two senators because Walz wanted to be a senator. But you can’t begrudge people for raising an eyebrow when authorities insist that what the shooter said while committing the shooting is completely irrelevant to determining his motive.

 

ADDENDUM: The newest print edition of National Review examines the Trump effect, ten years after he began his bid for the presidency in the 2016 cycle. You’re going to want to read

 

·        Andrew C. McCarthy on the rule of law

·        Noah Rothman on our alliances

·        Dominic Pino on the economy

·        Jeffrey Blehar on the media

·        Christine Rosen on our national memory

·        Jack Butler on Washington, D.C.

·        Peter Skerry on immigration

·        And Rachel Lu on the universities

 

And me on popular culture.

 

And if you’re not subscribed to NR Plus or the magazine . . . well, this is a great time to start!