A few weeks ago, major media outlets claimed that the race of a shooter and the race of his victims was important and relevant, even if the shooting was not explicitly racially motivated. Will they say the same thing about Philip Adams? Will they accuse the NFL of “radicalizing” the perpetrator? After all, an active NFL player tweeted an Anti-Asian racial slur a few days ago.
Phillip Adams, a Black male who played for the NFL between 2010 and 2015, murdered five people in South Carolina. The victims are Dr. Robert Lesslie, 70, his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69, and two of their grandchildren, 9-year-old Adah Lesslie and 5-year-old Noah Lesslie. James Lewis, 38, was working in the Lesslie family home and was also killed. All five of the victims are White.
This is, at least, the second time a Black mass shooter has targeted White victims in South Carolina since the White on Black Charleston Church shooting of 2015. The Charleston Church shooting was a major international media event.
In 2017, Kenneth Mar’Keith Chisolm was charged with the murder of three family members in Ruffin, SC, a small town not far from Charleston. He killed Philip Miller, his wife Lori Miller, and their 13-year-old son Vincent Miller. He also attempted to kill the couple’s two granddaughters. A nine-year-old picked up her five-year sister and ran. She was hit in the leg with a bullet but managed to protect the five-year-old.
Chisolm’s girlfriend was charged with being his getaway driver. Police claim that Miller invited Chisolm to his house to sell him cannabis, but Chisolm planned to murder the family and steal their belongings. He was 18 at the time of the murders.
The mass shooting barely received any media attention, even in the local market where it occurred.
Then, one year later Chisolm was charged with the murders of two other White victims. Prosecutors said he murdered a couple in their home in Walterboro in 2016. The victims were James Ramsey, 44, and Julie Poston, 41. They say he wanted to kill the pair so he could steal their belongings.
As far as we can tell, no media outlet anywhere has reported on Chisolm since 2018.
