Similar slayings draw vastly different political reaction
IOWA CITY, Iowa — The cases are strikingly similar: Two talented young women were stabbed to death by male strangers while doing athletic activities alone in normally safe parts of Iowa.
But politicians who quickly expressed outrage about the immigrant suspect charged with killing runner Mollie Tibbetts have been silent or more restrained about the white homeless man accused in the death of a college golf star from Spain.
Hours after Cristhian Bahena Rivera was arrested last month in Tibbetts’ death, President Donald Trump declared that the farmhand had killed the “beautiful” young woman because of the nation’s “disgraceful” immigration laws. The president recorded a video citing Tibbetts’ slaying in his case for building a wall on the border with Mexico and adopting other policies intended to keep immigrants from entering illegally.
So far, Trump and many others who followed his lead have not weighed in on the death of Celia Barquin Arozamena, who was attacked Monday while golfing on a course near Iowa State University. The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on Barquin, who was the Big 12 women’s golf champion this year and a 22-year-old engineering student.