Eye on Jacksonville deliberately waited until the other media’s inflammatory coverage of the Dollar General shooting had subsided before commenting in detail.

Three people were killed by a lunatic who was a Democrat, although that fact largely was kept hidden.

All that matters to the Democrat media was his skin color and that of the victims.

The killer clearly was deranged.

Mental illness is a serious problem. Many dangerous people were kept in secure institutions until about 70 years ago when those on the left of the political spectrum began demanding their release.

The Hollywood crowd, of course, helped fuel this with movies such as The Snake Pit, Bedlam and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all making mental institutions and treatments a horror story.

In lieu of institutions, the liberals have hyped all sorts of alternatives, none of which has worked. One current fad is treating crime as a mental health issue.

There is a program that does this called Cure Violence. Jacksonville has spent millions on it in the past few years.

Why didn’t Cure Violence prevent the Dollar General slayings?

Another anticipated aspect of the coverage was the emphasis on the tool. To his credit, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters put that down swiftly. He said, “I could take my gun off right now and lay it on this counter, nothing will happen. It’ll sit there. But as soon as a wicked person grabs ahold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it, there’s the problem. The problem is the individual.”

Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter got to the heart of the matter as she often does.

But others can’t let it go.

“It is imperative that the city of Jacksonville recognizes its history of institutionalized racism. Moving past the legacy of racism and discrimination requires an acknowledgement and a commitment to build a legacy of truth,” Democrat Mayor Donna Deegan said.

That is complete nonsense. The only history of institutionalized racism in America was slavery, which affected half the nation, not just Jacksonville, and which was common throughout the world and throughout history. And moving past its legacy after the Civil War was made more difficult by Democrats who implemented segregation.

Furthermore, none of this is a mystery. Every child learns about it in school.

The shooting at Dollar General, while awful, was not evidence supporting the Far Left’s fantastic assertion that “white supremacy” is a major problem in America or that the nation itself is racist and always has been.

One of the most evil, despicable hate crimes ever perpetrated took place almost 50 years ago, in Jacksonville. The perpetrator was caught, but still has not been punished.

An 18-year-old man was walking down the street one night when he was stopped and forced into a car containing several other men, led by Jacob John Douggan.

They took him out to the Beaches area where he was tortured, stabbed repeatedly and shot twice in the head. A note was left on his body calling for more murders. Another boy was killed a week later under similar circumstances, but no one was charged.

Douggan wasn’t finished. Tape recordings were sent to the boy’s parents describing in graphic detail how their son was brutally slain as he begged for his life.

The sordid facts of the Douggan case are not in dispute but liberal lawyers and judges have kept justice at bay for nearly a half-century anyway. If justice were blind and not biased like the media, it would have put an end to the case.

The motive for the vicious murder was the color of the victim’s skin.

Douggan’s skin is black. His victim’s skin was white.

If liberals are going to persist in trying to divide America by making a racial issue out of everything, it isn’t too much to ask that they tell the whole truth. Racism is neither widespread nor confined to one skin color.

Jacksonville won’t “heal” until it can mourn the loss of three human beings without someone trying to use it for political advantage.