Concord, NH — NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control organization has issued an apology for naming Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a victim of gun violence.
During a New Hampshire stop on the “ Mayors Against Illegal Guns ” nationwide bus tour, Tsarnaev was included on a list of names that were read aloud of those killed with guns since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut .
Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout in Watertown, Mass., on April 19 after a police manhunt.
The inclusion of Tsarnaev on the list was first reported by the Manchester Union Leader and later moved across Twitter.
Jennifer Horn of the New Hampshire GOP denounced the inclusion : “Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a murderous terrorist and a cold-blooded killer. It is outrageous that Mayor Bloomberg’s gun-control group is so radical and out of touch with New Hampshire values that it believes this monster should be labeled as some kind of victim.”
The organization’s subsequent apology indicated that it drew from a list put together by the Slate website, according to the Atlantic : “Mayors Against Illegal Guns relied on the public list compiled by Slate.com entitled ‘How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown?’, and his name was on the list. He was absolutely not a victim, his name should have been deleted before the list was provided to a family member for reading and his name should never have been read. It was a mistake, it should not have happened and we sincerely apologize.”
Slate has indicated that its tally doesn’t make any distinction between “good guys and bad guys.”
Tsarnaev’s official cause of death was from both gunshot wounds and blunt trauma, the latter referring to when his brother Dzhokar ran over him with an SUV when he was fleeing the scene.
