ABU DHABI (Reuters) – USA Olympic men’s basketball coach Steve Kerr, whose father was shot dead four decades ago, called the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump a demoralizing day for America highlighting a dangerous gun culture.
Kerr, an outspoken Trump critic and proponent of gun control, lost his father Malcolm Kerr in 1984 when he was shot by the militant group Islamic Jihad while president of the American University of Beirut.
“Just a terrible sad spectacle. Two people dying, it’s such a demoralizing day for our country,” Kerr said at a U.S. team practice in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
“It’s yet another example of not only our political division but also our gun culture, a 20-year-old with an AR15 trying to shoot the former president. It’s hard to process everything and it’s scary to think about where this goes.”
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot and killed by the Secret Service seconds after shots were fired at the stage where Trump was speaking in Pennsylvania on Saturday. One person who attended the rally was killed and two other spectators wounded.
Kerr said the incident strengthened the team’s resolve to represent the nation well at the Paris Olympics. “It makes you want to do that even more so because this is really shameful.”
USA point guard Stephen Curry is also an outspoken Trump critic, and after his Golden State Warriors won the 2017 NBA title, he refused to visit the White House.
“(It) invokes a lot of emotions around things that we need to correct as a people, obviously gun control first and foremost,” Curry said of the attack on Trump. “This adds another blemish to what’s going on, sadness is the word.”
The Americans are defending champions and favourites to win gold in Paris.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)