Last week in Seattle, a gunman opened fire on a crowd, shooting six people and killing one. On television news, where the rule is “if it bleeds, it leads,” mass shootings typically get massive coverage. And when there’s a motive for the shooting, you usually hear about that, too. We all remember that the Columbine shooters were picked on in school.

But some crimes don’t get quite as much coverage, and when they do, they are often scrubbed of politically incorrect details. So when Naveed Afzal Haq entered the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and started shooting, it was interesting to see how the story was covered.

Haq, a U.S.-born Muslim, left no doubt about his motives: according to witnesses, he announced, “I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel” before opening fire. Haq later told a 911 operator, “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”

But despite his own statements, it still wasn’t quite enough evidence for the folks at the Los Angeles Times. On Sunday, two days after the incident, the paper ran a front-page teaser about the story that claimed, “Jewish Center Shooter’s Motive is a Mystery.”

Yeah, what a mystery! Better call in the psychic detectives to get to the bottom of this one.

As a result of such deliberate ignorance, the paper’s number-one online watchdog administers sufficient ridicule. Nicely done, Patterico!