- Authorities fatally shot an armed man who attacked an ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Washington over the weekend.
- The attacker was a self-described "anti-fascist" attempting to "take action against the forces of evil," which he believed were unjustly holding immigrants in the facility.
- "I think the question is what role is the president's rhetoric playing?" Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington told INSIDER."
- Top House Democrats dismissed the notion that their rhetoric played a role in inciting any violence, while many had not even heard of the incident.
- Democrats instead blamed President Donald Trump for what they characterized as hateful and violent language on other issues.
- Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.
WASHINGTON - Top Democrats ignored and dismissed the assertion from officials that their heightened rhetoric about immigrant detention centers could have played a role in inciting an attack by an armed man on an ICE operated facility in Washington state over the weekend.
Key Democrats instead shifted blame to President Donald Trump, saying his "disgusting" language is of much larger concern.
Read more: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez replaces Nancy Pelosi as Fox News and Republicans' new boogeyman for 2020
Local police shot and killed Willem Van Spronsen on Saturday after he threw incendiary devices at buildings and vehicles in an attempt to free immigrants being held at the detention center.
Van Spronsen, a self-described anti-fascist or "Antifa," joined a protest against the Trump administration's planned deportation raids and the current conditions of many detention centers overwhelmed by the surge of immigrants crossing into the United States illegally.
BuzzFeed
But several Democrats did not see their language as inciting violence in any way, instead placing blame on Trump.
"I think the question is what role is the president's rhetoric playing?" Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington told INSIDER. "The president has been continuously attacking - attacking in violent, disgusting ways - black and brown people across this country. And he is the man who said, 'I could go into the street and kill somebody and nobody would care.'"
"So the question is what is the president doing to incite violence and to divide this country in a way that is so disgusting and really makes me sick that someone like that is sitting in the Oval Office," added Jayapal, who serves as co-chair of the left-leaning Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has described the facilities as "concentration camps" at length, only said, "Any act of violence is of course terrible" but ignored follow up questions about the attacker's motives.
In addition, Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both of whom have used the same language as the armed attacker, ignored questions from reporters about the attacks.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, said he was not familiar with the specific attack, but "obviously any time a life is lost in the United States of America, it's cause for concern.
Jeffries then shifted his focus to Trump, saying "The person that needs to tone down the xenophobic and racist rhetoric that is consistently peddled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is Donald J. Trump."
Several other prominent Democrats, including former Congressional Black Caucus Chairman and Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, declined having any knowledge of the attack.
But top officials described dangerous rhetoric as a partial component of the attacks. Pablo Paez, a spokesman for the GEO Group, a private company that owns the facility ICE officials are using in Washington, told the Washington Post that "outrageous and baseless accusations that have been leveled against our facilities have led to misplaced aggression and a dangerous environment for our employees."
"Contrary to the images of other facilities on the news, our facilities have never been overcrowded, nor have they ever housed unaccompanied minors," Paez added.
Shawn Fallah from ICE Office of Professional Responsibility said in a statement the attack "could have resulted in the mass murder of staff and detainees housed at the facility had he been successful at setting the tank ablaze."
"These are the kinds of incidents that keep you up at night," he added.
Read more: