Public Defender Steve Smith stands by Facebook comments following attacks

I just can't agree that the best we can do is pray for Chattanooga. I think the best we can do is ascertain who our enemies are, whether foreign or domestic, and then kill them. That is what the CPD did. What will Barack Hussein Obama do?

Local Democrats are denouncing recent online comments by Public Defender Steve Smith that followed the slaying of four U.S. Marines and one Navy sailor at a Chattanooga reserve center.

Smith, a Republican, says he will continue to speak his mind on his Facebook page, but he doesn’t think his personal opinions should distract the public from the tragedy or the victims’ families, “or remedying the ever-increasing frequency of terror motivated by Islamic fundamentalism.”

Steve Smith

Screenshot of Steve Smith’s Facebook post.

A day after 24-year-old Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez open fired on a Lee Highway military recruiting office and unarmed servicemen at the Marine-Navy military facility on Amnicola Highway, Smith criticized the federal government on social media.