Displayed overwhelmingly prominently on the CNN homepage (and, I imagine, many other news sites) is a picture of the three students shot to death recently over a longstanding parking dispute. The article is headlined "A HATE CRIME?" Much attention is paid to the victims' religion (Islam) and the shooter's facebook page, specifically the fact that he is a vocal atheist and anti-religion. Questions of whether or not this was a hate crime are approximately 65% of the reporting on this subject. While it is an absolute fact that atheism cannot by nature motivate any crime of this nature, it is conceivable that a certain anti-theist ideology might. So I thought I'd check the man's facebook page out myself.
I browsed through the facebook page in question, and was stunned at what a reasonable person Craig Hicks appeared to be. He was an overwhelmingly outspoken liberal (in addition to being a fairly run-of-the-mill atheist meme reposter). Socially, he focused specifically on gay rights, animal rights, equality for racial-minorities, and standard anti-wingnut rhetoric. The man doesn't appear to be much of an intellectual, but doesn't appear to be particularly stupid either. Suspiciously lacking on the page are calls to violence, evidence of anger problems, and (most strikingly, I think) any particular attention paid to the religion of Islam. Let's be real here, were I to randomly go shoot three people who happened to be Muslims and the media browsed through my page for more than a few moments, there's not a news site in the country that would not (nearly reasonably) blame my "radical anti-Islam" beliefs. Mr. Hicks, however, spends no particular focus on Islam itself. The only post I came across mentioning the institution at all merely compares Islam and fundamentalist christianity as being fairly similar. Virtually all of his anti-theist views appear to be directed at Christianity, which is not uncommon for atheists in the Americas- it's the religion that we are most exposed to.
Indeed, literally the only post on his feed that pointed in any way toward this event is a rather chilling photo rather out of left field of a pistol on a scale, where Mr. Hicks comments "Yes, that is 1 pound 5.1 ounces for my loaded 38 revolver, its holster, and five extra rounds in a speedloader". The fact that this is almost certainly the weapon used to shoot three young adults in the head barely a month later is more than a little stomach-turning. There is a photo of him in a suit describing himself as "fat, ugly, and bald", but due to its phrasing I think it more evidence of self-deprecation than depression.
I'm not going to wholly rule out an anti-theistic ideological component to the man's crimes, but at least looking extensively through the man's facebook page, I think it ultimately irresponsible of so much of the media to spend so much time framing this discussion in terms of "these victims were almost certainly murdered because of their religious beliefs."