(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Two carloads of white men murder black man, on video, while yelling "White power!" and later brag about it.

Mississippi: One murder charge, one simple assault charge. Everyone else goes scot-free. Because joyously participating in murder doesn't qualify as "complicit liability" in Mississippi when you're white and the victim isn't.

Comments

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

...

Words... they fail me. ANGRY!

[jdarkwulf.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, the internet prevents things like this from being quietly swept under the rug, and they apparently haven't sufficiently felt the outrage of the masses yet.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

That sure helped the BART shooting victim.

[gygaxis.livejournal.com]

Or the numerous other fucking reprehensible things routinely swept under the rug.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the BART shooting wasn't swept under the rug. As I remember it, large swaths of Richmond and Oakland getting trashed is pretty not under the rug.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I was more referring to the cop getting a slap on the wrist, like the people in the original story.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

Being a local to the Bay Area, and having read a lot of details that were left out of the news stories, it's my honest opinion that Mershle probably didn't mean to shoot him. For instance, BART police are notoriously under-trained and badly equiped to the point that they, as a department, share their gun belts and, unlike other departments, kept both their taser and their firearm on the same side (many departments don't do this for the exact reason of why the BART shooting happened). Upon shooting him Mershle immediately expressed remorse and attempted to give what medical aid he could, something not shown on any of the videos shot from the train. There are other factors that also don't make the situation meet the criteria for a murder charge, let alone a conviction.

Now, does that excuse the fuck up or the death? No, but if it is true that he did grab the wrong weapon and the shooting was a mistake, that is what the charge (and his conviction) of involuntary manslaughter is for.

The media wasn't helped at all by the family's lawyer, who tried to come up with several very fanciful reasons of why the shooting took place, including a love triangle that didn't exist.

The BART shooting and this one are different because in the BART shooting the prosecutor went for the more serious Murder Two charge and failed to prosecute that, the jury returned the involuntary manslaughter conviction, where as this time you have an attorney who is, by appearances, low-balling the charges to the most minimum amounts.

[katballou.livejournal.com]

Every single person involved deserves to be charged, but I can see why they have not been yet. The video does not show the actual beating and it's difficult to identify anyone specifically. I'm guessing the other teen charged was the one driving the other vehicle and could be proven to have been there. I'm probably wrong but I'm really hoping that with additional investigation the other teens do get charged.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If they could prove the second guy was there, they could also charge him with murder. In fact, the exact same evidence that convicts on simple battery *also* convicts on murder, because the murder was without doubt part of the same event.

[snap wilson (from livejournal.com)]

Reportedly the other kid was in a different car and had already driven off when murder-charged kid ran over the victim with his truck.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions about why the charges were what they were. It could be the DA's office is just working with what they can make stick. The Casey Anthony trial shows what happens when you lean too far in the other direction.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If they can prove the second kid was involved in the assault, then the second kid is open-and-shut no-questions no-doubt-at-all guilty of the murder.

Everyone else in both cars: Same deal.

Re: Casey Anthony: If they fail to prove that any of these people were at the scene of the assault, yes, that's entirely reasonable grounds for acquittal.

However, if they can prove they were there, they have them for murder, full stop. That's what complicit liability *means*. If you and I are robbing a store together, and you kill someone, I'm also guilty of murder.

...

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

What is exceedingly annoying is that I imagine, in part the DA's etc are trying to keep things from exploding and so aimed for what they considered a 'fair middle' ground. Where the ringleader is convicted and none of the other kid's have their lives ruined for a 'stupid mistake'.

That... is completely fucking wrong-headed, socially devastating, and infuriating to a level that I can't accurately quantify.

I'm one of those black folks who, sadly, feels that we have to let a little bit of the fucking stupid people pass unchallenged in the hopes of building a better future... but this?

This was a classic 1950s style lynching and every last one of them needs to be put against the wall and shot as a lesson to the next 10 generations that 'Let's go out and fuck-up (insert derogatory term for person who is different from us', is not an acceptable activity.

Re: ...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect they'll convict the one kid on Murder.

The thing is, they're not even *charging* any of the other participants with *anything*. Meanwhile, black men get the death penalty for loaning their car to their roommate *without knowing he was going to rob a bank at all*.