A Black teenager who was shot after mistakenly going to the wrong house begged neighbors for help — but was ignored, family says

[Leftfield 3,379]

15 minutes ago, alexava said:

For an explainable accident, yes. But changing gears, do you think Alec Baldwin should be charged?

Do you really classify what happened as an explainable "accident?"

As to Alec Baldwin, I don't know enough details of the case. Someone mentioned earlier that he hadn't checked the chamber, and from what I recall this was a rehearsal so there should not have been a round loaded. However, the rounds were supposed to be blanks, anyway, so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes. As the director, Baldwin was at least partly responsible for keeping a safe environment on the set, and it sounds like there was a loose attitude about it among the armorer and others that were directly responsible for it. There is likely some degree of culpability there, unless criminal intent on the part of the armorer or someone else can be proven. I'm not a lawyer, so take my opinion for what it's worth. 

I will say that it sounds like new evidence came up, and there is some question as to whether the gun had a modification to the firing mechanism. I will absolutely allow that it could be complete garbage and possibly some way to get Baldwin out of the situation, but that's what we've got right now. I don't care for the man, so I won't be crying if he goes down, but I also don't want an innocent person punished.

[alexava 6,974]

3 hours ago, Leftfield said:

Do you really classify what happened as an explainable "accident?"

As to Alec Baldwin, I don't know enough details of the case. Someone mentioned earlier that he hadn't checked the chamber, and from what I recall this was a rehearsal so there should not have been a round loaded. However, the rounds were supposed to be blanks, anyway, so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes. As the director, Baldwin was at least partly responsible for keeping a safe environment on the set, and it sounds like there was a loose attitude about it among the armorer and others that were directly responsible for it. There is likely some degree of culpability there, unless criminal intent on the part of the armorer or someone else can be proven. I'm not a lawyer, so take my opinion for what it's worth. 

I will say that it sounds like new evidence came up, and there is some question as to whether the gun had a modification to the firing mechanism. I will absolutely allow that it could be complete garbage and possibly some way to get Baldwin out of the situation, but that's what we've got right now. I don't care for the man, so I won't be crying if he goes down, but I also don't want an innocent person punished.

Alec Baldwin accidentally killed a woman. Just like the female cop who pulled the gun instead of the tazer and unintentionally  killed a worthless, violent thug (while resisting arrest)who didn’t value his own life or anyone else’s. 
       And before you ask if I think Baldwin should be charged, no I do not. And because his accident wasn’t against what has become a protected class,  he won’t. 

[Leftfield 3,379]

15 minutes ago, alexava said:

Alec Baldwin accidentally killed a woman. Just like the female cop who pulled the gun instead of the tazer and unintentionally  killed a worthless, violent thug (while resisting arrest)who didn’t value his own life or anyone else’s. 
       And before you ask if I think Baldwin should be charged, no I do not. And because his accident wasn’t against what has become a protected class,  he won’t. 

Good Lord, you are just all over the place. You're bringing up all these irrelevant examples that have nothing to do with the situation we're discussing. You're also treating these examples as totally black-and-white, disregarding any nuances to the specific cases.

Care to answer my question? Do you really consider the 84-year-old man's actions an "accident"?

So you think Baldwin isn't being charged solely because he didn't kill a trans black girl who was adopted by gay parents? That's cute.

[Leftfield 3,379]

14 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

I suspect he bears civil responsibility, but I always doubted criminal liability. He ultimately bears responsibility civilly, but he relied on the professional who handed him a loaded gun. Why the hell was it loaded? Why was that even possible? I suspect that person bears some criminal responsibility. 

Agree, I had just read that some of the crew had complained about lax safety on the set in regards to firearms. Seem to remember one of them saying there were actual bullets being kept in the same vicinity as the blanks because some of them would target shoot during downtime. No idea how accurate or true that was, but again, as director, Baldwin had at least some responsibility for maintaining safety on the set. 

Again, I don't know enough about it to give an informed opinion, just my thoughts on it.

[aubiefifty 18,259]

On 4/18/2023 at 7:56 PM, aubaseball said:

Love this conversation.   Yet nothing about the lady getting attacked in Chicago by a bunch of young outstanding citizens.    Look the other way….nothing to see there.   

wow you tinkle on the convo and then bang blacks. let me explain something to you. you just have shown no compassion for blacks mistreated but you can sure bring up whataboutism. ALL lives matter and your crappy comment about nothing to see her plainly sucks. you just showed your true colors. it is a horrible look.

[homersapien 12,244]

21 hours ago, alexava said:

You know the point. 95% of  murders are intraracial. In the rare instance a black person is killed ( or shot)by a white person it’s national news.

Only if it's the police.

21 hours ago, alexava said:

The coverage, the headlines used to push a fear is absurd. But we get an 84 year old who watches Fox News shoots a black kid who he thinks is invading his home and we want to blow it up.

No one is "blowing it up".  It's news. It also exposes the reality of being black in our country.

And it's an indirect result of a constant stream of racism and xenophobia that is the stock in trade of Fox News and other right wing propaganda "news" sources.

You sound as if you think the consequences of such racism should just be ignored. 

And "pushing a fear" is a way for you to excuse the seriousness of risk that young black people encounter in what should be a harmless situation. Same as for being stopped by a white LEO.

Minimizing it means you don't see a problem.  That makes you part of the problem.

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by homersapien

[Auburn85 436]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article274551191.html

 

Quote

 

Why wasn’t Andrew Lester charged with hate crime? Experts point to gap in Missouri law

 

Glenn Rice

 

April 21

In explaining his decision not to file a hate crime charge against the 84-year-old man accused of shooting Ralph Yarl, Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson said Monday he did not want to risk double jeopardy. The explanation raised questions among observers this week, with some questioning how double jeopardy, the legal principle that a person should not be prosecuted twice for the same crime, would prevent a hate crime charge. After all, Missouri’s hate crime statute is intended to be added to an underlying crime such as a racially motivated shooting.

Under Missouri law, prosecutors can add hate crime charges to felonies that are knowingly motivated because of the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or disability. Calls for hate crime charges to be filed against the accused shooter Andrew D. Lester rose in the days after the white homeowner shot Yarl, a Black teenager who rang his doorbell by mistake in a Northland neighborhood. Yarl, a 16-year-old, had gone to the house intending to pick up his younger brothers who were actually at a house one street over. According to charging documents, Lester told Kansas City police that he saw a “tall, Black male” pulling the door handle and concluded he was “attempting to break into the house.”

In Kansas City and across the country, many pointed to the role of racism in the shooting and in the treatment of the case by law enforcement who released Lester within two hours without charges. For his part, Thompson said Monday he thought there was a “racial component” to the shooting.

But in charging Lester with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, Thompson said he did not include a hate crime charge. “At that point you were talking about double jeopardy issues,” Thompson said at the Monday news conference. Why not file a hate crime charge? Alexander K. Higginbotham, a spokesman and an assistant Clay County prosecutor, said in an email to The Star that prosecutors had not filed a hate crime charge because they had already filed the highest possible charge in first-degree assault. And, he added, first-degree assault is not one of the offenses to which a hate crime can be added under Missouri law, because it is too severe.

“Our office has charged the defendant in this case with an A felony, which is four classes higher than a hate crime enhancement could take a charge,” Higginbotham said. The assault charge filed against Lester carries a sentence of 10 to 30 years. He also faces between three to 15 years in prison on the armed criminal action charge. Those two prison sentences would run consecutively. The range of punishment for a hate crime under Missouri law is up to seven years in prison. The defendant could also be sentenced from one day to a year in the county jail.

“Given that we charged the defendant with offenses that are too high a level of felony to include the hate crime enhancement, the only way to have charged the defendant with a hate crime would have been to also file a lower level criminal charge and apply the enhancement to that charge,” Higginbotham said. “Any lower level criminal charges we could have filed in this case would present a potential double jeopardy issue with the higher level charges that were filed,” he said. Limits of Missouri hate crime law Allen Rostron, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, said Thompson likely mentioned double jeopardy as a way of indicating why prosecutors can’t use multiple charges to get around the shortcomings of the state’s hate crime law. “Because when prosecutors pointed out that the hate crime law only gets the defendant up to a Class D or E felony, one response might be to say, well, why don’t you charge him with some additional crimes, in addition to the one that’s a Class A felony,” Roston said.

In addition to the most serious charge, so the argument would go, prosecutors could charge him with some other offenses that are less serious and add the hate crime charge to enhance those. Then if the defendant was convicted for all of them, and if prosecutors added all the penalties for all the charges together, they would wind up with a punishment that is greater than what the Class A felony alone would bring. “The prosecutor’s office is essentially saying, ‘Sorry, we can’t do that,’” Rostron said. “That would be double jeopardy. We can’t charge someone with multiple crimes for the same offense.” “It’s that stacking multiple offenses together, as a way to try to get a chance to use the hate crime law, is a double jeopardy problem,” Rostron said. Federal hate crimes Earlier this week, dozens of protesters joined civil rights groups and faith leaders across the street from the Charles Evans Whittaker U.S. Courthouse in downtown Kansas City to urge federal authorities to conduct a separate hate crime investigation.

Federal law enforcement often pursues hate crime investigations even when state prosecutors have filed their own charges, as in the case of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. There, two men who killed Arbery were sentenced to life in prison for committing federal hate crimes in 2020, after they had previously been sentenced to life without parole in Georgia state court. Kansas City defense attorney John Picerno said it is difficult for state prosecutors to seek hate crime charges because they have to prove that the defendant was motivated by race or similar factors.

“I don’t see any evidence at all contained in the probable cause statement whereby one could draw the conclusion that the defendant was motivated by the race of the victim,” he said. Proving a person’s intent in that situation is often difficult, Rostron said. “It’s about the mental state of mind of the person who committed the crime,” he said. “You need to show that it was motivated by hostility.” “It would be difficult unless you get some kind of statement from that person, either before or after the fact.”

Don Ledford, a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Teresa A. Moore said in a written statement, “The Justice Department is aware the Clay County prosecutor has charged Andrew Lester in the tragic shooting of Ralph Yarl. We will monitor the developments in the local proceedings to determine whether federal action is appropriate.” ‘Don’t come around here’ On the day of the shooting, Yarl was sent to pick up his younger twin brothers at a home in the Northland.

He mistakenly went to a home in the 1100 block of Northeast 115th Street instead of Northeast 115th Terrace On arriving at what turned out to be Lester’s home, Yarl walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. He waited for a while and then saw a white man answer with a handgun. Yarl said he remembered being immediately shot after the door opened and falling to the ground. Lester fired a second shot, striking him in the arm.

After being shot, Yarl heard the man say: “Don’t come around here.” Yarl then got up and ran to several houses before getting help, according to authorities.

In the days after the shooting, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, working with Yarl’s family, pointed out how race figured in Lester’s own alleged explanation of why he shot the teen, whom he described as being “tall” and “Black.” “Mr. Lester’s entire defense is that I saw this big, imposing scary figure at my door and I fear him because of his size,” Merritt said. “A 16-year-old kid, 5’8’’, 140 pounds,” he said. “But the truth is and what that really reveals is that underlying racial element that everyone’s talking about.”

“The fact that he (Lester) feared him because his (Ralph) skin was weaponized. He feared Ralph, a boy because he was Black.”

 

 

 

 

 

[homersapien 12,244]

I hope that an additional civil suit takes whatever assets he has.

This crime begs for a message to be sent.

[alexava 6,974]

23 hours ago, homersapien said:

Only if it's the police.

No one is "blowing it up".  It's news. It also exposes the reality of being black in our country.

And it's an indirect result of a constant stream of racism and xenophobia that is the stock in trade of Fox News and other right wing propaganda "news" sources.

You sound as if you think the consequences of such racism should just be ignored. 

And "pushing a fear" is a way for you to excuse the seriousness of risk that young black people encounter in what should be a harmless situation. Same as for being stopped by a white LEO.

Minimizing it means you don't see a problem.  That makes you part of the problem.

 

That’s pure bullsheyt. That kids Go Fund Me had raised 3.25 million as of a couple of days ago. He was hospitalized for 1-2 days. The entire 50 kids killed in the Twitter feed I posted along with 3 times more that were shot and survived didn’t get that much combined. Getting shot by a white man is like hitting the ******* lottery. 

[Leftfield 3,379]

3 minutes ago, alexava said:

That’s pure bullsheyt. That kids Go Fund Me had raised 3.25 million as of a couple of days ago. He was hospitalized for 1-2 days. The entire 50 kids killed in the Twitter feed I posted along with 3 times more that were shot and survived didn’t get that much combined.

So, because he didn't die, it's not a big deal? A person has to die before you see a problem?

4 minutes ago, alexava said:

Getting shot by a white man is like hitting the ******* lottery. 

Are you just hell bent on proving yourself a reprehensible human being?

[homersapien 12,244]

21 minutes ago, alexava said:

That’s pure bullsheyt. That kids Go Fund Me had raised 3.25 million as of a couple of days ago. He was hospitalized for 1-2 days. The entire 50 kids killed in the Twitter feed I posted along with 3 times more that were shot and survived didn’t get that much combined. Getting shot by a white man is like hitting the ******* lottery. 

QFT  

What a perverted perspective to take on the tragedies caused by this country's insane gun culture.

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by homersapien

[Leftfield 3,379]

18 minutes ago, homersapien said:

What a perverted perspective to take on the tragedies caused by this country's insane gun culture.

Capitalistic mentality taken to its extreme. Fails to see that's one of the things that has created the very problem we're discussing.

[alexava 6,974]

31 minutes ago, homersapien said:

QFT  

What a perverted perspective to take on the tragedies caused by this country's insane gun culture.

 

We weren’t talking about gun culture. We were talking about fake racism. 

[alexava 6,974]

You say Fox and conservative media are “stock and trade “ in racism and xenophobia. Lol can you point to a particular example of racism suggesting violence against minorities. We have to look very hard to even find a violent crime by a white person against minorities then we just have to find a way to make it racial. It’s simply a lottery. 
     Seriously do you defend rap music and it’s possible role in violence in the hood? Much of this music is based on violence, glorifying it. Study Death Row Records. They used it for everyday business conduct and some probably still do. I have seen people called out for racism for suggesting that.

[wdefromtx 3,611]

On 4/22/2023 at 11:37 AM, homersapien said:

Only if it's the police.

No one is "blowing it up".  It's news. It also exposes the reality of being black in our country.

And it's an indirect result of a constant stream of racism and xenophobia that is the stock in trade of Fox News and other right wing propaganda "news" sources.

You sound as if you think the consequences of such racism should just be ignored. 

And "pushing a fear" is a way for you to excuse the seriousness of risk that young black people encounter in what should be a harmless situation. Same as for being stopped by a white LEO.

Minimizing it means you don't see a problem.  That makes you part of the problem.

 

What news channel do you think the lady in Phenix City watched?  The kid that died there was in what should have been a harmless situation. Did race play a part there? 

[wdefromtx 3,611]

On 4/21/2023 at 7:35 PM, aubiefifty said:

wow you tinkle on the convo and then bang blacks. let me explain something to you. you just have shown no compassion for blacks mistreated but you can sure bring up whataboutism. ALL lives matter and your crappy comment about nothing to see her plainly sucks. you just showed your true colors. it is a horrible look.

Careful there. 

[aubiefifty 18,259]

3 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

Careful there. 

what have i got to do to make you love me,

what do i have to do to make you care,

what do i do when lightening strikes me,

i turn around and you're not there.............

[homersapien 12,244]

19 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

What news channel do you think the lady in Phenix City watched?  The kid that died there was in what should have been a harmless situation. Did race play a part there? 

Did I say it did?

I was referring to the black kid on the old man's porch.  The incident that Alexva accused the press of "blowing up" because the old man was white and the victim was black.

[aubiefifty 18,259]

On 4/21/2023 at 2:54 PM, Leftfield said:

Do you really classify what happened as an explainable "accident?"

As to Alec Baldwin, I don't know enough details of the case. Someone mentioned earlier that he hadn't checked the chamber, and from what I recall this was a rehearsal so there should not have been a round loaded. However, the rounds were supposed to be blanks, anyway, so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes. As the director, Baldwin was at least partly responsible for keeping a safe environment on the set, and it sounds like there was a loose attitude about it among the armorer and others that were directly responsible for it. There is likely some degree of culpability there, unless criminal intent on the part of the armorer or someone else can be proven. I'm not a lawyer, so take my opinion for what it's worth. 

I will say that it sounds like new evidence came up, and there is some question as to whether the gun had a modification to the firing mechanism. I will absolutely allow that it could be complete garbage and possibly some way to get Baldwin out of the situation, but that's what we've got right now. I don't care for the man, so I won't be crying if he goes down, but I also don't want an innocent person punished.

my thoughts exactly

[aubiefifty 18,259]

race is not responsible for all deaths in this country but for anyone to even think it does not happen on a daily basis is mind boggling.

[I_M4_AU 8,943]

6 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

race is not responsible for all deaths in this country but for anyone to even think it does not happen on a daily basis is mind boggling.

You know what happens on a daily basis?  Black on black crime in Chicago and you don’t seem to care because whites are not involved.  Why is that?  The press doesn’t care either.

Why has the Dadeville, Al story vanished from the national news?

[wdefromtx 3,611]

6 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Did I say it did?

I was referring to the black kid on the old man's porch.  The incident that Alexva accused the press of "blowing up" because the old man was white and the victim was black.

You seem to think Fox plays a role in incidents like this so I was posing the question about the incident in Phenix City.  

[aubiefifty 18,259]

2 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

You know what happens on a daily basis?  Black on black crime in Chicago and you don’t seem to care because whites are not involved.  Why is that?  The press doesn’t care either.

Why has the Dadeville, Al story vanished from the national news?

you would be wrong. it breaks my heart as well but here we are discussing black on black crime as a deflection as the convo is about racism. look, at 67 i find life very very precious. i do not ignore the gangs but i just do not believe a lily white geezer has any business trying to tell black folks what to do. i have never fully understood it and i am not sure what the solution is so i keep my mouth shut.

[I_M4_AU 8,943]

2 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

you would be wrong. it breaks my heart as well but here we are discussing black on black crime as a deflection as the convo is about racism. look, at 67 i find life very very precious. i do not ignore the gangs but i just do not believe a lily white geezer has any business trying to tell black folks what to do. i have never fully understood it and i am not sure what the solution is so i keep my mouth shut.

It has been happening in Chicago and other places for decades, wouldn’t you think the black leaders would do something about it?  Bill Maher brought this up this weekend and he is liberal and white, maybe its time to speak up?

I don’t like the violence not matter who is doing it and for what reason.

[aubiefifty 18,259]

2 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

It has been happening in Chicago and other places for decades, wouldn’t you think the black leaders would do something about it?  Bill Maher brought this up this weekend and he is liberal and white, maybe its time to speak up?

I don’t like the violence not matter who is doing it and for what reason.

i am ashamed of what you said before. ashamed. i do not care who's fault it is. and if you think racims is not alive and well go look up the flint water crisis. i am willing to bet nothing has been done for thos people who have died and or brain damage or cancer. this is when i had to relook at obama because he acted like he drank the water and said it was fine. and it is possible he was trusting a bad opinion someone gave on it but it was bull.