Homeowner Uses Gun To Protect His Family..Robber Screams Racism
This is an unusual case, no doubt about it, but racism? Please:
Three young black men break into a white man’s home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them to death – but it’s the surviving black man who is charged with murder……..Prosecutors said homeowner Shannon Edmonds opened fire Dec. 7 after three young men rampaged through the Clearlake house demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.
Hughes was charged with first-degree murder under California’s Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.
The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill. Instead, “they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner,” said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defense attorney unconnected to the case.
That seems cut and dried to me…now onto the racism:
The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes’ church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black.
Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.
“This man had no business killing these boys,” Brown said. “They were shot in the back. They had fled.”
No business shooting them? They broke into the home, beat his kid with a baseball bat , and the kid now lives in a rehab center because of the brain damage inflicted during the beating.
Only a mother could say this:
Hughes’ mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn’t intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana. She called the case against her son a “legal lynching.”
Yes, Judy, nothing says “I’d like to buy some pot”, like breaking into a home and beating someone senseless with a baseball bat.
Jeralyn at Talk Left seems to think that there are racial overtones to this case.
I don’t like the idea of making defendants liable for the acts of victims.
I also think this is a case of over-charging. The homeowner’s step-son was beaten with a baseball bat and is so brain-damaged he can’t feed himself and lives in a rehab facility. That’s the crime the defendant should be held accountable for (assuming it wasn’t self-defense) and I would bet that California’s attempted murder, aggravated robbery and assault penalties, to name a few, have penalty enhancements that could keep this defendant in prison for decades if convicted of committing or aiding and abetting that attack.
I sense racial animus but there are details I’d like to know more about: Were the three robbers armed? Who beat the stepson? Was the stepson brandishing a weapon (like a rifle or a gun) at the time he was beaten? Where were the two fleeing robbers when they were shot? Inside or outside the house?
When a law is on the books forever but rarely used, and then used to charge a black youth in an almost all-white county, questions need to be asked and answers provided.
Would there have been a victim has the three not broken into the home and tried to rob them, and commit a violent act?
Last time I checked, a baseball bat is considered a weapon. It makes no difference if the victim had a weapon. He was the victim of a robbery and a beating.
I guess the black youth should have thought of the consequenses of their actions prior to entering the home.
Too bad that all this energy to alledge racism where it doesn’t exist, isn’t better spent on educating the black youth about the consequences of crime.
November 16, 2007 - 08:05 AM on November 16th, 2007
This is one screwed up case, yet the homeowner proved one thing, if 3 enter and you start shooting, kill all 3.
November 16, 2007 - 05:56 PM on November 16th, 2007
And just what were they doing in that home? TO ROB AND POSSIBLY MURDER THE HOME OWNER and will JESIE JACKASSON and the NAACP want the home owner puricuted? JERKS THATS ONE LESS THUG ON THE STREETS AND IF JACKASSON DONT LIKE IT THEN HIM AND HIS RAINBOW/PUSH CAN TAHE A HIKE
November 17, 2007 - 01:01 AM on November 17th, 2007
I think they should charge the black kid with a hate crime while they’re at it. It’s not like they didn’t target a white household to rob. As for California not using this provision in their law, that’s up to the prosecutor. I know it’s used regularly in other states.
November 17, 2007 - 08:44 AM on November 17th, 2007
Well, I blame the white liberal media for even reporting such a stupid story in this “racial”manner. I have been black for 37 years, and the NAACP stopped being relevant to me and most African Americans I know a long time ago (right with Jackson and Sharpton).
I really don’t care if this guy gets more jail time, I am tired of the NAACP going to the defense of criminals, Mike Vick etc., while they ignore the real problems within the African American community that need to be dealt with.
This guy was committing a crime and got his friends killed in the process, I see nothing racial about this, a man can defend his house, that is a basic right.
The White Liberal media needs to stop putting Jesse and Al as our so called leaders, I didn’t vote for Jesse or Al, and know a few African American leaders inside the community who are doing real work without the media hype. I guess since they are dealing with things that may not involve a “white personâ€, they can’t get camera time.
November 17, 2007 - 09:44 AM on November 17th, 2007
And the liberal news media will say WITEMAN GUNS DOWN BLACKMAN Dont you just get tired of the words used by these lie a day liberal left-wing journalists?
November 17, 2007 - 09:58 AM on November 17th, 2007
DJ- I don’t like what I am seeing from the black community..instead of addressing the fact that the black committed a crime, figuring out how to stop the black youth from committing a crime, they want to try and push this a racial inequality issue..
Being called a racist has lost it’s sting..it’s like being called a jerk or a bitch…
I had the pleasure of riding on the train with a black male, aged 41, grew up in the Cabrini Greens(sp?), got out alive, and has 5 kids under the age of 17. He is proud that he didn’t become the sterotypical black male from his projects, dead before 19. He is proud that he has been with the same woman for 26 years. Other than doing the ‘midwest shuffle” to afford to live in the burbs, his biggest challenge is raising his kids to stay away from the “easy money” of drugs..keeping his kids away from the gangs..showing his kids through example that he isn’t a chump for working to pay for his family, rather than sell some dope and make quick money…We then went onto illegals and how they are taking jobs from citizens but people within the community are making good money(illegally) selling them illegal social security cards..It was a fascinating discussion…
November 17, 2007 - 09:12 PM on November 17th, 2007
@Pam:
“DJ- I don’t like what I am seeing from the black community..instead of addressing the fact that the black committed a crime, figuring out how to stop the black youth from committing a crime, they want to try and push this a racial inequality issue..â€
I don’t think that’s quite it, I don’t think the “black community”is doing what you assert. The so-called “leadership”has the camera time and that is what you see.
For example, with Jena, I and many other blacks were concerned about the perps getting fair and equal justice, “Freeing”the Jena 6 became a media rallying cry for the camera hogs that it seems that the media likes to give camera time to.
In this case, every Black person I have talked to has found the actions of that Pastor and the NAACP as silly and stupid. Fact is, Blacks are most often the victims of crimes committed by Blacks, the Black community has very little patience for these types of criminal sociopaths.
However, it isn’t as good of a news story to show that: