This is just plain tragic. Long story short: Rather tasteless Myspace prank gets out of hand. Group of guys get together and form a lynch mob to go after the kid they think posted it. This group shows up at the kid’s house, shouting racial epithets and threatening to kill him. The kid’s father shoots one of them in the face amidst the confusion while trying to defend his son.
And now the father has been convicted of manslaughter and possession of an unlicensed handgun.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
Oh, and wait, it gets even more insane. Al Sharpton is up in arms about it too:
Angered by the ruling, the Rev. Al Sharpton vowed to take a stand against the “dangerous signal” sent bythe White verdict.
“Are we sending a signal that if you’re black in this country and you defend your home, that’s different than if you’re white?” he asked.
Sharpton contrasted White with Bernhard Goetz, who was celebrated as a “subway vigilante” after shooting four black youths who he thought were trying to rob him in 1984.
“Here’s someone who came to someone’s house to do harm and he defended himself,” Sharpton said of White. “Why is Goetz a society hero and John White is a demon?”
Umm, Al, you sanctimonious asshat, this exactly what you wanted! This is the end result of the very same anti-self-defense laws you’ve been trying to push on everybody– black or white –for years! You’ve been supporting racist gun laws for this long, and you’re only upset about it now?! Shouldn’t this verdict please you?
Grrr. I think my brain just exploded..