Trial Begins in Milwaukee Killing of Unarmed Black Teen

Trial Begins in Milwaukee Killing of Unarmed Black Teen

By Donal on Wed, 07/17/2013 - 8:36pm |

Youtube snippet of a Democracy Now segment. Also:

Trayvon Martin’s Unpunished Shooting Death Among 100+ Extrajudicial Killings of Unarmed Blacks

URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mYSGTPB7nD8#at=147

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The NYT:

Echoes of Florida Case in a Milwaukee Trial
By Steven Yaccino, New York Times, July 17/18, 2013

MILWAUKEE — Less than 48 hours after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin ignited passions and protests throughout the nation, a jury was selected here for a trial with some striking similarities. The defendant, a white man, shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, in an effort, prosecutors say, to take the law into his own hands.

The defendant, John Spooner, 76, did not dispute that he shot Darius Simmons, 13, in May 2012, believing the teenager broke into his house and stole his shotguns two days earlier. Mr. Spooner was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide on Wednesday, moving the trial into its second phase, where defense lawyers will try to prove that he should not be held responsible because of the state of his mental health. [....]

From the beginning, the shooting resonated among the city’s black residents, leading to claims of racial profiling and calls for Mr. Spooner to face hate crime charges.

During the trial, Mark S. Williams, the lead county prosecutor, laid out a narrative of the shooting that was essentially undisputed by the defense. Mr. Spooner’s house had been burglarized two days before and, though he strongly suspected Darius of stealing four shotguns, the police said they did not find enough evidence to continue their investigation.

Mr. Spooner then confronted Darius around 10 a.m. as the youth was retrieving a garbage can in front of his house and demanded the return of the guns, which the teenager denied knowing anything about. Mr. Spooner lifted a .32-caliber pistol and fired a shot into the chest of Darius, who fled down the street before collapsing near a playground. None of Mr. Spooner’s guns were found in the teenager’s home. [....]

by artappraiser on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 12:56am

I really don't get the "striking similarities" except for older white guy, black teen, gun. This truly was a vigilante killing. The guy coming out with gun in hand, the cold-blooded killing without a fight, all of it caught on camera, 1st degree charges, < 1 hour deliberation, the conviction seem to agree that it's not very similar. The killer is completely unrepentant and since he's old & in bad health, figures he'll die soon anyway. Really awful - about this time I start to support legal torture for complete assholes - see how he enjoys his "twilight years" on a rack.

I've pointed to "Operation Ghetto Storm" before (Wendy Davis has been pushing this over at FDL), and while not all of the cases are compelling - guys killed in the middle of burglaries say - many of the killings seem excessive or completely avoidable.

by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 3:05am

If there were no video, the legal argument would have been that Spooner was threatened by a garbage can wielding thug.

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 8:08am

I agree that "striking similarities" is a very bad choice of words.

But to point out this case for comparing and contrasting is nonetheless a good exercise for journalists to do, no? First, we are reminded of the main outrage of the Trayvon Martin case, that Zimmerman was originally allowed to walk free, that they were not going to prosecute him, that it took a national outcry for a trial to happen.

Second, the perp and the victim knew each other in this case. Martin and Zimmerman did not, they were strangers frightening one another. When there is the stranger factor, the unfairness of racial profiling rears its head more clearly. Spooner may be a hateful racist, he is also clearly a hater of some of his neighbors. Martin's death challenges the problems of the whole "stand your ground" thing, this case does not. As you say, it's just a crazed hateful old guy shooting someone he knows and hates, someone he thinks has done him wrong, true vigilantism. Most everyone would be against that sort of anarchy, a single individual allowed to take justice into his own hands, even Pashtuns know to go to the jirga. The stand-your-ground thing about threats from strangers and self-defense in general is the more difficult issue, precisely because it's not cold-blooded pre-meditated murder.

by artappraiser on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 12:43pm

The police’s handling of Darius’s death was criticized, as well. Officers would not immediately allow the teenager’s mother, who witnessed the shooting, to accompany her son to the hospital, keeping her in the back of police cars for an hour and a half for questioning. They also searched the family’s home for Mr. Spooner’s missing firearms and arrested Darius’s brother, who had five unrelated municipal warrants.

At the same time, Spooner's relatives were allowed to enter his house and remove items. IOW, the black victim's family were treated like perps and the white perp's family was given a pass to alter the crime scene.

by Donal on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 6:59am

The police behavior toward's the victim's family helps explain the lack of trust between the Black community and the police. While the common scenario depicted in the news occurs in poor or middle class neighborhoods, ask the Black guy driving the Jaguar F-Series how he is profiled by police.

by rmrd0000 on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 8:05am

Milwaukee is my home town and I still have family there. I would warn that this story is a bad example to use to get into the indignities of racial profiling elsewhere. The city of Milwaukee is still so terribly segregated that it's virtually impossible for people there, both black and white, not to racially profile. It's more stuck at the stage of full blown race war. In the city of Milwaukee, it's still the 1970's. Middle class whites mainly live outside the city line, and the whites that live inside the city, aside from a few small yuppie gentrified communities, are often racists stuck there by circumstance beyond their control, and feel beseiged by the blacks they still hate.

The black-on-black crime level is horrendous. I am sure that there's plenty of old black church ladies there as afraid of young black men as the white racists, and heck, that's not irrational, as 50% of them are unemployed and have never held a job. I myself might consider burglary, mugging or getting into the drug business if I was a young black man born in Milwaukee's central city, as there aren't many other options.

Actually, what stands out to me about this case is that it's an example to black Milwaukeeans how they're stupid to racially profile, that they shouldn't feel as safe around white people as they have come to.

Edit to add: And yeah, being stuck in the 1970's includes the black community thinking of the police as the enemy and the police acting like the enemy because of that. All the classic problems.

by artappraiser on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 1:07pm

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Verdict spurs insanity defense in shooting of Darius Simmons
Updated: 9:15 p.m. | For John Henry Spooner, the senior citizen who shot and killed his teenage neighbor, it’s no longer a question of conviction or acquittal but of life in prison or life in a mental institution.

Also:

Mother describes son gunned down
By Isaac Stanley-Becker, July 17
Columnist Daniel Bice: Judge, defense lawyer have family ties
Video: Spooner shoots Simmons

by artappraiser on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 12:54am

Trial Begins in Milwaukee Killing of Unarmed Black Teen

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