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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33394 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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Yeah, Ralph's family jumped immediately on the idea that this was racially motivated, attracting media attention to the point where the prosecutor very probably was under tremendous pressure to see things that way. Not only has Andrew Lester's identity been revealed, but the pictures on that article suggest that Lester's home has already been vandalized in response--either that, or Lester was already being victimized by kids in the neighborhood! The stories I'm reading don't make sense (some say Lester shot through glass, but all the glass in those pictures appears to be intact) and Lester himself does not look well. Everyone is sharing the boy's side of the story, but essentially none of the media outlets I've seen in the past several days shared the story from Lester's view. I did eventually find it though--thanks, UK!

According to court documents, a witness told police that they saw a vehicle pull into Mr Lester’s driveway at around 9.30pm.

Mr Lester told investigators that he had just lain down when the doorbell rang, he picked up a .32 pistol and opened the interior door of his house.

He told police that he saw a Black male pulling on the exterior door and thought he was trying to break into the property.

He claimed he was “scared to death” at the boy’s size and feared he was unable to defend himself given his elderly age, the documents state.

Mr Lester said that he fired twice and that no words were exchanged with the victim.

During an informal police interview at Children’s Mercy Hospital, the teenager said that he did not pull the door and was waiting outside.

He told investigators that a man opened the door and immediately shot him, causing him to fall to the ground where he was shot for a second time.

Ralph told police the man said, “Don’t come around here.”

So, two pretty meaningfully different accounts. But the court of public opinion has already weighed in.

My mind is drawn to a potentially parallel case involving a white teenager. Last semester, one of my students was making a presentation on "stand your ground" gun violence and she mentioned the case of Carson Senfield, which was current at the time. It is not a particularly remarkable case: reportedly, a teenager attempted to get into a stranger's car, and was shot dead. The working theory appears to be that he thought the car was his Uber pickup? The shooter has cooperated with police, said "I was afraid for my life," and that's that.

As far as I can determine, the shooter's identity still has not been revealed to the boy's family (as a result of Florida's "Marsy's Law"). Was there a racial component in that case? Or perhaps a sexual component? I can imagine a woman being very frightened of a strange man hopping into her car, much as I can imagine an elderly man being very frightened of a strange man trying to enter his home. But how would we even begin to know? The Florida prosecutor has apparently decided against pursuing it, and so the family of the victim can't even begin to discover the ultimate truth of what happened to their son (and the shooter does not get to have his or her house graffitied by activists).

But I never saw CNN jumping to any conclusions regarding that case. Apparently some teenager's lives are just more equal than others.

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