Rare Robbery Case Brings Cries of Racism
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.
In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights
groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.
"It was pandemonium" inside the house that night, District Attorney
Jon Hopkins said. Hughes was responsible for "setting the whole thing in motion
by his actions and the actions of his accomplices."
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' 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."
"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said. "But this I
know: My son did not murder his childhood friends."
Ranato must be innocent. He and his life long friends only wanted to buy marijuana. For the marijuana they drove 2 hours out of San Francisco (marijuana must be scarce there), broke into a house and beat a 19 year man with a baseball bat so now he can't even feed himself. Yep, Ranato is getting a legal lynching. And it's a racist one. Three black guys drive 120 miles to a small town, break into a white family's house and terrorize them, threaten them and beat them, that's racism.
Ranato's schoolteacher mother is right, Rashad shouldn't get a legal lynching. He should get a legal lethal injection. Unfortunately, the prosecution is not asking for the death penalty in this hate crime trial.
