FURIOUS AND AFRAID

I am furious, I am afraid.

I had played the piano in the morning, written a long poem--about "toddlers (i.e. immature adults) with guns," and was about to finish a blog essay about Goethe (!), when my son sent me a news release that another Stand Your Ground death occurred in Florida.

If the news report proves true, it is another horror--and whether there will be more horrors depend on us.  The Stand Your Ground Law in is a public menace.  It has got to go.

This is what allegedly happened.  A twenty-one year old black man named Ricardo Sanes was running.  He ran through a white man's yard.  There was never any evidence that the runner intended anything criminal; he was just running.  The owner of the house thought he was a burglar.  He thought the black kid had a gun because his pants were  falling down, allegedly due the weight of a weapon--and more likely due to urban style.  (Yes, he was also wearing a hoodie.)  The owner of the house got his gun, tracked the man down and shot him in the courtyard of an apartment complex completely separated from the owner's property.

Is it now all right to kill somebody because he might be a burglar?  Is it all right to track somebody down and murder him in cold blood because he might have had intention of stealing something from one's back yard?  Not even a "Freeze!  What were you doing on my property?"  Are we  justified  to Stand Our Ground away from our ground while not being any way in danger?

I cannot help recalling a story in which a burly monk returns to his hut and discovers a robber stealing his belongings.  He shouts and chases the robber.  When he catches up to him, the slightly built thief begs for his life.  "What?" says the monk.  "I just wanted to give you my tea cup--you forgot to take the tea cup!"

Florida is a long way from Nirvana.

I remember, years ago, that I had become somewhat annoyed with a teen in the neighborhood who on several occasions unlatched the back gate, then walked through my yard into the front street--a shortcut.  I was taken aback a few times when I looked outside my window--especially at night--and saw a tall figure walking in the garden.  I told him about it; he apologized and did not walk through my yard unannounced again.  If I had been a racist and prone to violence--and had been transported to present-day Florida; and if my neighbor hadn't been blond....

I am furious.  I am afraid --for my country. 


This comes just days after a white man was acquitted for killing a black kid because the youth had assaulted his...tympanic membranes.  The white man had just returned from a wedding and pulled into a lot next to a vehicle in which three black teens were playing--possibly blasting--music.  (I must admit here that I'm very sensitive to loud noises and have on occasion found booming music to be annoying.  I also find that the sound of a power drill is even more annoying.  I suppose the murderer would feel justified in blasting away the worker blasting away on the street?  In both cases, I would simply have covered my ears and walked away.)

All right, maybe I'm too passive.  Maybe it would have been O.K. to tell the kids to turn down the volume--but to tell you the truth, this is such a violent country I would be wary.  I would rather petition to have a noise-pollution law passed!

Do you think the murderer calmly walked over the the young men in the car and said, "I'm sorry, I think you're playing the music too loud.  Would you mind turning it down a bit?"

Whatever he said probably provoked the teen to be rude in turn.  This enrages the white man; he grabs his weapon, fires several shots, killing the teen and just missing the other kids--Is this what it means to stand your ground?

He says the murdered young man, Jason Davis, had a weapon.  None was found.  The other teens denied ever having one.  The man left the scene and never reported anything to the police.  Until the police caught up with him the next day, he never mentioned anything  about a weapon to his girlfriend, who was a passenger in his car when the murder took place. He saw a weapon indeed.

It is a case of racial road rage.  It is a case of prejudiced parking-lot insanity.  It resulted in an acquittal on the basis of an unjust law.

(The murderer, however,  was found guilty of attempting to kill the other teens.  If the verdict, a sentence of sixty years in prison is carried out, I am satisfied.  If he had been found guilty of first degree murder, he might have received the death penalty.  I find the death penalty to be completely unjust.)

Three cases, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin and now, Ricardo Sanes.  All guilty of breathing while black.

I might have gotten some of the details wrong--I wasn't present, of course--but one thing I'm absolutely sure of: The Stand Your Ground Law is culpable in every case.

As I wrote before in a blog, I did find the Trayvon Martin case to somewhat ambiguous--nevertheless Trayvon wound up dead, something that never should have happened. The law should have not permitted the untrained Zimmermn to carry a weapon and patrol a neighborhood as if he had been a policeman. That is obvious!  Obviously not to those who support that heinous law.

In all three cases, however, the Stand Your Ground Law is guilty, abominably guilty, of murder.  For the sake of humanity, it should receive the death penalty--now.