Posted on 08/22/2013 6:53:27 AM PDT by kevcol
The boys looked terribly young and more stunned than scared when they were led individually into a packed courtroom in rural Oklahoma to face charges over the murder of Christopher Lane, an Australian they had never met.
The prosecutor, Jason Hicks, repeated the terrible details already shared by police - that Mr Lane, who was visiting his girlfriend, Sarah Harper had jogged past the boys as they sat around outside a house on Friday afternoon; that they selected him as a target, followed him in a car and shot him about four minutes later.
For people trying to understand what drove the boys to kill Mr Lane, their brief court appearances offered a few hints but no answers beyond the information already released by police: that they were bored.
Chancey Allen Luna, 16, is accused of pulling the trigger of the .22-calibre handgun used to kill Mr Lane. He was charged with first-degree murder and refused a bond before being led away in his orange prison pyjamas, shackled hand and foot.
As he stood before the judge, his mother, sitting in the third row, was handed documents detailing her son's rights. Her hands shook as she gripped the papers and she sobbed as he was led away.
Two rows in front of her, Cindy Harper, Sarah's mother, sat quietly throughout the proceedings.
James Francis Edwards jnr, 15, is alleged to have been a passenger in the car and was also charged with first-degree murder. Mr Hicks said the youth had been cold and callous throughout the proceedings.
The prosecutor said that as James stood before officers at the charging counter he danced, and had since treated the matter as a ''joke''.
Mr Hicks noted that a short time after the murder James appeared in the very courthouse he was formally charged in to attend a court-ordered supervision meeting for earlier offences.
But the boy's court-appointed lawyer, Jim Berry, told Fairfax Media that his client took the matter seriously, and denied his attitude was callous. ''He is very upset,'' he said.
As he was led away, more sobbing could be heard throughout the small court.
Outside the court his father, James Edwards snr, said he stood by his boy, an athlete who dreamt of competing as a wrestler in the Olympic Games. He said James was a happy boy who, while being known to police, had not been in serious trouble before. He did not believe his son could have been responsible for the killing, adding he had heard rumours the boys were ''wannabe gangsters'', but only since the shooting.
Duncan's police chief had told media earlier the boys ''wanted to be Billy Bob badasses'' .
Mr Edwards said his son did not grow up around guns. ''He said to me, 'Dad, why don't we have guns around the house?' and I said, 'Because I don't need no guns'.''
James' older sister, Rachel Padilla, said she believed racism was a factor in the charges, with the two African-American boys receiving the tougher charges.
The eldest of the trio is Michael Dewayne Jones, 17. He has been charged with being an accessory after the fact of first-degree murder and a vehicle and firearm offence. He also faces what Mr Hicks called ''a long, long sentence'' if convicted, but Mr Hicks told the court he had co-operated with police and the district attorney. His bond was set at $US1 million ($1.1 million).
Because of the seriousness of the charges not guilty pleas were automatically entered on the boys' behalf and they were given no opportunity to address the court at any length, with the judge silencing one when he made to offer details of the crime.
While many of their supporters sobbed openly, the trio remained mostly silent, making little attempt to even meet the eyes of those in court. They raised their shackled hands to take their oaths and offered quiet responses when the judge asked if they understood the process and their rights.
Over the road from the grassy verge where Mr Lane died lives Roy Burke, the head football coach of the local middle school. He remembers Sarah Harper from when he taught her PE when she was at Will Rogers Elementary School.
''You think things like this don't happen in your town, but obviously they happen anywhere,'' he said.
''Bad things happen to good people.''
One is white??
Hey, Mrs. Padilla, why doncha eat a couple of chickens and a cow haunch. That always makes you feel better.
Unbelievable --
This case needs to be wrapped around the BGI and Sybrina Fultons of this world.
What a surprise- not a mention of gangs, Crips, initiation, content of their FB pages, rap, hip-hop.
And a repeat of the “bored” concept.
He’s white like Obama is white
One is white??
Their noses appear to be form the same race.
Hopefully there will be some good come form these crimes and rap music will change somewhat.
Wouldn't it be a shame if some skinhead group in their prison got "bored"?
the ‘boys’ look like thugs who kill people for fun
NOW it seems it was a GANG initiation. Gangs in OK City and Dallas are spreading. This was 100% RACIALLY motivated. If a 22 year old black had jogged by there would have been no stalk and kill.
These RACIST Gangs(The Crips) need to be hunted down and exterminated. Marine snipers should be set loose in OK City and Dallas to deal with this vermin.
BTW, the spectre of RACISM has been raised in this case. Not about the killing of an innocent white person by a black BUT because the 2 black kids were charged with First Degree Murder and the half black(?) was only charged as an accessory.
I would ask at every news conference when Sharpton and Jackson were expected to march against this alleged racism in the different charges.
Committees of Vigilance should do what the police cannot/will not do, which is eliminate the threat against our families, friends and communities
When will the time for action be upon us. I believe it is already here.
Race IS a factor. Many blacks believe they have the 'right' to do any amount of harm to whites, that is is justified by the 'wrongs' blacks have suffered.
"It is important to make a further distinction here among black hatred, black racism, and Black Power. Black hatred is the black man's strong aversion to white society. No black man living in white America can escape it...But the charge of black racism cannot be reconciled with the facts. While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism. Racism, according to Webster, is 'the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its rights to dominance over others.' Where are the examples among blacks in which they sought to assert their right to dominance over others because of a belief in black superiority?...Black Power is an affirmation of the humanity of blacks in spite of white racism. It says that only blacks really know the extent of white oppression, and thus only blacks are prepared to risk all to be free." [Black Theology and Black Power, p. 14-16]
"Whether the American system is beyond redemption we will have to wait and see. But we can be certain that black patience has run out, and unless white America responds positively to the theory and activity of Black Power, then a bloody, protracted civil war is inevitable." [Black Theology and Black Power, Page 143]
"Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God. The brutalities are too great and the pain too severe, and this means we must know where God is and what God is doing in the revolution. There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God's love." [A Black Theology of Liberation, p. 70]
Yep. Probably because they are missing a conscience.
But isn't diversity grand? Don't you feel so warm and fuzzy because they committed this crime with a white kid? Doesn't that show that racial relations are improving?
Which one pulled the trigger?
What a load of sympathetic road apples for those scum. They murdered, not killed, a man! That says it all.
Time to resume public hanging a method of state execution.
So James Edwards' sister is Rachel Padilla. Wonder if Padilla is her married name? Oh, no, wait . . .
Gotta have a program to determine who is 'related' to whom in this case, at least when talking about the accused's relationship with their 'family'.
But never mind this case, there's an even more twisted case in MS where a 14 year old boy murdered his father with the aid of his police officer lover. Everyone in that case looks like a space mutant.
Oy, what a country. I don't even think the Manson Family case would make national news if it happened today. You'd have to read about it in the UK Daily Mail.
And there you have it: It ain't the fault of the kid, it's the fault of the guns.
And since most guns are manufactured by crackers, it is obviously the fault of crackers.
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