Carrs' mother testifies [Wichita Massacre]

Topeka Capital-Journal / AP ^ | 11/06/02 | Roxana Hegeman

[KS Flyover]

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/4452166.htm

Hanging Carr effigies offend some in area

By Tim Potter - The Wichita Eagle - Wed, Nov. 06, 2002

A front-yard display of the Carr brothers hanged in effigy has been removed after some Wichitans found it racially offensive.

For several days, two dummies -- each with a dark face and a noose around its neck -- hung from trees in the front yard of a west Wichita house.

A sign beneath the dummies, with arrows pointing to them, said "Carr Bros," referring to the two Dodge City siblings found guilty Monday of capital murder in a Wichita killing spree. The Carrs are black and their victims were white, but prosecutors say robbery -- not race -- was the motive.

The Rev. Gill Ford, the NAACP regional director in Denver, said he heard about the display from the local NAACP branch. To many African-Americans, he said, a noose is especially repugnant, "It's going to be like the swastika to somebody who's been in a concentration camp.

"My hope is that the community of Wichita as a whole would condemn those kinds of actions," Ford said.

Michael Watley, a 35-year-old black carpet layer, said he found the display to be a very public and racially offensive symbol -- a jarring reminder of prejudice and lynchings in the nation's past.

"I know there is some prejudice here," Watley said, "but I didn't think it was to that level."

The resident who put up the display, who would not give his name, said he took the dummies and the sign down late Monday night after he was told that the display upset some people.

He said he didn't intend the display to be offensive and that he put it up as a statement of outrage over the brutality of the killings. People driving by and seeing the display gave him the thumbs-up sign, he said.

But Watley sees the Carrs and their crimes this way: "They're individuals, and it doesn't matter about skin color. What they did, they did on their own."

A Wichita radio station, KDGS-FM 93.9, received nearly 100 phone calls and more than 50 e-mails from listeners who heard about the display and found it offensive, said station program director Greg Williams.

Reach Tim Potter at 268-6684 or tpotter@wichitaeagle.com.

[KS Flyover]

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Wichita Massacre Trial Threads:
Wichita to revisit brutal slayings as testimony begins - 10/07/2002
Deputy recalls moment of discovering bodies [Wichita Murders] Day 1 - 10/07/2002
WICHITA MASSACRE TRIAL UNDERWAY Day 1 - 10/08/2002
Legal wrangling opens Carr trial [Wichita Murders] Day 1 - 10/08/2002
Carr trial: Survivor describes sexual attacks by armed intruders [Wichita Massacre] Day 2 - 10/09/2002
Witchita Case of Black Racist Crime Survivor's testimony horrifies courtroom Day 2 - 10/10/2002
Woman testifies that Carrs killed her friends in a soccer field [Wichita Massacre Day 3] - 10/10/2002
Prosecutors Downplay Racial Element in Kansas Murder Trial - 10/11/2002
Reginald Carr had $996, victims' credit card, watch [Wichita Massacre Day 4] - 10/11/2002
Wichita Massacre Audio of 911 Call by Female Survivor with Court Room Video Footage From Day 1- 10/11/2002
Victims' belongings linked to defendant [Wichita Massacre Day 5] - 10/12/2002
Trial opens window into night of fear - 10/13/2002
Media Ignore Kansas Interracial Mass Murder - 10/14/2002
AP Finally Reports Wichita Trial... But Mentions "White Supremacist" Support - 10/14/2002
Nosey mom tips off cops (Wichita Massacre) Day 6 - 10/15/2002
'I was afraid,' witness says [Wichita Massacre Day 6] - 10/15/2002
ATM photos shown in Carr trial [Wichita Massacre Day 7] - 10/16/2002
Testimony on cellist slaying fills Carr trial [Wichita Massacre Day 8] - 10/17/2002
Survivor says she caught STD [Wichita Massacre Day 9] - 10/18/2002
Carr trial to focus on guns and DNA [Wichita Massacre Day 10] - 10/19/2002
Luck, vivid memories helped cops [Wichita Massacre] - 10/20/2002
Wichita Massacre -- The Latest in the Black Racist Hate Crime Trial - Carrs linked to crime scene - Day 11 - 10/22/2002
Hate crime reversed - By Armstrong Williams - 10/23/2002
Evidence in Carr trial gruesome, unavoidable [Wichita Massacre Day 12] - 10/23/2002
Jurors view Wichita crime scenes / DNA ties Carrs to victims [Wichita Massacre day 13] - 10/24/2002
State to rest case against the Carrs [Wichita Massacre Day 14] - 10/25/2002
State rests; Carrs begin their side [Wichita Massacre Day 15] - 10/26/2002
DNA lets the dead speak in Carr trial [Wichita Massacre] - 10/27/2002
Carr jurors get break as deliberation rules ironed out [Wichita Massacre] - 10/28/2002
Multiple-killings suspect unlikely to testify [Wichita Massacre] - 10/29/2002
Survivor's police interview rattles Carr trial jurors [Wichita Massacre Day 16] - 10/30/2002
Carrs' defense rests; jury deliberation near [Wichita Massacre Day 17] - 10/31/2002
Deliberations begin in Carr trial - Closing arguments move juror to tears [Wichita Massacre Day 18] - 11/01/2002
Carr jury recesses for weekend [Wichita Massacre] - 11/02/2002
Behind the scenes during the Carr trial [Wichita Massacre] - 11/03/2002

Carr Brothers Guilty! - Carr Brothers GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY! - Carr Brothers Found Guilty of Capital Murder - 11/04/2002
GUILTY - Now jury decides if they will live or die [Wichita Massacre] - 11/05/2002
Defense Seeks Mercy in Kan. Murders [Wichita Horror] - 11/05/2002

[leadpenny]

To many African-Americans, he said, a noose is especially repugnant, . .

BS! A noose is too good for this pair. Effigies of the Carr brothers should be hanging all over town.

[dennisw]

If I were him I'd put the hanging dummies back up there but with white faces or off white faces. Just make a larger sign saying "Carr Brothers".

I would like to see the objections then.

[MountainYankee]

A mother's desperation, a community outraged. Too bad the judicial process can't be administered without the editorialism. These guys are toast.

[wideawake]

Oh - it's their mother's fault because she didn't raise them right?

OK. I'll buy that.

Strap all three of them to the gurney.

[an amused spectator]

The Rev. Gill Ford, the NAACP regional director in Denver, said he heard about the display from the local NAACP branch. To many African-Americans, he said, a noose is especially repugnant, "It's going to be like the swastika to somebody who's been in a concentration camp.

Somebody should tell the Reverend that it isn't about race.

At least, that's what the prosecutor said. ;-)

Or does the Left get have a free political commercial about this, too?

I can just see it:

Katie Couric comes on The Today Show, tight-lipped and mouth a-quiver, a look of outrage in her flashing eyes. "The racist Kansans hung a pair of African-American brothers in effigy! We can't tell you the names of the brothers, or why people might be mad at them, but we can assure you that the KKK lives in the South, or the Midwest, or wherever we need it to live."

[Corporate Law]

Jason Befort pleaded for the lives of the five friends in that soccer field. May the Carrs' pleas be met with the same answer.

[KS Flyover]

It all seems pretty black and white to me.

[Corporate Law]

That is the only way perky Katie Communist will report this whole murder.

[Joe 6-pack]

"I believe there is good in them."

I sincerely hope the worms will be given the opportunity to discover it...

Given the nature of their crime and applying, the, "reasonable person," standard as our courts are want to do, I cannot think of a punishment for these two which would be considered, "cruel," or "unusual."

[eccentric]

The mother deserves the pain of losing her sons. That's the least of what she deserves.

If the noose is too offensive, can anyone donate some mock electric chairs?

[Vic3O3]

How 'bout a gurney & IV rack? That's what those two will likely see as their last vision on this Earth!

[an amused spectator]

Nice graphic, but there should be four figures there:

The Carr brothers, and their lawyers. ;-)

[an amused spectator]

Exactly. The major television networks didn't even give themselves a Lisa Meyers/Juanita Broaddrick-type figleaf on this one. Oops, I'm wrong - the Major Network, FOXNews, reported on this.

ABCCBSNBCCNN have got some splainin' to do.

[republicman]

If killing them punishes her for helping to create these things, then it's all the more reason to do it.

[republicman]

If killing them punishes her for helping to create these things, then it's all the more reason to do it.

[republicman]

If killing them punishes her for helping to create these things, then it's all the more reason to do it.

[xJones]

A Wichita radio station, KDGS-FM 93.9, received nearly 100 phone calls and more than 50 e-mails from listeners who heard about the display and found it offensive, said station program director Greg Williams.

What should be offensive is the thought of the raped, sodomized and shot dead bodies of the victims. How did they get lost in all this?

[republicman]

Un frigging believable

Two black guys hunt down whites, rape and murder them-- that's not racism

But if someone puts up a an effigy of convicted murderers getting their just desserts--that's racism

Where was the NAACP to condemn the murders of these five white people? Now they dare to poke their racist heads out and say that blacks are the victims in all this?

The NAACP is nothing but a politically correct hate group

Once again we see their credo--

Everything is racism....

...Except hating whitey