This was an interesting story and I encourage those who pass by this story to follow the link and click on it.  Keith Boykin’s blog also has a story about it, which somewhat encouraged me to do some more web research.  And I am no longer relegated to comments on other blogs, I have my own.  I am somewhat startled by my own opinion about the story however.  Call me conservative, or even uppity, but I just couldn’t imagine first owning a handgun, or let alone going outside with a firearm to confront a mob of people, be they white or black.  Why didn’t he just stay inside and call the police?

Well, after opening that Pandora’s box, there are a number of reasons as to why he acted as though he acted.  I’m sure whatever repressed memory that that incident triggered has a lot to do with why he did what he did.  Although John White claims that the gun fired accidentally, which maybe true–then again, it may not be true.  The issue of Why Are Black Men So Angry is not just something that media uses as a rhetorical device for ratings, but rather a true issue that plagues the black men across this world.  I truly believe that it is entirely possible for a black man to have shot a 17 year old white boy in the face because of the realities of the country and world in which we survive day in and day out.

I don’t want my italicized opinions to be miscontrued to say that because of his black angst he was justified IF, and I stress the IF because I wasn’t there, John White in fact shot the teenager, because I’m against all murders that are not a result of self-defense or some sort of extenuating circumstances.  However, I am not persuaded that a crime did not take place.

I also think it begs mention that John White actually got a reduction of a sentence–let the punishment fit the crime.  Someone let the D.A. of LaSalle Parish which includes Jena, Louisiana know about this!!

Keep it uppity, JLL

Lawyer: Shooting suspect attacked by ‘lynch mob’

BY ALFONSO A. CASTILLO | alfonso.castillo@newsday.com

November 28, 2007

Revving the thunderous engines of their muscle cars, blocking off the street, and using the N-word to call out their teenage foe, the five young men who came to John White’s home in the middle of the night on Aug. 9, 2006, had bad intentions, White’s attorney said yesterday.

And it was those intentions that got Daniel Cicciaro Jr. killed, he told jurors on the first day of the manslaughter trial of the black Miller Place man accused of fatally shooting the white teen.

“They were a mob,” Paul Gianelli, of Hauppauge, told jurors. “It was a lynch mob.”
But prosecutor James Chalifoux told jurors the case was not about racism, underage drinking, or Cicciaro’s actions.

“John White’s actions are why he’s here. John White’s actions are why you are all here,” Chalifoux said. “John White’s actions are why Daniel Cicciaro is not here.”

White, 53, is charged with second-degree manslaughter and third-degree weapons possession in the incident, in which prosecutors say he shot Cicciaro, 17, in the face in front of the driveway of White’s Miller Place home. Gianelli contends the shooting was accidental.

Opening statements in the trial took place in a tense Riverhead courtroom. On one side, there were friends and relatives of Cicciaro – some bearing tattoos of “Dano Jr.” On the other were White’s supporters, including members of the Brookhaven NAACP chapter.

Cicciaro’s father, Daniel Sr., declined to comment.

For more of this story http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-limill285478985nov28,0,2992951.story