just found this… jesus yet another one
Fuck off with any “thoughts and prayers.”.
But it’s all they’ve got.
What can you do? The gunfire “erupted”, the shooting “happened”, it was a birthday party. “The city of Dadeville is a tight-knit community full of wonderful people,” but “Dadeville was hit by at least one prior mass shooting when a gunman on Aug. 28, 2016, wounded five people during a party at the American Legion Hall.” Not bad for a population of about 3,000 people. But it’s alright now: “the person is no longer a threat to the community.” (All “quotes” from the linked article. It sounds so normal, I can’t get my head around it. But I live on the wrong side of the Atlantic to fathom that stuff, I guess).
Even a few years ago, if I’d seen the portion of that headline that shows in the thread, I wouldn’t have immediately thought ‘is this another shooting’? I’d have wondered if something accidentally blew up, or if there’d been a horrible car accident. My mind wouldn’t have gone immediately to deliberate murder.
I remember being quite relieved when we somehow survived the 20th century (which a lot of people didn’t, of course, and not all of them died of accident or illness.) I wasn’t expecting the 21st to be worse.
From the article:
“This has been an unspeakable week of tragedy for our city,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said at the press conference Saturday night. "This is not our city. This is not who we are. This is not who we want to be. … "
It may not be what we want to be. But it is who we are.
From the article:
Maybe now that a good American boy™ has been killed, there’ll be consequences…
(Sorry, I’m too cynical for these threads)
Passive voice is great for avoiding assignment of responsibility to any particular person or party even by influence or association. We can just spread around the culpability and sardonically repost the “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” article from The Onion, and with a little bit of T&P™ just move on…except for those impacted by the shooting, of course, They’re going to need an extra dose of prayers.
Stranger
Yeah, but . . . if it just “erupted” and “happened” without any specific human agency –
Then the problem’s got to be the guns, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?
– I was going to say that I expected crickets on that subject, out of Alabama. But that isn’t actually true, is it? I expect a lot of people are screaming that in Alabama. Some of them even might on the floor of their House. Problem is with the ones who aren’t listening.
And of course it’s not only the guns; it’s the attitude that shooting people with them is a good solution to problems. But hard as it’s going to be to get some control of the guns, it’s going to be even harder to get control of that attitude.
Were there not enough guns at the party? were the children armed? What calibers?
The children must be protected! More guns!
We’re discussing this extensively on a true-crime website. We all pretty much agree that the perp(s) are probably unnamed so far because they’re minors themselves, and/or are dead, and/or are relatives of law enforcement OR LEOs themselves.
That the town is about 50% black, and it appears many if not most of the victims are too, isn’t helping things.
you know i cant remember exactly when but I made a thread one time asking if we were going to get as blase about these events as Isreal/the middle east does about mass shootings and bombings … sad to say I think my prophecy’s fulfilled …
In the '80s I was talking to someone who had immigrated from Northern Ireland and I asked him what it was like with the bombings etc. He said that it was just like here (Canada) with traffic deaths.
So it’s obviously possible, sadly.
And they were charged with reckless murder which carries a 10 year to life penalty.
Another example of a reckless murder charge was:
Frankly this seems to me to be a very lightweight charge for 4 people dead and 32 injured–and it looks like first degree murder to me.
This article on the charges describes “reckless murder” in Alabama:
It appears that “reckless murder” is considered to be an even more serious charge than a “normal” murder charge (which also has a potential penalty of 10 years to life). A little digging suggests to me that the Alabama criminal code may not have specific degrees of murder, other than “reckless” versus “normal.”
Confirming, based on the site below – Alabama law has three classes of homicide charges. In descending order of seriousness, they are:
- Murder
- Manslaughter
- Criminally negligent homicide
It does appear (though this article doesn’t mention it) that “reckless murder” is a more serious version of the standard murder charge in that state.
Wikipedia lists three levels:
Manslaughter: 2–20 years
Murder: 10–99 years (20–99 years if using deadly weapon) or life with parole
Capital Murder: Death or Life without parole
So Capital Murder is the most serious charge–and it wasn’t used in this case.
It looks like there are 21 specific elements that can be used to constitute capital murder in Alabama. I’m not sure that any of them fit here. Did you have one in mind?
This blog seems to have information on “capital murder” in Alabama, and it appears that capital murder is specific to committing murder when there is another circumstance, such as:
- A murder committed while in the commission of another felony crime (such as kidnapping or rape)
- A murder where the victim is a law enforcement officer or a public official
- A murder involving shooting into a dwelling or a vehicle
- A murder where the victim was involved in a criminal proceeding, such as a witness who would be testifying in a trial
- A murder where the victim was under 14 years old
- A murder where the accused has previously been convicted of another murder
I suspect that, in this case, none of the extenuating circumstances which define “capital murder” applied.
https://www.samdixonlaw.com/capital-murder
Edit: ninja’d by Falchion
Yes:
(10) Murder wherein two or more persons are murdered by the defendant by one act or pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct.
Although with Supreme Court decisions (as they are juveniles) they could not be sentenced to death and would have to be eligible to be considered for parole within a few decades.