While I respect Barack Obama’s–and my–Harvard Law professor, Charles Ogletree, he stepped over the line today when he joined Al Sharpton’s race-baiting mob in Washington, DC and said: “I want to see the first black man who uses the ‘stand your ground’ defense and see if it works. I want to see the first white victim of ‘stand your ground’ by a black defendant and see if it works.”
I know Prof. Ogletree well enough to know he was not calling for murder, but his divisive remarks certainly showed a callous disregard for the potential victim of such a killing.
Ogletree also betrayed a lack of research into the stand your ground defense–an indefensible lapse, given his stature as a lawyer and teacher, and given the inflammatory nature of his statement.
Last month, the Tampa Bay Times compiled a list of 140 cases since 2005 in which the stand your ground law had been invoked in Florida alone. Among those 140 cases, the newspaper reported, there were 11 in which the circumstances were similar to those in which George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.
One case from 2009 involved a black defendant, Demarro Battle, who was initially charged with second-degree murder for shooting and killing an unarmed white male, Omar Bonilla (whose race was confirmed today by the Fort Myers Police Department). The charges were dropped by the state because of the stand your ground law.
That is just one case, from one state among the several that have stand your ground laws.
Breitbart has the full article
