A video has been released of a 76-year-old Milwaukee man shooting dead a 13-year-old unarmed black neighbor, who he falsely believed was stealing from him.
On Wednesday a jury found John Spooner guilty in the fatal shooting of Darious Simmons.
In the wake of the George Zimmerman trial, where he was found not guilty for gunning down 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, this is certainly another example of the imminent threat racial profiling poses to young black males.
But this time, not only was there a video of the incident to show what happened, but also the victim’s mother’s eye-witness account.
Young Darious was murdered by Spooner, a white male, as his mother watched and pleaded for her child’s life.
According to The Associated Press, Simmons’ mother, Patricia Larry, testified that Spooner told her to call 9-1-1, that he was going to teach her boy a lesson for stealing.
As reported by AP, the footage was shown to jurors, who watched 13-year-old Darius Simmons taking the trash bin in from the street on May 31, 2012.
Spooner confronts the teen on a sidewalk between their homes. He points a pistol at the teen, and then at the boy’s mother as she watches from the porch. Seconds later, he points the gun back at Simmons’ chest and fires. The boy runs away and a second shot misses.
Other departures from the Zimmerman trial include the absence of the media hype; the defense of “mental illness” unlike Zimmerman’s “self defense” ; and that after less than an hour of deliberation, on Wednesday, the jury found Spooner guilty.
Watch the disturbing footage of Spooner robbing 13-year-old Darius Simmons of life in the video below. Caution: Video is extremely graphic.
