After a whole month has passed, the shooting of Daniel Adkins at a Taco Bell outside of Phoenix has finally received some “national” attention—or at least CNN has posted a story about it on its website. There is a photo of the grieving parents, a white father and Hispanic mother, and his sister in front of a photo of Daniel on the wall. All are demanding that his killer, a 22-year-old black male, be arrested and charged with murder. According to the CNN story, police investigated the case and gave their findings to a local prosecutor, who sent the case back for “further investigation.” Obviously this means that the police did not give the prosecutor sufficient evidence to charge the perpetrator with the crime that police recommended. This is certainly odd, given that George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder after a politically-prejudiced “investigation” that dispensed with any facts favorable to Zimmerman.
The police now say that the perpetrator admits that the developmentally-disabled Adkins did no more than curse him after he and his dog were nearly struck by the perpetrator’s car, and “air-punched” in his direction. The claim that Adkins had a three-foot pipe in one hand (while he had a dog leash in the other), has been discredited by witnesses and the fact that nothing of the sort was found when police arrived minutes after the shooting. The shooter claimed that he felt compelled to shoot Adkins from the safety of his car because Adkins’ dog, Lady, was in the car’s way, and he couldn’t “get away.” The shooter admitted to investigators that he did not believe that Adkins was going to kill him (he gets “browny points” for being “honest,” apparently from the media and the judicial process), but went on to say that he believed he had “no options,” again an implausible claim because he was able to call 911 on his cell phone right after he rolled down his window and shot Adkins to death—in the heart.
CNN sent a reporter to the perpetrator’s home, but from behind a closed door his father claimed he had a gun and threatened the reporter’s person if he and his son were bothered further. However, he did justify his son’s actions by implying that Adkins was threatening his son’s life by saying "What the hell, you almost hit me" and to "watch where the f*** you're going." Excuse me for being so bold, but if this is sufficient grounds to shoot someone, there would probably be a thousand such shootings a day in this country. The father has also made reference to the Trayvon Martin case, except in a rather twisted manner. He insisted that unlike Martin, who was “attacked” by Zimmerman, his son was “attacked” by Adkins. This is a measure of how the media has twisted reality in the Martin case. Again it must be pointed out that the two witnesses closest to scene saw Martin on top of Zimmerman beating him; no witness has said that they saw with any certainty that Zimmerman struck Martin. On the other hand, Adkins never struck the shooter; the shooter in this case can do no more than claim that Adkins shouted curses at him. Interestingly, unlike Zimmerman, neither the shooter or anyone connected to him has shown any remorse for what is plain to me to be simple murder.
CNN refused to name Adkins’ shooter, because he hasn’t been charged with a crime—which is rather curious, since they joined the rest of media in naming Zimmerman—and making him a target of anti-Hispanic racists—well before he was charged with a crime. Unlike in the Martin case, there are curiously no demands by the media that Adkins’ shooter be arrested and charged, and there has been no mention of his race, for that matter. However, not everyone believes that the shooter should have the benefit of double standards. His name has been revealed on several blogs: Cordell Jude, a transplant from Detroit. A photo on his twitter page shows him in a cocked baseball cap hiding behind a haze of smoke, emanating from a marijuana joint in his hand. He also likes his gun, proudly displaying it on his lap. Interestingly, from the day of the shooting on April 3 until April 8, all of his tweets (mostly incomprehensible street lingo) have apparently been deleted. One of these tweets, according to a person who managed to read them, indicated that Jude was in no way remorseful about the shooting. It was just a normal “thang” he had to do; he merely wished that people would stop talking about it. Since then, Jude has either been advised to say nothing more about the incident, or he is absolutely the callous individual some people believe he is.
Based on the knowable evidence, it is absolutely incomprehensible that Jude has not yet been charged and arrested. Even his own (amended) statements indicate that he had no justification by any civilized standard for shooting the unarmed Adkins. It was just a “street” thing. Or maybe in this country, the lives of Hispanics come much cheaper than others.
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