More signs of a post-racial America.
I agree with the post’s author. If this was a Black man who shot to death a White man under the same situation, the whole country would hear about it.
If it was a Black woman who shot to death a White man this way, the whole world would have heard about it and would be screaming for her blood.
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Imagine if the tables were turned. If this were a black man who shot a white boy with an AK 47, would the charges had been dropped to involuntary manslaughter?
Is this the post racial America that everyone is talking about? Taliaferro verdict isn’t justice.
Cousins guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Taliaferro slaying
JAMIE C. RUFF TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Published: March 24, 2009
Published: March 24, 2009
After finding Ethan Parrish guilty of a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a popular Powhatan High School student, jurors will continue deliberations on his sentence this morning.
Parrish, 25, faces up to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Tahliek Taliaferro, 18, who was shot with a semiautomatic assault rifle June 24. If Parrish had been convicted of first-degree murder, as originally charged, he could have faced life in prison.
He also faces up to 12 months for a misdemeanor assault and battery conviction in the shooting of Taliaferro’s friend Courtney Jones. The conviction was reduced from the original charge of aggravated malicious wounding, a felony that carries a sentence of 20 years to life.
Parrish’s cousin, 18-year-old Joseph “Joey” Parrish, was convicted of the same two counts, as well as an additional charge of possession of a firearm by a felon. Because he was a juvenile at the time of the offense, Joey Parrish will be sentenced at a later date by Judge Thomas V. Warren of Powhatan County Circuit Court.
Members of Taliaferro’s family and friends reacted with anger yesterday at the verdict.
Jean Taliaferro, the grandmother who raised Tahliek, said: “You don’t know what I’m going through. I cry every day.”
Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert B. Beasley had argued that the shooting was intentional.
But jurors decided that Taliaferro’s slaying was an accident, Beasley said.
The trial of the Parrishes began Wednesday, and closing arguments were heard Friday. The jury deliberated for six hours yesterday before reaching the verdict.
More than a dozen deputies and Virginia State Police troopers were present in anticipation of the verdict. Throughout the trial, deputies had to limit how many people could enter the small courtroom. Friends and family of the Parrishes and Taliaferro gathered on the lawn.
There was no doubt that on June 24, Ethan Parrish, armed with an assault rifle and 83-round drum clip, killed Taliaferro when Parrish opened fire on a car in which Taliaferro was a passenger. Ethan Parrish fired six shots. The first two struck the road but the next four struck the car, with one hitting Taliaferro in the head and another hitting Jones, then 15, in the back.
Jones was taken to VCU Medical Center by helicopter, and portions of his small and large intestines were removed, Dr. Ronald C. Merrell said.
Shortly before the shooting, the Parrishes, accompanied by Stephanie Reynolds, arrived at a Sheetz convenience store to drop off Margaret Ashton Bradbury at her car. Bradbury had spent part of the day swimming at Maidens Landing with the group.
Nearby, at a popular ice-cream shop, Taliaferro sat with a group of friends.
Joey Parrish and Taliaferro made no secret of their dislike and had repeatedly tried to have a fistfight with each other. Parrish disliked Taliaferro because he had physically assaulted a girlfriend who was friends with Parrish, defense attorneys said.
Joey Parrish and Taliaferro began to argue and as Reynolds drove off, Parrish leaned out of the car and yelled to Taliaferro and his friends: “If you want to fight, follow us.”
The SUV that Reynolds was driving started west on U.S. 60, but at the urging of Ethan Parrish, Reynolds made a U-turn. A couple of minutes later, as the vehicle was about to turn right onto Dorset Road, Joey Parrish may have signaled to Taliaferro and his friends — now leaving the Sheetz on the same path Reynolds had taken — to follow them.
Friends of Taliaferro’s testified that they were not pursuing the Parrishes when they made a U-turn and headed east on U.S. 60 before turning on Dorset but were only taking one of the vehicle’s occupants to his grandmother’s house
Ethan Parrish said he had Reynolds pull over, hoping the other vehicle would simply drive past. He opened fire hoping to scare the occupants and never meant to hit anyone, he said.
Contact Jamie C. Ruff at (434) 223-3678 or jruff@timesdispatch.com .
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Published: March 24, 2009
The law works in mysterious ways.
Tahliek Taliaferro and his buddies were hanging out near a Powhatan County ice-cream stand last June when a long-standing feud with fellow teenager Joey Parrish led to his death that night.
A witness said Ethan Parrish, Joey’s cousin, pulled his semiautomatic rifle from the back seat of the SUV he was riding in and said he was going to “smoke” Taliaferro. You don’t have to be well-versed in Ice Cube to know the lethal connotation of that verb.
As Taliaferro passed in his friend’s car, he smiled at Ethan Parrish, who fired six bullets into a car whose occupants possessed nothing more lethal than a BB gun.
Taliaferro was shot in the head and slumped dead against the car’s driver. Fellow passenger Courtney Jones, 15, was shot in the back and then spent 10 days in the hospital with a pelvic infection and lost part of his colon and small intestine.
None of these facts was really contested. But yesterday, a Powhatan jury determined that it was all a big accident. The Parrish cousins were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of Taliaferro and misdemeanor assault and battery in the near-fatal shooting of Jones.
The uncommon show of force in the courtroom — a half-dozen Virginia State Police officers and at least as many Powhatan deputies — foreshadowed the combustible emotions after the verdicts.
“One black on the jury!” a voice shouted from within an anguished circle outside.
“I have an $85,000 hospital bill, and for what?” shouted Carolyn Jackson, Jones’ mom.
Taliaferro’s grandmother stood surrounded by news cameras and microphones, a portrait of despair. “This will be with me until I die. . . . You don’t know what I go through. I cry every day.”
Perhaps the jury had its hands cuffed by its instructions, but the verdict seemed soft.
Involuntary manslaughter for an attack with an assault rifle? And assault and battery for a near-fatal shooting?
“Justice wasn’t done there today,” said Jones’ father, a seething Carl Jones.
Moments later, Taliaferro’s mother, Kaa Caputo, wrestled with the verdict.
“They can’t tell me it’s not premeditated, because he was shot from behind,” she said.
“We came here for justice,” said Calvin Taliaferro, the victim’s uncle, “and justice wasn’t served today.”
If you’re black in America, you always worry whether justice will be served up fairly. Race had been only a vague subtext of the crime, and Taliaferro’s mourners were white and black.
Stickers, T-shirts and a necklace were among the Tahliek memorabilia on display on a courthouse green whose centuries-old cedars were joined by news camera tripods.
Yesterday’s scene before the verdict was tense and subdued.
“You’ve got to understand — there’s two families here that have suffered a loss,” said Cynthia Morgan of Richmond, who was there to support the Taliaferro family.
“To me, I hope it will bring the community together. The violence that’s happened, it’s happening all over the world,” she said. “It has to stop. It’s senseless.
“I just pray that it’s going to be a peaceful resolution, and that justice is served. It’s in the hands of the jury now.”
The jury, in treating the defendants with kid gloves, dropped the ball.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com .
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