Mississippi police murder major college fooball recruit...maybe

A firearm is a static piece of machinery that requires an operator to make it function.

Guns do not discharge accidentally. Rare is the occasion, very rare, in which even a gun dropped to a hard surface will discharge. Firearms manufacturers perform thousands of "drop tests" each year to check hammers and firing pins.

A human being had to discharge the weapon. Whether the person did it accidentally or purposely is the question and probably never will be answered.

 

And that's precisely what I am saying could have happened.
Yes, I think a finger pulled on a trigger. It could have been the kid discharging it accidentally.
And as most are saying here ... who knows if we'll ever know?

 

I'm not sure of the physics of holding a shotgun to one's mouth and firing from the inside of a car, but I'm more intrigued by the Emily Dickinson poem left in the backseat.

Sure, like most people, this kid has all kinds of stuff in his car. The backseat is littered with stuff. But the author makes it out to seem like that's the only poem or anything in the car. Now, if it's part of a book and the author is taking creative license, then okay.

But if it's a piece of paper, with just that poem on it, with those first few lines available? Looks like a suicide note to me.

 

Sounds more like a handout from English class, to me.

Unless, of course, he's that into Emily Dickinson. And maybe he is.

 

If this story happened in say Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, it wouldn't have been blown up. But because it was Mississippi and because of the state's sorrid past, it leads to sesantionalism and not journalism. Not saying that the story doesn't merit being told, just saying that Yahoo didn't uncover anything that hadn't been reported earlier. They took a story that every agency from that area and the Associated Press reported on, and ran wild with it. If they brought something new to table about the investigation, I could see and applaud what they did. However, Yahoo didn't do that, which is sad.

 

Yes, if this story happened in Chicago, Los Angeles or New York -- a major college football recruit killing himself under very suspicious circumstances and a police department stonewalling the outflow of information as well as taking unusual liberties with evidence -- this story would have just disappeared. News that comes out of major metropolitan areas tends to be downplayed.

 

Re: Shooting death of major college football recruit

The case went before the grand jury:
http://www.sunherald.com/pageone/story/1128262.html

We've got a story just up that the results will be announced Thursday.

 

As questionable as the story is, there just isn't a lot of solid evidence that's gonna get this thing past the grand jury.
I wouldn't be surprised if this just fades away for a while.
That's just my guess/prediction.

 

Crazy story. I hate that they quoted one of my favorite poems at the end. It doesn't belong there at all.

 

Isn't it standard police procedure to perform a gunshot residue test on all those present at the scene and at the time of a shooting? If the cop didn't do anything, shouldn't he have insisted on such a test to prove he didn't fire a gun? Or am I wrong here? I don't know a thing about police procedure. Just curious.

 

Kids' shooting ruled accidental. i.e. jury thinks he shot himself.

 

Our story:
http://www.sunherald.com/pageone/story/1136400.html