Easter in Brandon's America: more "racial injustice"

Easter weekend, when Christians celebrate the resurrection and the hope that it brings us of peace in this world and the next, has come and gone. In the Paranoid States of America, it seems, peace and harmony will have to wait for the life hereafter, as the weekend was marred by three separate mass shootings and many smaller instances of gun violence as communities across the country grapple with spikes in the murder rate.

Two teenage boys were killed and eight other people were wounded after gunfire erupted at a party in a short-term rental home in Pittsburgh early on Easter Sunday. Police were alerted to shots fired shortly after midnight, and arrived at a rental property where a party was allegedly being held. 

The cops found rifle and pistol casings and set up as many as eight crime scenes spanning a few blocks in the area. A spokesthingy told a local TV station, "The initial investigation reveals a large party was being held at the short-term rental property, with as many as 200 people in attendance, many of them underage."

According to the cops, at least 50 gunshots were fired in the home in question by multiple people who had been drawn into some sort of fight. A handful of partygoers were injured but not shot, suffering cuts and broken bones while jumping out of windows in a desperate attempt to get to safety.

First responders took several of the victims to a hospital, including two 17-year-old boys Pittsburgh boys, Matthew Steffy-Ross and Jaiden Brown,whom doctors later pronounced dead. Others who were shot but survived took their own rides to the hospital. No word, of course, as to the race or ethnicity of those involved, so let's not jump out of windows to any conclusions.

Meanwhile, also early on Sunday, gunfire which erupted at a nightclub in Hampton County, South Carolina, injured nine people. None of the wounds reported at Cara's Lounge, about 80 miles west of Charleston, were fatal, said officials, who had not immediately announced any arrests in that case.

A more serious "incident" occurred in South Carolina's capital on Saturday, when a gunfight inside a busy shopping mall left nine people, ranging in age from 15 to73, with bullet wounds. Five people were injured while attempting to flee to safety. 

Columbia Police Chief "Skippy" Holbrook told the meeja, "We don't believe this was random. We believe [those involved] they knew each other and something led to the gunfire." Investigators believe that at least three suspects displayed firearms inside the mall but are working to determine how many ofo them actually fired weapons. 

22-year-old Jewayne Price, was jailed following the shooting on accusations of... wait for it... unlawfully carrying a pistol. On Sunday afternoon, his bail was set at $25,000. Benjamin Crump is expected to arrive today, accompanied by "Rev" Al Sharpton, to post bail and demand justice for Jewayne.

That's Jewayne there, in the middle of the top row, along with some of his friends. The pic isn't from their high school yearbook, or from police files related to this weekend's shootout, but from a report of arrests made in the May 2018 shooting death of a 17-year-old in Richland County SC.

Amon Rice, 17, and another victim were found with gunshot wounds, after a dispute of some kind near Unity Missionary Baptist Church in Hopkins SC on 10 May 2018. A mother and her three children were arrested at the end of May. In June, the Richland County Sheriff's Department arrested 20-year-old Jordan Terrell Myer, 18-year-old Kenneth Roger Robinson Jr., 18-year-old Jewayne Marquise Price, 39-year-old Twana Ivery, and 18-year-old Thaiyeah Keisha Keel, in connection with the murder.

Jewayne Price was charged with accessory before the fact. Ed. couldn't find out if he was ever tried, but if he was convicted, he evidently didn't learn any lessons from his brush with the law. Perhaps the judge let him off lightly because of his being the victim of centuries of oppression, racial discrimination, yada yada yada, according to the Ketanji Brown Jackson Sentencing Guidelines.