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07-21-2009, 01:24 AM
By JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Writer Jeff Carlton, Associated Press Writer – 58 mins ago
DALLAS – Police and residents of an eastern Texas town are bracing for dueling protests between black and white extremists over a prosecutor's decision to drop murder charges against two white men accused in the death of a black friend who was run over by a vehicle and dragged beneath it.
The protests Tuesday in Paris are expected to pit members of black and white extremist groups, including the New Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, and Ku Klux Klan, against one another. Others, including members of a local group, Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality, also will take part.
Like a demonstration staged last month to protest the dismissal of charges, Tuesday's rallies are sure to include the black power salutes and Nazi symbols typical of such clashes. The angry rhetoric has already begun.
"Caucasians in Paris must understand that they are the reason for Paris being the center of unsavory attention," one black protest leader, Jimmy Blackwell of the Tarrant County Local Organizing Committee, wrote in an editorial published last week in The Paris News. "We welcome the KKK because we want the world to see how real Americans act."
One rally flier said "suspected hate crime killers" were set free by "racist Texas courts."
But most of Paris' 26,000 residents have tired of the negative publicity the case has brought, and are likely to steer clear of the courthouse steps on Tuesday, said Marva Joe, who helps chair a diversity task force set up to address racial issues in the community.
"I guess I am like most people in Paris," Joe said. "The majority of people in Paris don't agree with the way they do things. Most people are not happy about the groups, about the people who are coming."
The protests focus on the death of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland, whose body was found Sept. 16 on a country road outside of Paris, which is about 90 miles northeast of Dallas.
Prosecutors initially charged two of McClelland's white friends, Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley, with murdering him by running him over in Finley's pickup. They estimated that McClelland's body was dragged more than 70 feet beneath their vehicle. But a special prosecutor dismissed the charges last month, citing a lack of evidence, after a truck driver came forward and said he might have accidentally run over McClelland.
Demonstrators on Tuesday will be separated into protest zones outside the courthouse. Authorities said there have been hints that skinhead groups might show up.
Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville said he resisted pressure to force the protest elsewhere, and that allowing the rallies would be "a wonderful opportunity to show we support democracy. We are not an intolerant, racist community," he said.
Previous protests about the case by the Panthers and the Nation of Islam were mostly peaceful and resulted in no arrests. A handful of white supremacists led by Rock Banks, a self-professed grand titan of the East Texas Ku Klux Klan, have showed up each time.
Protesters have said the McClelland case echoes the murder of James Byrd, a black man who was chained by the ankles to a pickup by three white men and dragged to death in 1998 in the east Texas town of Jasper.
Authorities, however, have denied there was a racial angle in the McClelland death, pointing out that that he was friends with Finley and Crostley. Authorities had said the trio were returning from a late-night beer run when McClelland died. They alleged the three were arguing about whether Finley was too drunk to drive, and that McClelland decided to walk home. Authorities said Finley then ran over McClelland.
Finley and Crostley, who were released after eight months in jail, have maintained their innocence.
Paris, which is about 73 percent white and 22 percent black, has been tied to other recent incidents in which race was alleged to have played a role.
Superville, who is white, sentenced a black girl to up to seven years in a juvenile prison in 2007 for shoving a teacher's aide at school. He sentenced a white girl to probation for burning down her parents' house.
This year, two black factory workers in Paris alleged widespread racism and said supervisors at their plant failed to respond to complaints about racist graffiti, nooses and slurs.
Joe called the rhetoric coming from the protest groups hateful and said it doesn't jibe with the town she has lived in for 46 years.
"It's distorted," she said of Blackwell's editorial last week. "I'm not saying there isn't racism here. But I don't agree with the way they are doing things."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090720/ap_on_re_us/us_dragging_death
DALLAS – Police and residents of an eastern Texas town are bracing for dueling protests between black and white extremists over a prosecutor's decision to drop murder charges against two white men accused in the death of a black friend who was run over by a vehicle and dragged beneath it.
The protests Tuesday in Paris are expected to pit members of black and white extremist groups, including the New Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, and Ku Klux Klan, against one another. Others, including members of a local group, Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality, also will take part.
Like a demonstration staged last month to protest the dismissal of charges, Tuesday's rallies are sure to include the black power salutes and Nazi symbols typical of such clashes. The angry rhetoric has already begun.
"Caucasians in Paris must understand that they are the reason for Paris being the center of unsavory attention," one black protest leader, Jimmy Blackwell of the Tarrant County Local Organizing Committee, wrote in an editorial published last week in The Paris News. "We welcome the KKK because we want the world to see how real Americans act."
One rally flier said "suspected hate crime killers" were set free by "racist Texas courts."
But most of Paris' 26,000 residents have tired of the negative publicity the case has brought, and are likely to steer clear of the courthouse steps on Tuesday, said Marva Joe, who helps chair a diversity task force set up to address racial issues in the community.
"I guess I am like most people in Paris," Joe said. "The majority of people in Paris don't agree with the way they do things. Most people are not happy about the groups, about the people who are coming."
The protests focus on the death of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland, whose body was found Sept. 16 on a country road outside of Paris, which is about 90 miles northeast of Dallas.
Prosecutors initially charged two of McClelland's white friends, Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley, with murdering him by running him over in Finley's pickup. They estimated that McClelland's body was dragged more than 70 feet beneath their vehicle. But a special prosecutor dismissed the charges last month, citing a lack of evidence, after a truck driver came forward and said he might have accidentally run over McClelland.
Demonstrators on Tuesday will be separated into protest zones outside the courthouse. Authorities said there have been hints that skinhead groups might show up.
Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville said he resisted pressure to force the protest elsewhere, and that allowing the rallies would be "a wonderful opportunity to show we support democracy. We are not an intolerant, racist community," he said.
Previous protests about the case by the Panthers and the Nation of Islam were mostly peaceful and resulted in no arrests. A handful of white supremacists led by Rock Banks, a self-professed grand titan of the East Texas Ku Klux Klan, have showed up each time.
Protesters have said the McClelland case echoes the murder of James Byrd, a black man who was chained by the ankles to a pickup by three white men and dragged to death in 1998 in the east Texas town of Jasper.
Authorities, however, have denied there was a racial angle in the McClelland death, pointing out that that he was friends with Finley and Crostley. Authorities had said the trio were returning from a late-night beer run when McClelland died. They alleged the three were arguing about whether Finley was too drunk to drive, and that McClelland decided to walk home. Authorities said Finley then ran over McClelland.
Finley and Crostley, who were released after eight months in jail, have maintained their innocence.
Paris, which is about 73 percent white and 22 percent black, has been tied to other recent incidents in which race was alleged to have played a role.
Superville, who is white, sentenced a black girl to up to seven years in a juvenile prison in 2007 for shoving a teacher's aide at school. He sentenced a white girl to probation for burning down her parents' house.
This year, two black factory workers in Paris alleged widespread racism and said supervisors at their plant failed to respond to complaints about racist graffiti, nooses and slurs.
Joe called the rhetoric coming from the protest groups hateful and said it doesn't jibe with the town she has lived in for 46 years.
"It's distorted," she said of Blackwell's editorial last week. "I'm not saying there isn't racism here. But I don't agree with the way they are doing things."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090720/ap_on_re_us/us_dragging_death