The "bored" teens accused of fatally shooting an Australian student in Oklahoma are cold-blooded thugs who don't even deserve to be called animals and must be tried as adults, conservative talk-show host Steve Malzberg says, adding that Christopher Lane's slaying raises race issues.
Malzberg suggests that if the victim had seen his attackers moments before and had attempted to flee, he would have been accused of racial profiling.
“I'll call them teenagers, I don’t want to insult animals … Animals would never do that,” Malzberg said in a blistering commentary on his daily Newsmax TV program.
Police in Duncan, Okla., say Christopher Lane — on a baseball scholarship at East Central University — was jogging after visiting his girlfriend when he was shot in the back with a .22 caliber revolver last Friday.
Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, were charged with first-degree murder. Michael Jones, 17, who allegedly drove a getaway vehicle, was charged with being an accessory.
Authorities said one suspect told him he and his accomplices were bored and executed Lane for the “fun of it.”
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“They gunned him down in cold blood. Why do you think? They wanted his iPhone, his iPad … they wanted his wallet?” Malzberg asked.
“No, they did it for the fun of it … They came up from behind like true cowards and shot him in the back with a small caliber weapon then sped away.
“This is an example of the fragility of life, the evil that's out there … I know they're not adults [but] they had better face first degree.”
Malzberg said he wonders if there may have been a different outcome if Lane had spotted his attackers before they set on him and fled. But he fears the youth may then have been accused of racial profiling.
“What if the victim here had a chance to, from a distance, see these possible attackers, these future attackers who he might have viewed as future attackers or bad news? And what if he crossed the street or went down a different block to get away from them?” Malzberg asked.
“You know what you could accuse him of? You could accuse him of profiling … Might he have had the chance to feel something was wrong? Might he have had the chance to profile the situation … run the other way, do something that would have saved his life?
“Oh, but that would've been racist … that would have been terrible, and racial profiling's against the law and that makes him a bigot and he would be making an assumption that these kids were trouble.”
Malzberg urged people to keep their eyes open and be aware of their surroundings.
“If you sense something is wrong, then walk the other way. Walk the other way. [Lane] didn't have that opportunity, unfortunately,” he said.
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