Another Texas Dragging Death !

In Paris, two white men have been been arrested for dragging a black man to death underneath a pickup. Paris is located in northeast Texas near the Oklahoma border. It was a bloody death, and the victim's mother (pictured above) said pieces of his skull could be found on the highway three days after it happened.

This brings back memories of the incident in Jasper a few years ago, when three white men chained James Byrd and drug him to death behind their pickup. That was obviously a racially-motivated murder and caused a lot of racial tension in the state.

There are some who believe this new death was also racially-motivated. The New Black Panthers have held a news conference at the courthouse, and community-activist Brenda Cherry says, "There's a problem in Paris, Texas. I don't see a difference in getting dragged behind a truck and getting dragged under a truck."

But the authorities in Paris say any comparison to the death of James Byrd is "preposterous". They point to the fact that the victim (Brandon McClelland) and the two white men had been friends for years.

The police have arrested Charles Ryan Crostley and Shannon Keith Finley. The police believe the three men were drinking together when they ran out of beer, and decided to drive to Oklahoma to buy more.

They got the beer and started back, but then began to argue about who was sober enough to drive back. McClelland took some of the beer and said he would walk back. As he began to walk, Finley started to bump him with the pickup. When he fell, Finley drove over him and drug him underneath the pickup.

Findley and Crostley then drove the pickup to a car wash to wash off the blood. Both men are charged with Murder and Tampering With Evidence.

Unless some kind of new evidence is discovered, this doesn't look like a racially-motivated murder. It sounds more like an alcohol-fueled anger killing. Of course, that doesn't make it any less tragic, and doesn't excuse the two murderers.

They should receive a long prison sentence for this inexcusable murder