In Monday morning's Dallas Morning News, Richard Abshire follows up on the death of Brandon McClelland in Paris, Texas. Two suspects are in custody for running over Brandon and dragging him after a night of drinking. Richard worked on this story for weeks, and though there's not a lot of new ground here for Dallas South readers, there are some things that stuck out to me. Read Black man's death reopens old racial wounds.
Here are a few excerpts:
District Attorney Gary Young, who is white, said there's no evidence that the killing was a hate crime. But his office welcomes any information on the case, he said.
"Gary Young decided from the start it was not a hate crime," said Brenda Cherry, who is black and a co-founder of Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality. "They're not going to do anything to make Paris look bad. That's the main thing around here."
"(The Shaquanda Cotton case) was a wake-up call," said Pike Burkhart, who is white and president of the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce. "We don't perceive ourselves as a racially divided community. We want to make sure we have more dialogue between our black and white communities."
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