Derek Saunders, 17, was fatally shot in the chest and head last year while walking home in his upper-middle class neighborhood in an apparent case of mistaken identity: to Earl Middencauf, the 47 year old white man who shot him, Derek looked like a "shifty gang-banger type" whose very appearance in the neighborhood made Middencauf "fear for his life."
Taking the stand in his own defense, Middencauf gave his account of the events leading up to the shooting. "First of all, how was I to know a colored family had moved in around the block? Then I see this kid walking through my neighborhood like he belongs there... now, I know he did belong there, but I didn't know it then" explained the gun enthusiast and Ted Nugent fan.
"At first, when he saw me eyeing him with suspicion and malice in my heart, he'd just avert his eyes, grab his book-bag tightly and walk real fast-like. But then he started lookin' back at me as if I was the one who might be in the wrong here. Me!" The jury gasped at this revelation. "Finally, he had the temerity to stop at my front porch and say, 'Excuse me, sir. Do we know each other, or have I offended you in some way? I sure would like to clear up any misunderstanding, sir, if I can.' That tore it, right there! I never been so scared in my life! He had the stones to stand at my porch, looking straight at me, and talk to me! I put three bullets in him before he hit the ground, before he could do the same to me and rape my wife." The jury seemed to nod in understanding.
"And now that I know he was an Honor student, you know, one of the good ones, imagine how I feel? Imagine what I have to live with every day for the rest of my life, wondering 'Did I do the right thing?' I might wrestle with that question the rest of my long life. Did you ever think of that?"
For Mr. Middencauf's pain and suffering, the jury awarded $1.2 million dollars to be paid by Derek Saunders' family ("the least they can do" according to the jury foreperson), and rendered a verdict of guilty for young Derek Saunders on the charges of harrassment, attempted assault, attempted rape, and attempted murder.
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