More murders in Memphis
Ezekiel Kelly is in custody after a shooting spree in Memphis in which several people appear to have been murdered:
Police said they received reports he was recording his actions on Facebook. In a Facebook Live video seen by a WREG staff member, Kelly was seen getting out of a car, walking into the AutoZone on Jackson Avenue, and firing shots. The video was later removed.
So, publicity hound as well as murderer.
There are parallels in his background to the history of the perp in the murder of Eliza Fletcher: same city, and an earlier record that included very violent crimes that didn’t result in the victim’s death but might have. Attempted murder was one of the earlier charges against Kelly, but he pled down to aggravated assault, got a three-year sentence, and was out in two. Because Kelly is still only 19, his earlier crime was apparently committed at 17, which may have been part of the reason for the light sentence. But the main reason is probably the usual one: an overburdened system in which prosecutors are happy to plea bargain for all but the most heinous (or politically rewarding to try) cases.
Chief Davis told reporters that suspect Kelly caused at least 8 crime scenes and he killed four people and injuring three more.
My guess also is that his timing was partly inspired by the Fletcher murder. He wanted some of the attention and had to up the ante.
Here are the previous charges against the perp:
Court records also showed more about the teen’s background: He faced four felony charges, including two counts of attempted murder, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of possession of a firearm in 2020 at the age of 17.
Sources told WREG he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault in the case in 2021. He got three years in that case, but was already out of jail.
I don’t know Memphis; if I’ve ever been there it would have been about 50 years ago, when I went on a long trip through the South. But from what I’ve read recently, the city had gotten very dangerous even before these recent murders (see this). In addition, a month ago a soft-on-crime prosecutor named Steve Mulroy was elected there, but these two men were released prior to that so I doubt Mulroy had much if anything to do with decisions around their release.
Here’s an interview with the Republican whom Mulroy beat, the incumbent DA Amy Weirich. The interview took place shortly before that election a month ago. A few excerpts:
WEIRICH: The 40 juveniles that were transferred last year by the juvenile court system at the request of our office, committed murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, rape, carjacking, aggravated robbery, criminal attempt murder. These are, the majority of them are 17 years old. And if we didn’t seek transfer at the age of 19, the jurisdiction of the juvenile court runs out and they would be released from custody with absolutely no supervision, no control, no regulations on their conduct. If we didn’t seek that remedy, I wish we didn’t have to. I wish we didn’t have so many juveniles committing the violent crime that we’re seeing in this community, but the answer is not just releasing them.
STARNES: And, you know, I’ve seen the debates and I’ve yet to hear a reporter ask Professor Mulroy the question, ‘Okay, out of the 40 people, which ones would you have charged as a juvenile? Which family doesn’t get justice?’
WEIRICH:Right. And that’s, you know, something I’ve said over and over again. I don’t think this community, because I go everywhere in this community, from North Memphis, to Westwood, to Cordova, to Chelsea, to Smokey City, to Southwind, it doesn’t matter. Everywhere I go in Shelby County, the citizens want the same thing. They want a district attorney who’s going to fight hard when the violent crime occurs. That doesn’t mean that we don’t also do a lot to help rehabilitate and a lot to help intervene…And if a juvenile or an adult offender continues to victimize, they leave us no choice as prosecutors.
Hmmm – Professor Mulroy. That prompted me to look up Mulroy’s background, and I found that he’s a law professor who has also served on the County Commission. I don’t see any criminal prosecutorial experience, although “from 1999-2000 he served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney (a federal prosecutor) in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia.”
His actual field of expertise seems to be election law. See this for a sample of his views, which seem to boil down to “democracy, democracy, democracy requires all sorts of machinations to keep Democrats in power and assure real majority rule; here are my suggestions.” The word “republic” appears nowhere in the rather lengthy piece; the fact that we are a republic, or the reason the Founders created that structure, appears to be of zero interest to him.
NOTE: And here’s a “good guy with gun” story from July 4th that didn’t get much coverage at the time.
There needs to be a massive crackdown on crime in this country. Maybe that happens if Dems all over the nation are voted out of office.
The issue is not simply crime, but the vastly disproportionate amount of violent crime (murder, rape, armed robbery, assault, carjacking, home invasion, etc, to say nothing of looting and smash-and-grab operations) committed by black males, mostly young. Few are willing to discuss this awkward topic, but the facts of criminal offending should not be denied, nor should anyone, in a free society, fear the consequences of speaking truthfully on matters of such importance.
“Everywhere I go in Shelby County, the citizens want the same thing. They want a district attorney who’s going to fight hard when the violent crime occurs.” defeated incumbent DA Amy Weirich
Yet just a month ago, those same citizens elected “a soft-on-crime prosecutor named Steve Mulroy”…
Apparently those citizens want both “a district attorney who’s going to fight hard when the violent crime occurs” and someone who believes that, “democracy requires all sorts of machinations to keep Democrats in power and assure real majority rule”.
Clearly, cognitive dissonance is the prevailing condition among Shelby County voters.
@Geoffry Britain
If about half of Shelby county voters felt that crime was a weapon for “us” to use on “them”, how would they have voted any differently?
It looks as if Fletcher’s death has served as a warning to other joggers: “A female jogger fought off an attacker who grabbed her on a popular hiking trail near Orlando on Sunday — just days after the kidnapping and murder of another runner in Tennessee, police said. Israel Pagan, 19, grabbed the victim as she ran along the Little Econ Greenway trail around 5 p.m. Sunday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The jogger was able to fend off the assault and took a picture of Pagan as the broad-daylight incident unfolded. . . . Police used the image to canvass the area and eventually made an arrest. . . . Deputies said Pagan may have attacked other joggers in the area previously and are asking potential victims to come forward.”
The perp has tried to minimize the seriousness of the assault by telling the cops he was drunk at the time.
Photo of the perp at the link: https://nypost.com/2022/09/08/florida-jogger-fights-off-attack-days-after-eliza-fletchers-killing/
Maybe it’s time for some of the slimmer lady cops to get some miles on their Nikes and shorts while armed.
Speaking of crime, I heard they were investigating the Clark County, Nev., administrator (D) in the stabbing death of an investigative reporter in Las Vegas. I thought that meant he’d hired a hit man, but no, they found evidence that he did it himself. He’s been arrested.
Here’s another story of a good guy with a gun – what state you are in makes quite a difference.
https://notthebee.com/article/baltimore-authorities-arrest-marine-vet-hero-who-stopped-crazy-gunman-for-having-a-concealed-weapon-of-his-own
I will say it – if the killer was white this story would have more publicity. I was briefly in Memphis is 2010 when we drove to the Shiloh National Battlefield Park. The downtown area was very pretty but I heard that it was a dangerous city. I believe that ultra Liberal, Steven Cohen is the Congressman who represents Memphis. He is pretty obnoxious from the few times I have seen him on TV.
I live in Boston but have spent significant amounts of time in some of the interior big cities and there is no comparison between the urban poverty in say Boston or San Francisco than say Cincinnati or Memphis or St.Louis. Ezzard Charles Blvd in Cincinnati is still TG the only place in the US where I’ve had teen age pimps pushing 12 year hooers at you in broad daylight. I’ve seen it overseas and across the boarder but now if we have the homelessness and gov’t drug distribution centers we’ll get to see that all over our beautiful country