Manslaughter, Not Murder Black and white, and gray

"Murderers! Murderers!" yelled an enraged black spectator at the trial in New York City as the jury foreman announced the verdict. Two white teenagers, charged with chasing a black man out of their Howard Beach neighborhood to his death on a freeway, had been acquitted of murder and convicted, along with a third youth, on the lesser charge of manslaughter. A fourth had been found innocent of all charges. Though the gray decision satisfied the victim's mother, it could not dispel all the passions that have arisen among both blacks and whites since the tragedy one year ago made Howard Beach...

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