DADvocate

"Not guilty: The verdict in the manslaughter trial of Roderick Scott. After more than 19 hours of deliberations over two days, a jury acquitted the Greece man in the shooting death of Christopher Cervini, 17, last April." Dateline: 12/18/2009. Via Instapundit. (Greece is a city near Rochester, New York.)

More details here in a rather harsh post.

ack in April, after an argument with his common-law wife, Scott was asleep on the couch in his home. At 3:00 in the morning he heard a disturbance outside, looked out the window, and saw three teenagers trying to break into his car. Shoving his gun into his waistband, he went outside to see what in hell was going on.

He caught one Christopher Cervini, then 17, in the driveway across the street. With Cervini were his cousin, James, and their friend Brian Hopkins. They were busily rifling through the neighbor’s car when Roderick Scott confronted them. These teenagers, you see, are (in Cervini’s case, he was) petty criminals. They were working their way through all the cars in the neighborhood in order to find things to steal.

......

“I wanted to stop them before they could get away,” he admitted. “We live so far away, they would have been gone before police got there.” When Scott told the three teenagers that he had called the police, Christopher Cervini broke from the group and ran at him, shouting either, “I’ll get you” to Scott or “I’ll get him” to his fellow thieves. Scott fired two shots in response.

Cervini never reached Scott as those shots from a .40 caliber pistol stopped him dead.

More details of the fateful night.

Scott testified Tuesday that he heard voices outside his home in the early-morning hours of April 4. “I looked outside the front door to see what was going on,” he said. “I saw three individuals walking out of my driveway.”

Scott said he tucked his gun in his pants.

“I intended to go out and stop the criminal act or detain them,” he said.

After Scott saw one of the people in the driveway, he said he pulled out his gun and “chambered a round. I had no idea what was going on, so I had to protect myself.”

Sounds like Scott was playing cop. I wouldn't have gone outside and confronted the youths. I would have called the cops and tried to videotape the youths to provide evidence and possible identification. Scott was lucky none of the youths were armed. I'm not fond of shootouts, myself.

Scott, a burly man who looks like he could be in the NFL, went outside, instigated the confrontation (he did warn them he had a pistol), and shot one of the teenagers killing him although he, Scott, had not been touched. Furthermore, New York does not have a stand your ground law. Yet, a jury acquitted Scott of manslaughter charges.

Wonder why we never heard of this case.
My guess and of many others:
Scott was black.
Cervini was white.
The jury was mostly white.
The racial lines just don't fit the narrative. If you can't fan the flames of racial hatred, why bother?