Not the first lecture on violence
Shelton has seen such cases before, and given similar lectures comparing black-on-black crime to Klansman violence.
After
two teenage brothers were accused of gunning down a young Clarksville man following a high school graduation party in May 2015, Shelton gave another stern lecture on black-on-black crime.
“What a horrible tragedy this is,” Shelton said at that hearing in June 2015. “Black lives matter.”
One of the suspects had just graduated high school and had a future ahead of him, as did the other two men. “That life mattered,” Shelton said as the victim's family sobbed. “That black life mattered to them, and it matters to me.”
Shelton said he was upset that the shooting may have simply stemmed from a reaction of perceived “disrespect.”
“That’s the absolute tragedy,” he said, adding that this type of crime was happening far too often in Clarksville. “It’s black men killing black men."
In years long past, the Ku Klux Klan would kill black people who they thought were disrespectful, Shelton said.
“The Klan doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “Who doesn’t care about black lives now? I’ll let you answer that. I’m tired of black men killing black men. If I offended anyone ... I can’t help it.”
Not 'the whitest man in the room'
On Thursday, Shelton had to take a recess after Merriweather's hearing. He bound that case over to a grand jury and set bond at $500,000 bond.
He later told The Leaf-Chronicle that while he "might look like the whitest man in the room," he isn't.
Shelton said his great-great-great-grandfather was a free man of color in the 1860s, and he is disgusted by what he sees as a lack of respect for human life, whether it be at the hands of a racist police officer or rival gang members.
"Black lives really do matter," he said. "The total disregard of that fact by any in our society is totally reprehensible."
