USA Today:
TULSA (AP) – Oklahoma prosecutors filed murder and hate crime charges Friday against two men arrested in an Easter weekend shooting spree that left three people dead and terrorized Tulsa's black community.
Jake England, 19, and his roommate, Alvin Watts, 33, each are charged with three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of shooting with intent to kill and five counts of malicious harassment. The harassment counts allege the victims were targeted because of their race.
Police say the men, who were arrested early Sunday after a two-day manhunt, appeared to have chosen their victims at random. Under state law, first-degree murder is punishable by death or life in prison. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the men's execution.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
Reuters:
Conviction on murder charges in Oklahoma could result in a death sentence, so the misdemeanor hate-crime charge could have little bearing on the penalty, but civil rights leaders have said it is important.
"Today's hate-crime charges are a step in the right direction," Jackson said in a telephone interview. "But the FBI and the Department of Justice must be a part of this. When you have five people shot randomly and arbitrarily, for revenge, that is a gross civil rights violation."
Jackson said the state's hate crime statute was not strong enough to be a deterrent, saying 11 cases have been prosecuted in Tulsa County in a decade. He said Oklahoma had a permissive gun culture and a "Stand Your Ground" law that emboldens vigilantes and "keeps people in danger."
http://www.reuters.com/...
Transcript excerpt begins at 0:24:
Darrell Vice: It wasn't nothing bad you could say about him and then you have to watch him go like that. I'm telling you it's tearing me up.
Reporter: Childhood friend Darrell Vice can't contain the sadness of losing his longtime friend, a man he describes as giving and compassionate.
Vice: It's got to stop because there go a good man. There go a good... Out of all the people that I associate with, I can say right here: there go a good man."
KJRH.com:
Bobby Clark, 54
TULSA - One of the three people killed during last week's shooting spree in north Tulsa was laid to rest Friday.
Bobby Clark, 54, was gunned down while standing near his home.
More than 100 people attended Clark's funeral, including civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Clark was the youngest of five children.
His niece, Charon Mack, garnered laughs after sharing stories about their time together.
"I'm (going to) miss his stories, and him playing the guitar," said Mack. "Everywhere he went he was always playing the guitar. We always knew we (were) going to have a good time." [...]
The funerals for 49-year-old Dannaer Fields and 31-year-old William Allen are Saturday and Tuesday.
Deon Tucker, 44, and David Hall, 46, were wounded but survived the shootings.
Read more:
http://www.kjrh.com/...
NPR:
Donna Fields, 49
Tulsa Shooting Victim Had Turned Her Life Around
During her lifetime, [Dannaer Fields, who went by Donna] Fields battled addictions — drugs and alcohol abuse. The Rev. Doc Smith, who will preach the eulogy at Fields' funeral, says after Fields became very ill a couple of years ago, she put all of that behind her and then worked to help others.
"She stood for justice. She understood the underdog. She understood the streets. She understood all of that. She's been an inspiration to us rather than us to her, and to see what God can do with anybody," Smith says.
Kenneth Fields says he wants justice for his sister, but he doesn't think the men who have confessed to killing her should be put to death.
"I don't hate them. I don't hate them. That ain't what God put us down here for, to hate nobody," he says.
http://www.npr.org/...
UPDATE:
William Allen, 31
One of the victims who died in a shooting rampage in a Tulsa, Okla. neighborhood on Good Friday knew one of the gunmen, according to the victim's wife.
The Tulsa World reported Wednesday that Jeanette Allen believes her husband William Allen, 31, who was killed Friday, knew Jake England. England and Alvin Watts have confessed to the shooting spree in a predominantly black neighborhood of Tulsa that left three dead and two injured.
Jeanette Allen told the World that England and her husband were both frequent visitors to the same apartment complex: Comanche Park Apartments. William Allen had a brother who lived in the complex, and England had a sister living there. The complex is also where England's father was fatally shot in 2010.
Jeanette Allen said that her husband and England met at least once at her brother-in-law's apartment, and that they spoke with each other in the complex occasionally. Her husband's brother recognized England from media reports after his arrest, she said.
http://slatest.slate.com/...
Watch video: Shooting suspect Jake England tells his story to noted attorney Clark Brewster
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/...
In this clip, confessed killer Jake England talks with his pro bono defense lawyer Clark Brewster, about watching his father being killed, raising his 14 year old sister and watching his wife take her life two feet away from him. He talks about getting medication to "overcome bad thoughts" but not seeking treatment and how some of his best friends are black people.
Transcript excerpt begins at 06:03:
Attorney Clark Brewster: You grew up on the North Side and developed friendships on the North Side and have your family on the North Side. Am I right?
Jake England: Yes.
Brewster: And the North Side is probably the majority of the population are African Americans.
Jake England: Yes, sir.
Brewster: Do you have friends that are African Americans?
England: Yes I do.
Brewster: Probably more friends that are African American than are white or Indian?
England: About the same, yeah.
Brewster: Do you have any kind of hatred or ill will toward African Americans at all?
England: No I don't because of the line of work that I was always in and the place I lived, we always had to get along with everybody. It didn't matter what color you was.
Brewster: Now there's been a statement on your Facebook that was a derogatory terms of African Americans. Would you explain that? Why would you use such a term?
England: It was just to express the way I was upset about the guy who shot my dad but that's the only time I expressed anything like that about somebody.
Brewster: Do you have African Americans that you count among your best friends?
England: Yes I do.
Brewster: Is there anything that you did in any way in your life, that you know of, that would have been out of any kind of ill will or hatred toward African Americans?
England: No.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/...
Presumably when England was thinking about doing anything in his entire life, that he knew of, that would have been out of any kind of ill will or hatred toward African Americans, he did not think of the Good Friday murders of his African American neighbors Bobbly Clark, 54, Donna Fields, 49, and William Allen, 31.