Demons in Charleston, Houma

As the nation mourned nine victims of a deranged shooter in Charleston, S.C. last week it was business as usual in the Terrebonne Parish courthouse, where a mostly-white jury heard testimony against a non-white defendant in a Houma murder case.

The jury’s job was to determine whether enough evidence existed to convict Leron Calloway in connection with the murder of Connely Duplantis on Nov. 24, 2013. They did.

This is not an attempt to compare the two cases. Leron Calloway’s murder conviction makes him nothing more than a convicted killer.

Dylann Storm Roof, charged with nine counts of murder in connection with the Charleston mass killing, has proved through his Web site and its rant that he is something quite different from that. He is accused of being an animal who shoots people dead after praying with them.

There are some points that must be made, however.

Like many killed in the Emanuel Church shooting, Connely Duplantis was a man of God, a deacon at Annunziata Church in Houma. Scant hours before his death – by all accounts part of a robbery attempt that netted the killers a cell phone but no cash, which remained in Connely’s wallet – the deacon had distributed communion to the faithful. He had a reputation for being a helpful person, who ministered to the incarcerated at the Terrebonne Parish jail.

But to those responsible for his killing Connely was a mark and nothing more.

Randy Wallace is also accused of involvement with Connely’s murder and is expected to plead guilty. Last week he testified against Calloway.

During his testimony, Wallace said race was a factor in the selection of Connely Duplantis as a victim.

“All white people have money,” is what Calloway said prior to the incident, according to what Randy Wallace said in court.

The state, in this case is well-represented. Assistant District Attorney Jason Dagate is the prosecutor and has, according to the accounts of all who have witnessed this trial, been true to his task.

Leron Calloway, for perhaps the first time in his young life, has at least the benefit of someone in his corner.

Houma attorney Carolyn McNabb defended him. And although the jury found Calloway guilty, there is little doubt that the state, at every turn, was challenged, forced by the defense attorney to present the best case they could.

McNabb challenged the summary dismissals of potential black jurors during voire dire. She dutifully questioned the witnesses against Calloway. She ensured to the best of her ability that Calloway received the due process guaranteed to all Americans who are accused of a crime.

In South Carolina Dylann Storm Roof will have attorneys who see that his rights are guaranteed, especially if the death penalty is sought.

So what, you may ask at this point, do the trial of a homeless black teen charged with murder in Houma for the senseless killing and the alleged actions of a young white man only a few years his senior have to do with each other?

The answer is apparent only if you do a good job of reading between the lines.

If Wallace’s testimony is accurate and if Dylann Roof’s profile tests true, then in both cases unresolved issues in this nation have played a role.

The demons that allow some of us to judge and to pigeonhole on the basis of race and other differences, the ones who whisper in the ear that all whites have money and so make good targets, or that blacks are taking over and have to be stopped, it’s the same crew at work in Houma or in Charleston, on psyches white and black.

How much talk in the street or at a dinner table has allowed killers to see their victims as something less than themselves, something not quite human? And how much of that over history has had its roots in race and economic inequality?

But we don’t want to have the racial dialogue, not the true dialogue as a society that will put us in someone else’s shoes. And until that happens more tragedies will unfold. Little murders on city streets. Murders with bigger body counts like the crime in Charleston.

We have proved that we can put men on trial to answer for their crimes, time and time again. But so far the demons remain at large, and will wreak their havoc until we acknowledge that they exist, which is the first step toward holding them accountable.

It’s time we got to work.