On Friday, July 29th, three Black men, Deshawn Stafford Jr., 20, Tyler Stafford, 19, and Donovon Jones, 21, were indicted by a Summit County Grand Jury for the violent killing of White Akron, Ohio teenager, Ethan Liming on June 2nd. While initially charged with murder for the offense by police, Summit County District Attorneys have since downgraded the charges to involuntary manslaughter and assault. If convicted on the severest charges, the accused would only face a maximum sentence of 3 to 11 years in prison for the brutal, racially targeted slaying. The case further highlights the blatant double standards at play for White people in the Buckeye State and nationwide.
When local media reached out to Brad Gessner, the chief counsel for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office, and asked why charges had been downgraded, Mr. Gessner replied that additional information had come to light that had impacted the Grand Jury, but that he couldn’t explain further because the information is secret. Thanks to this secret information, Gessner and the Prosecutor’s office are able to shirk their duty enforce the law in a racially inconvenient crime while leaving the defense attorneys for the killers free to spin an absurd narrative of “self-defense” amid a social media prank “gone wrong.”
To make matters worse, Donovan Jones, who, according to a police affidavit, “stomped and kicked Liming in the head multiple times, resulting in Liming’s death,” was only issued two misdemeanor assault charges. If convicted, Jones will serve a maximum of only six months in jail for the offense, despite being accused of brutalizing an unconscious teenager on the concrete of an elementary school parking lot.
Eddie Sipplen, attorney for Donovan Jones, blamed Ethan for his own murder, referencing the toy Splat-R-Ball water gun that one of Ethan’s friends fired at the the Staffords and Jones, stating, “Ethan and his friends were wrong… They thought it was funny. My client and his friends did not.”
Leaving aside the absurdity of claiming that crushing someone’s skull is a reasonable response to having a water gun fired at you as a prank, Ethan never even shot the water gun! In fact, he attempted to deescalate the fight that that followed. Nevertheless, the media, police, local government, and defense attorneys are all working hand-in-hand to push the narrative that the killing had nothing to do with Ethan’s race, but was a justified response to a deadly threat from a toy water gun. Ethan’s friends, who actually fired the water gun and were neither beaten to death nor charged with any crime relating to the water gun, were Black.
During a press conference after Ethan’s death, Akron Police Chief Steven Mylett came out in defense of the three Black killers, immediately disavowing any racial motivation and showcasing a florescent orange and white Splat-R-Ball water gun while warning of the dangers it could present on the street. These statements by Mylett prejudiced the case against the victim from the beginning and lent credence to the narrative that Ethan’s murder was somehow justified, despite autopsy reports that detailed the severity of Ethan’s injuries.
Suffering from a broken neck, disfigured face, shattered occipital bone, and sustaining kicks so forceful that imprints of the attacker’s shoes had been left on Ethan’s chest, the seventeen-year-old athlete had no chance of surviving what could only be described as a premeditated act of murder. Continuing to beat and stomp someone who is unconscious cannot honestly be characterized any other way than intent to kill.
Even Lee Plakas, a Canton city attorney representing the Liming family, claims that the incident stems from the #OrbeezChallenge, a social media game originating on TikTok. By focusing the discussion on frivolous nonsense like games, toys, tik tok challenges, and by centering the victims’ actions, media and government officials are downplaying the racially motivated slaying as nothing more than summertime hi-jinx gone awry! A narrative the three Black killers can leverage to skirt justice and walk free after committing a racial lynching.
Why did the Akron Police Department declare that the crime was not racially motivated before even making a single arrest? Why is the media refusing to discuss the extent of the brutal violence committed by the accused? Why are defense attorneys allowed full court press to spin any narrative that they please, while at the same time, the prosecution in charge of demanding justice for Ethan Liming appears completely silent and impotent in the face of what should be a clear-cut murder and hate crime charge?
The answer is simple. The system is anti-White, and refuses to even grant White victims of racial slayings the dignity of charging their killers with hate crimes or even murder. This blatant anti-White bias in the justice system and throughout government, law and media is why the National Justice party was formed. We demand justice for young Ethan Liming, hate crimes charges for his killers and punishment for all officials involved in this outrageous display of racial bias and corruption.
Originally published at National Justice Party.