Reports of a shooting in Paddington Place, Annapolis where a 43-year-old Charles Robert Smith, has been charged with killing three people and injuring three others. The victims are found to be Latino people which puts Smith under the category of hate crime.
Image Source: NBC News
The Neighbourly Conflict
The altercation occurred between the Smiths and Mireles next door. The six people shot were attendees of a big party at the Mireles’. There was a dispute between Shirley Smith and Mario Mireles when Charles Smith, her son, brought out a gun and shot Mario Mireles and Christian Segovia.
Then he went back into the house, brought a rifle and started shooting repeatedly at the window where people had started to come out and help a severely wounded Mario Mireles. Charles Smith fatally shot Nicolas Mireles, Mario Mireles’ father.
He critically wounded Rosalina Segovia, Enner Canales Hernandez and Paul Johnson. When the police arrived, Smith admitted to shooting the neighbours and claimed he only brought out the gun because they started firing at the Smiths’ home.
History of the perpetrator with victims
The reason for the conflict between the neighbours was over an issue with the parking. But this is not the first time that an argument or disagreement has occurred between them. Charles Robert Smith and the rest of the Smiths have had a history of conflict with their neighbours, the Mireles.
The two families have been neighbours for a long time and have had a series of disagreements over the years. The Mireles have reported the Smiths and taken matters to court under claims of Smiths using racial slurs. There was an incident when Mario Mireles got a peace petition signed and accused Shirley Smith of verbally abusing and harassing them and their neighbours who were Black.
He also once reported that Shirley Smith drove her car very close to him when he was washing his car and accused her of trying to attack him. She in turn claims that he would throw rocks at street signs and hit vehicles.
The Implications
Charles Robert Smith killed three people- Mario Mireles, Nicolas Mireles and Christian Segovia and injured three others- Rosalina Segovia, Enner Canales Hernandez and Paul Johnson.
According to the Annapolis Police Department, the incident falls under a hate crime and he will be charged with it. The indictment says that he faces three counts of race crime, three counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted first-degree murder for the killings and severely injuring the others. Charles Robert Smith faces life in prison with little to no chance of parole.
Conclusion
Hate crime is something that has come to light only in recent years and earlier it was called discrimination and harassment. It has only been listed as a crime now. But it still does not bring the type of responsibility in people that is expected of them.
Using racial slurs and abusing people of a different race or religion is not unheard of. But the losses that the Mireles have undergone are unimaginable.
Should one’s personal beliefs and values teach them to be discriminative against people that look different from them or are from a different faith and drive them to the crime of this degree? Does it validate the violence that has taken place in the case of the Mireles? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.
