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Rev. Al Sharpton said Christopher Lane slaying not racial

By DANIELLE HAYNES, UPI.com
Rev. Al Sharpton said he won't protest Christopher Lane's slaying because it wasn't racially motivated. UPI/Win McNamee/POOL
Rev. Al Sharpton said he won't protest Christopher Lane's slaying because it wasn't racially motivated. UPI/Win McNamee/POOL | License Photo

Rev. Al Sharpton said the reason he's not protesting the slaying of Australian baseball player Christopher Lane in Oklahoma, as he did with the death of Trayvon Martin, is because Lane's death wasn't racial.

During his MSNBC show, "PoliticsNation," Sharpton said he believed Lane, a white college student at East Central University, to be the victim of a random act and there was no racial motive.

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Three teenagers were arrested for the killing, in which Lane was allegedly shot as he jogged down a street in Duncan, Okla.

James Edwards Jr., 15, and Chancey Luna, 16, both black, were charged as adults with first-degree felony murder, said Kaylee Chandler, Stephens County, Okla., court clerk. Michael Jones, 17, who is white and the alleged driver in the drive-by shooting, faces charges of use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and accessory after the fact to murder.

“I protest when I’m called in and when there’s an injustice. The three were arrested, there was nothing to protest. The system worked there, and racial? Not only did the police not say it was racial, one of the three were white,” Sharpton said.

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“That doesn’t stop my friends over at Fox and Donald Trump and others say, ‘Why isn’t Al Sharpton protesting this?’” Sharpton said. “You have people feeling that I wouldn’t go in because it was three blacks that killed a white and no justice was done. If you get your information from the wrong source, you blame President [Barack] Obama for the response to Hurricane Katrina.”

Meanwhile, three days prior to the killing, Edwards said on his Twitter account, "With my [expletive] when it's time to start taken life's." In April, he posted a more racially offensive tweet.

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