Nearly 700 people marched on March 29 from a Baptist church to the courthouse of rural Powhatan County, Virginia.
The majority-Black crowd, which included a sizable number of local white youths, were denouncing what they charged was a racially motivated decision by a Powhatan jury.
"Premeditated murder" is what Commonwealth attorney Robert B. Beasley had called the shooting death of 18-year-old Tahliek Taliaferro, a popular African-American local high school athlete. But on March 23, a nearly all-white jury convicted cousins Ethan and Joseph Parrish of the much lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Both Parrishs are white.
Taliaferro died last June when Ethan Parrish, by his own admission, fired a semiautomatic AK-47 assault rifle at a car in which the Black youth was riding. Shortly before, according to a witness, Parrish had attached an 83-round drum clip to the weapon, saying he was going to "smoke" Taliaferro.
Also shot in the attack was 15-year-old Courtney Jones, who survived.
At his trial, Ethan Parrish said he had only been trying to scare the car's occupants when the assault rifle "got away" from him. A semiautomatic weapon can only be fired by pulling the trigger for each individual shot. Ethan Parrish fired six times.
According to courtroom testimony, the shooting stemmed from a long-running feud between Taliaferro and Joey Parrish. After the shootings, the Parrishs fled to Canada. At the urging of their families, they returned and surrendered.
The Parrish cousins were charged with eight offences, including first-degree murder. But a jury of 11 whites and one Black convicted Ethan Parrish on the much lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter in Taliaferro's shooting and assault and battery in the wounding of Jones, recommending a sentence of just 11 years.
"Justice wasn't served", said an angry Kaa Caputo, Taliaferro's mother. The Virginia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is now raising questions about the fairness of the jury selection process.
The Parrishs' verdict and sentencing have been met with widespread shock and outrage by both Black and white county residents. After the trial, dozens of Black and white youths joined Taliaferro's family in several protests denouncing what they called a racist verdict and sentence.
Powhatan Sheriff Greg Neal, who is white, has questioned the jury's decision.
Taliaferro's family and the Powhatan County Branch of the NAACP then called for a larger protest for March 29. On the day of the march, hundreds of people gathered at Hollywood Baptist Church, a few blocks from the county courthouse. Many held homemade signs denouncing the Parrish jury conviction and sentence as a racist miscarriage of justice.
By the time the crowd arrived at the courthouse, anger and outrage had burst into the open as protesters loudly chanted "no justice, no peace!" For more than a half hour they circled the courthouse lawn, which features a statue honouring Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart.
The county and state NAACP have called for another protest for April 14, when Joey Parrish is scheduled for sentencing.
[Abridged from