The family of a 14-year-old Black boy shot and killed in Lawrence, Kansas, wants the white teen who killed him tried on federal hate crime charges. Kamarjay Shaw died on March 18 after allegedly being shot by then-17-year-old Derrick Del Reed.
According to the Lawrence Journal-World, Kamarjay’s cousin, Michael Berry, requested the hate crime charges in a letter written to Kansas U.S. attorney Kate Brubacher. Reed was charged with first-degree murder as an adult following the shooting death of Kamarjay near Maple Lane and 13th Street in Lawrence on March 18.
Reed has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys plan to argue self-defense. However, according to the Lawrence Times, his mother says video footage shows Kamarjay running away when he was shot.
The court heard testimony in a preliminary hearing in August that Reed threatened Kamarjay with racial slurs via Snapchat earlier in the day. Reed said in the messages he was tired of fighting with Shaw and his friends, whom he referred to as racial slurs, and was ready to start shooting.
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“I’m gonna let them try some funny (expletive) … Them (N-word) are dead fr(for real)” and “I see a whole lotta dead (N-word),” the Snapchat messages said, according to the Laurence-Journal World.
The hearing also revealed that a teenage girl called one of Kamarjay’s friends via Snapchat and asked the 14-year-old to come outside because Reed wanted to fight him. Witnesses testified that Kamarjay was half a football field away from Reed’s front door when the shooting occurred, according to ABC News.
“I believe this is a clear cut violation of 18 U.S. Code § 249 (the federal hate crime statute),” Berry wrote in the letter, and Reed “through the use of a firearm, killed Kamarjay Shaw in…
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