A couple of weeks ago, 32-year-old Jeremy Brown of Chicago had a very bad day. He went to the Maxwell Street Express hot dog shop and wound up getting in an argument with a woman named Carlishia Hood. The argument turned into a physical altercation. Then Hood managed to send a text to her 14-year-old son who was waiting in the car, ordering him to bring her gun into the eatery. The son entered the premises and shot Brown in the back. When he exited and attempted to flee, the son shot him again and he later died of his wounds. Both Hood and her son were subsequently arrested, but now they have been freed and the charges against both of them were dropped. Something here clearly doesn’t seem to be adding up. (NY Post)

A Chicago woman who was arrested for murder after allegedly ordering her 14-year-old son to shoot a man dead in a fast-food eatery was freed Monday after prosecutors dropped the charges against her and the teen.

Carlishia Hood, 35, and her son had both been charged with first-degree murder last week for the June 18 shooting death of Jeremy Brown, 32, at the hot dog joint Maxwell Street Express, CBS Chicago reported.

Hood and Brown had gotten into an argument while waiting for food and the mother allegedly texted her son who was waiting in the car to come help her.

You probably haven’t seen this story on cable news or in the mainstream newspapers. That’s most likely because the people involved are from the wrong demographics. (Hood and her son are both Black.) Stories of Black people shooting each other don’t advance The Narrative, so Mr. Brown’s death has been relegated to “local news” status. But the story is still worthy of examination.

We should first note that Jeremy Brown was not a blameless innocent bystander in all of this. He reportedly engaged fully in the argument. A video captured by a customer shows him repeatedly punching Ms. Hood in the head. So in that regard, she was entitled to act in self-defense. That’s the claim that prosecutors are making in justifying the release of both mother and son.

But the subsequent actions by both of them leave self-defense claims in the dust. It is perhaps excusable that the son shot Brown after entering the eatery and seeing him beating on his mother. But at that point, Brown fled the building. All Ms. Hood need to do next was call the police. Brown would obviously have shown up at a hospital sooner or later and they could have taken him into custody if appropriate.

Instead, Carlishia Hood “ordered” her son to pursue Brown outside and keep shooting. He complied. To make matters worse, the mother then ordered her son to shoot another woman who had been inside and had reportedly been laughing at the spectacle of Hood and Brown fighting. Fortunately, the boy did not carry out the second order to shoot. They both then got in her car and left.

The scene inside the restaurant was self-defense. The scene outside was cold-blooded murder. No matter what he did previously, when a wounded man is limping away from you and you continue shooting him in the back, you have no claim to self-defense. And the fact that the mother “ordered” the son to keep shooting makes her culpable in the crime since the adult is supposed to know better. How this case is being dismissed is both a mystery and a miscarriage of justice. Jeremy Brown may not have been a saint and he clearly committed assault, but he didn’t deserve to be shot in the back repeatedly.

Hood has now filed a lawsuit against the city. Go figure. Not only will she get away with abetting a murder, but she’ll probably wind up a millionaire because of it.