Judge Tells Convict: ‘Black Lives Don’t Matter to Black People with Guns’

Tareek Arnold NYPD
NYPD

Justice Edward McLaughlin told a Harlem man convicted of attempted murder that black lives do matter, but in his courtroom he’s learned that sometimes “black lives don’t matter to black people with guns.”

Tareek Arnold, who is 24 and black, was in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday to receive a 24 to 26-year sentence for his crime when Justice McLaughlin tore into him.

“Black lives matter,” Justice McLaughlin told Arnold matter-of-factly. “I have heard it, I know it, but the sad fact is in this courtroom, so often what happens is manifestations of the fact that black lives don’t matter to black people with guns.”

Arnold was convicted of shooting rival gang member, another black man, Jamal McCaskill, four times.

The shooting was caught on surveillance video.

Arnold’s attorney requested the minimum sentence of 10 years, arguing that his client’s infant son shouldn’t have to grow up without a father.

“Do not ask a judge in this room, in this building, or in this system to somehow make amends for the people who commit violent acts and who by their violent acts wind up leaving people orphaned, abandoned, fatherless,” McLaughlin said in response.

 

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson

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