Florida Executes A White Man For Killing A Black

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

For the first time in history, in the state of Florida a white man was executed on Thursday for having killed a black man. Since the 1970 death penalty was reinstated in the United States, it has been applied to 20 whites for killing blacks and 288 blacks for killing whites.

On July 18, 1987, after drinking alcohol, James Asay went out with his brother and a friend to search for sex in Jacksonville, a neighborhood located in North Florida - an area that has a strong racist past. Asay's brother was the first to make contact with Robert Lee Booker, a 34-year-old African-American man, when Asay approached and without thinking shot him in the stomach. Brooker fled, but bled to death in a nearby alley.

When his friend LE asked Asay why he had done what he did coldly he replied: "Blacks have to be taught who's boss."

After murdering Booker, the trio met Robert McDowell, 26, a white, Hispanic man dressed as a woman who offered them oral sex. During the negotiation, the group began to argue and Asay killed McDowell with six shots.

In an interview for News4Jax, Asay said that he did not shoot Brooker - who according to Asay was his acquaintance and called him René - and took the opportunity to give his version of what happened with McDowell. "I am so sorry for what happened," said Asay, who justified his far-right tattoos and said he did them in order to survive in prison. “I didn't go out with the intention of having a problem with anyone. I was drunk".

According to information in The New York Times, Asay's death by lethal injection is a milestone because it is the first time that the drug etomidate has been used in the United States to administer capital punishment.