Two white Christian men converse amiably for half hour with two blacks set on murder, who then murder them
John Hagan writes:
An amazingly savage act. What caught my eye was the fact that these two black thugs went out with the intent to murder and rob people, and that the two young white men who were slaughtered engaged in talk with these two savages for over half an hour, telling them about their recording business and their Christianity, before the blacks pulled out their guns and killed them. Where was the intuitive grasp of the situation on the part of these young men?
We can guess that they have been stripped of that ability by our culture. Check out the video link of this savage talking and tell me that if this guy approached you randomly on the street this would not raise some concern for you?
In the linked video, Demarius Cummings describes the murders in detail. He’s soft spoken. You can see how naive white people might see him as just another down and out black man in need of kindness and help. What so many people don’t understand is that savages often have sympthatic, “nice” qualities. But Cummings is obviously a very low-level creature. For Butler and Swan to stand and talk with him for 30 or 45 minutes, as Cummings said they did, shows a fatal failure to grasp reality which was, in this case, fatal. Were Swan and Butler completely unaware of black on white violence?
Interestingly, when some people first heard about the murders taking place outside a recording studio owned by the victims, they assumed the victims were black rappers.
Here is a story with photos of Mathew Butler’s widow and brother remembering him.
Below is the complete article from the Dallas Morning News.
Suspects say Garland recording studio killings netted them ‘just $2’
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com
Two dollars.
That’s how much Demarius Cummings said he found in the pockets of two Christian-music producers whom his cousin James Broadnax, speaking in a separate jailhouse interview, admitted gunning down early Thursday in Garland.
The 19-year-old suspects gave interviews Monday at the Dallas County Jail, where each is being held on $1 million bail.
Both are charged with capital murder.
“I murdered both of them,” said Mr. Broadnax, of Texarkana, Ark., referring to Matthew Butler, 28, and Stephen Swan, 26. “No hesitation or nothing.”
Mr. Cummings, of Dallas, said he would not be surprised to get the death penalty.
“If that’s what it is, justice has to be served,” he said. “It wasn’t the plan to kill them; it was just to rob them.
“I feel regretful. I feel for the family, or whatever.”
The motive, both men said, was money.
On Wednesday evening, the cousins took a train from Dallas to downtown Garland looking for people to rob, they said.
“Let’s just say, I was in a bind,” Mr. Broadnax said. “I needed money. I needed a car.
“They were in the wrong spot at the wrong [expletive] time,” he said of the victims. “They should have had their [expletive] at home.”
After watching Mr. Broadnax speak on the TV news Monday evening, David Colunga, stepfather of Mr. Butler’s wife, said he was “at a loss for words.”
“Two dollars. It’s heartbreaking,” Mr. Colunga said. “All I can say is that hopefully Mr. Broadnax realizes he took a father away from his kids. Hopefully, he can find some kind of peace within himself.”
Mr. Butler left a 2-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. Mr. Swan was single and had no children.
A bicyclist found their bodies just after 1 a.m. Thursday outside Mr. Butler’s studio in the 800 block of State Street in downtown Garland.
The day after the slayings, the two suspects visited the Dallas apartment of Mr. Cummings’ aunt, who overheard them bragging about “hitting a lick,” or committing a robbery.
She wrote down the license plate of Mr. Swan’s 1995 Crown Victoria, which they were driving.
She also picked up Mr. Swan’s driver’s license, which the men tossed as they were leaving her apartment.
A few hours later, police in Texarkana, Texas, pulled over the Crown Victoria for a traffic offense.
When they ran the car’s tags, police realized that it belonged to a murder victim.
Mr. Cummings has prior arrests on charges of vehicle and home burglary. Public records show no criminal history for Mr. Broadnax.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Broadnax and Mr. Cummings were about to abandon their hunt for someone to rob when they struck up a conversation with Mr. Butler, owner of Zion Gate Records, and Mr. Swan, his sound engineer, outside the studio.
The two victims talked for a half-hour or more about their studio and the fact that they were Christians.
Finally, the cousins made their move. Mr. Broadnax said he asked one of the men for a cigarette, then pulled out a gun.
Initially during Monday’s interview, Mr. Broadnax said he “blanked out” when he began shooting.
Later, he described the shootings in profanity-laced detail, recalling how he fired multiple times to make “sure they were dead.”
After driving off in Mr. Swan’s car, Mr. Cummings said, he and his cousin were disappointed in the small amount of money they had gotten.
“Like, ‘Man, just $2!’ ” Mr. Cummings recalled Mr. Broadnax saying. “I said the same thing: ‘Two dollars!’ ”
Mr. Cummings said they hoped to fetch more by taking the car to a chop shop in Texarkana.
Mr. Broadnax said he began the night expecting to take a life.
“Somebody was going to get hit any way it went,” he said.
He scoffed when asked if he was sorry. “Do it look like I got remorse?” he said.
Elizabeth Colunga, Mr. Butler’s mother-in-law, said she had no opinion on whether the two suspects should face the death penalty.
“I’m hurting right now,” she said. “My daughter is hurting right now. My grandbabies are hurting. They cry every night for Daddy.
“I cannot take one ounce of energy in my body and waste it on thoughts on these two men.”
Rebecca Lopez of WFAA-TV (Channel 8) contributed to this report.
- end of initial entry -
Rachael S. writes:
I watched the interview in the jail with Cummings. He didn’t kill the people, but he was fine with hanging out with one of his skinfolk who was obviously the alpha in their friendship, depending on that guy (Broadnax) to do the dirty-work needed to get the money. And there are probably a lot of blacks out there who commit racial sins of omission, by going with the flow of those criminals around them; people they look up to for being more virile than them, and more audacious, “cool”, etc. [LA replies: I thought Cummings say he fired too, maybe I misheard.]
It sounds like the two victims approached the perpetrators to talk to them, though maybe I heard it wrong. That was stupid. But I don’t share your belief that it is stupid of whites to approach interactions with the Other in the naive way that they do. If you live in an integrated society, and you are civilized, there is no other way to respond to those around you except by giving them the benefit of the doubt in many situations. [LA replies: Not in a million years would I get into a social conversation with two young black men who looked and sounded like Broadnax and Cummings.]
The only answer is separation, because if there isn’t separation there are variables that always creep back into social interactions that call for people to suspend their common sense in favor of civility. [LA replies: This is true.]
Rachael S. replies:
You write:
Not in a million years would I get into a social conversation with two young black men who looked and sounded like Broadnax and Cummings.
I regard that interaction (the victims talking to those criminals at that time of day in that particular place) as the extreme logical consequence of believing the best of people. So it was stupid, and liberalism would usually make the Unprincipled Exception to the rule of giving people the benefit of the doubt in that particular case. When I said I don’t share your belief that it is stupid of whites to approach interactions with Other in the naive way that they do, I was thinking of less critical interactions between races that tend to change whites, psychologically, financially, culturally, into guilty parties who will be forever taken advantage of. Thanks for the blog.
LA replies:
I’m not sure I follow the second half of your paragraph. Obviously in the real world white people and black people interact all the time, and no one thinks about it.
But let’s say there are three types of conversation:
Necessary interactions in the course of dealing with everyday life
Very brief social exchanges
Extended conversations.
I can imagine no circumstance in which a sensible white person would get into a non-necessary, extended social conversation with a Broadnax and Cummings, or have any attitude toward them other than extreme caution and suspicion.
Stephen T. writes:
“Not in a million years would I get into a social conversation with two young black men who looked and sounded like Broadnax and Cummings.”
What those poor guys didn’t realize—and, moreover, probably didn’t even want to know—is this: Pairs of blacks of the (as you indicate, readily-identifiable) caliber of those two never initiate long conversations with whites for casual social reasons. It just does not happen.
There is ALWAYS at least an ulterior—if not sinister—motive.
But the knowledge of that—and especially the innate gut feeling that “something’s wrong with this picture,” which whites of previous generations would have instinctively sensed—was probably considered “racist” by those nice young Christian men and banished from mind immediately.
LA replies:
Hell, Stephen, this type doesn’t initiate even a very brief interaction without an ulterior motive.
Rachael replies:
My statement was a bit confusing, let me try to explain.
You say that whites are stupid for approaching blacks in a naive way, naïve being defined as observing the rule that one should assume the best of everyone regardless of appearance. Probably most people, like you say in your last sentence, make an exception to that rule when they see hoodlums like Broadnax and Cummings. But let’s take a look at Cummings. I have seen black men who remind me of him, his mannerisms; he talks slowly, he doesn’t demonstrate a great deal of empathy or nuance. That type is a question mark, they could be neutral, they could be waiting to get one over on you. In my interactions with blacks, I have noticed a lot of this type.
If we assume there a lot of the Cummings types in society, and if also we assume that there are many permutations of the three types of interactions you describe, then the opportunities for giving and taking offense are increased. Whites usually become the pressure-reducers by relativizing blame in a confrontation, or by offering an olive branch in order to maintain civility, when they should stay firm.
Maintaining the civility maintains the illusion that we live in a just and civilized society, which is the ideal that whites aim for. And the interaction between the victims and the criminals before this crime was committed is the logical end-result of treating everyone with the benefit of the doubt, the perceived good of which is maintenance of civilized society. Their behavior was stupid but understandable from this perspective.
I could go into the different permutations of social interaction that I have experienced and engaged in, but I think that would be tedious. I may be overthinking things because I am an overly sensitive, polite person. Obviously there are white people who are less sensitive, and who may not think or care about being overly refined when engaging with blacks. But in my opinion there is a racial dynamic to all interactions between different peoples upon a deeper analysis.
LA replies:
What you’re really saying is that the victims’ behavior was understandable (i.e. excusable) from the point of view of liberalism. And there I agree with you. However, it was not understandable (i.e. excusable) from the point of view of maintaining a civilized society (let alone of preserving one’s life), because the Cummings and Broadnax types are not part of civilized society. And it is only liberals who fail to see that.
David B. writes:
I just read your post regarding the Garland, Texas double murder. Several months ago, I sent you a message, which you posted about a program I saw on the Fox News Channel about the Wichita Massacre. One of the victims, who was said to be studying for the priesthood, evidently let the Carr brothers into the house. I think it was about 20 degrees outside and they may have claimed to have car trouble and asked to use the phone. This is just speculation on my part, but quite possibly something like this happened in Garland.
LA replies:
Black hoodlums are very good at sounding needy and sympathetic. Given the racial realities of our society, which no reasonable person has any excuse not to know about, anyone who falls for such behavior is a fool. To let a strange young black man into one’s home is a suicidal act.
Clem writes:
“The only answer is separation, because if there isn’t separation there are variables that always creep back into social interactions that call for people to suspend their common sense in favor of civility. [LA replies: This is true.]”
Absolutely agreed. If we don’t separate we will be forced into destruction one way or the other, By sheer numbers at best or elimination at worst.
LA writes:
It would be appropriate here to quote my recent quote and discussion of Robinson Jeffers. The discussion had to do with relations with Muslims, but it also applies, mutatis mutandis (with all apppropriate changes being made) to racial relations as well.
I wrote:
I’m reminded of the famous closing lines of Robinson Jeffers’s poem, “Shine, Perishing Republic,” which we read in high school:
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the
thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say—
God, when he walked on earth.
From those last lines, we can assume Jeffers was not a Christian. But his message is something Christians can understand: that Christian—or liberal—compassion can easily be misdirected and go where it should not go. Compassion, like any other passion, must not be our master. It was Jesus after all who told his disciples not just to be gentle as a dove, but to be wise as a serpent. And the Gospel of John says:
But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:24-25.)
And in our more limited sphere, we know enough about Muslims to know what is in them, that they are commanded by their god never to be friendly with us. It is therefore utmost folly for us to give our hearts to them and to commit ourselves to them.
Greg F. writes:
There was a post yesterday about a black on white crime which called motive into question. I, being a cynical realist, cannot see any other motive for blacks to murder, rape, and rob whites. If the two studio owners were black, would they have been targets? Only in a dire situation, but most likely not. These boys took the trouble of leaving Dallas to commit a robbery, so they obviously would wait for the “unsuspecting” white people to pull a fast one. I still don’t know what planet people come from where society is this multicultural utopia. Maybe it is just me, but if we were to separate ourselves, which is the obvious solution, then the Muslims would continue to kill Muslims and the blacks would continue to kill each other, which is what they have always done (Africans sold their own brethren into slavery and held slaves themselves, and Muslims and blacks continue to off themselves in Africa and the Middle East). The amount of effort this requires on our part is MINIMAL.
Bill Carpenter writes:
Urban whites should not go unarmed. The Supreme Court has now said we can sit armed in our houses and wait to be attacked. Someday we will remember that free citizens can always and everywhere defend themselves and are never required to delegate their personal defense to governmental keepers. Stripping men’s weapons is a symptom of liberalism, governing everyone by the low standard by which we have to govern unrestrained savages.
Amit G. writes:
Hi lawrence, I think you put up a pictur by mistake there at vfr of Ian Smith because he was convicted of taking land away from the african peoples. also about the 2 christian white men who were killed you don’t talk about all those in the world that cristians have killed over many centuries byt that is not so important today because we are all being brouhgt together in differint ways (eg. by Barack or the UN). also the spanish rights given to apes is part of the uniting of the world so that one part of the environement is noit different from any other part because differences cause wars and divisions. Keep up the good work with VFR because this is a most important cite in the struggle for unity. BTW I agree that bl;aggers should be registered so that readers can check who they are. Like we license radio stations—radio owners have to show how they benefit the community and people testifuy on their behalf at hearings so I think that if vfr were to app;ly for a licence many posters would speak on your behalf and vfr would be certified as ok.
Mark Jaws writes:
Growing up in the Vladek Projects on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I learned as early as 1962 not to trust a black man. A super duper deluxe water gun costing the enormous sum back then of 89 cents was taken by two teenage black boys from the naive hands of little seven-year old Markie Jaws after they asked in a nice way if they could see it. For my trusting these hoodlums I got a squirt of water in my face and mocking laughter as they ran away. Even in my liberal, quasi-Marxist stage as an older teenager who attended City College in Harlem, I did not trust blacks. Now, 53 year-old Mr. Dirty Harry Mark Jaws packs a .357 magnum with him whenever he steps aside, and when unknown blacks get anywhere within a particular radius, the trigger hand goes on the weapon. In VA we have concealed carry. This is the way informed white men and women must act. You cannot trust certain blacks and we should not give a flying f__g if it hurts the feelings of honest and decent blacks.
Kevin V. writes:
I see you quoted “Shine, Perishing Republic” today.
My favorite poem. Glad to see I’m not alone in remembering Jeffers
Karl D. writes:
“… that Christian—or liberal—compassion can easily be misdirected and go where it should not go. Compassion, like any other passion, must not be our master.”
Bingo. I think besides these savages the elephant in the room is these men’s Christian beliefs. When they struck up a conversation with these two savages they were in an evangelical mode. If it had gone the way they wanted it to go they would have been talking to their friends the next day about how wonderful these two were and how they brought them to Christ. One only has to look at who some of the worst offenders are when it comes to bringing third worlders into the American heartland. Christian groups. I am by no means blaming the victim but am reminded of a famous quote that I will re-tool. The Bible is not a suicide pact.
LA replies:
The Bible is not a suicide pact. Karl D. has just made a permanent addition to traditionalist conservative thought.
Charles T. writes:
At a recent meeting our pastor described a ruse another pastor pulled on his own congregation. A Christian congregation in a larger city in our area was having an outdoor picnic. During the picnic, a strange looking man—dressed like a homeless man—was seen walking up and down the road in front of the church. No one asked him to join the picnic. The man continued to walk up and down the road for several more minutes. Eventually he came over and revealed himself to the people at he picnic. He was their pastor! When my pastor finished the story he had this broad grin across his face … what a great lesson for that congregation. They ignored the homeless man!
I, however, immediately had to comment by stating that: (1) the pastor deceived his own people; he lied to them, and (2) his lesson is a dangerous one; he was essentially teaching his congregation that they must ignore their own instincts for self-preservation in order to show compassion to others. I told my pastor that the deceitful pastor should not be doing this and that he was plainly wrong. The smile went away and surprisingly he agreed with me.
This is the type of bovine rubbish that is taught in our evangelical churches today. It went on while I was child and teenager. And it continues today. The evangelicals have strayed from teaching solid doctrine and rely on skits and deception to teach a very shallow type of Christianity. No, I correct myself. This is pseudo-Christianity. Jesus never taught like this. I can tell you that this type of deception is constant in Baptist circles. And, of course, the results are tragic.
The evangelicals are teaching their people to hate themselves … literally.
Karl D. writes:
Thank you very much. I consider it high praise indeed coming from yourself. Now at least I can say I have done SOMETHING with my life. : )
James M2 writes:
Please stop posting the comments of Amit G. He does not work as an example of liberal thought, to be learned from, because he is obviously constructing his messages for the specific purpose of trolling. Neither does he work as comic relief.
When that Mexican fellow called in to the John Dale show, you had him kicked off the line as soon as it became apparent that he was hostile to America. In my view this is the same deal. Kick Amit G. off your site. He is the enemy. He is static. He is a distraction.
LA replies:
Don’t you find him amusing? Also, I can’t think he’s for real. I think it’s an act.
James M2 replies:
Yes, it’s an act.
He spends a lot of effort packing his messages with bait, but he’s not smart enough to troll successfully on VFR. Perhaps I feel he’s more of a nuisance than an amusement because humor can’t exist without novelty, and his M.O. is so consistent. His notes are like those Nigerian scams: Each one is different, but each one is the same.
LA replies:
As I remember, when he first wrote to me, I challenged him on his bona fides. And he assured me he was who he said he was, and it seemed believable and I believed him. But this last one is obviously a put on.
But I do find it amusing. Especially the way he’s finding me wrong and racist on every single issue, even as he affectionately assures me of his support for my efforts: “Keep up the good work with VFR because this is a most important cite in the struggle for unity.”
LA continues:
I mean, it seems possible to me he’s a right-winger inventing this left-wing third-world character.
James M2 replies:
This seems likely to me, now that you’ve suggested it. I thought he was an assiduous yet transparent troll, perhaps more suited to stirring up the Sean Hannity forums. But looking again, his messages are too perfectly composed in their wrongheadedness to be anything but satire.
Thanks. I will no longer be so bothered by him.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 26, 2008 03:45 PM | Send