Huh. Roderick Scott went out of his house to confront a trio of punks breaking into cars in his Greece, New York neighborhood. Scott’s story was that he fired two rounds at one of them when the young man charged him after being told to freeze and wait for the cops. So, we largely have an inverse image of the incident in which Trayvon Martin perished, complete with the kinfolk weeping thusly . . .

“The message is that we can all go out and get guns and feel anybody that we feel is threatening us and lie about the fact,” said Jim Cervini, Christopher’s father. “My son never threatened anybody. He was a gentle child, his nature was gentle, he was a good person and he was never, ever arrested for anything, and has never been in trouble. He was 16 years and four months old, and he was slaughtered.”

Alas, for the future value of the Christopher Cervini trademark and subsequent merchandise sales, young Chris didn’t really look like the son of anyone famous or influential. If they’d had one.

How heavily did stories of gangs of rednecks beating the life out of a black man hang upon the mind of Mr. Scott in the split second before he pulled the trigger? Who cares?

The jury clearly believed that Scott was in fear for his life when he defended himself, and all the second-guessing and carping about him being a wannabe cop went either unmentioned, or unheeded. Absent more information that the state, with all its resources, was not able to cobble together a case to the satisfaction of the jury, I believe that Cervini’s death is one of the possible outcomes of a young man being out screwing around when he shouldn’t have been.

When I was growing up, that’s what I was told. Run with a bad crowd, bad things can happen. Act a certain way, dress a certain way, mouth off to the wrong person, and bad things can and do happen.

Neither President Obama nor Attorney General Eric Holder were not available for comment.