Did accused Midtown shooter target victims for being white?

Forty-five days after neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., a special prosecutor charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder on Wednesday.

This is what thousands of protestors across the country had been demanding for weeks as the racially charged case has captivated the nation. Zimmerman, who has a white father and Hispanic mother, has said he acted in self-defense during the confrontation with Martin.

This explanation has been scoffed at by protesters, such as the hundreds who rallied in Los Angeles on Monday, many carrying signs that read, "It's more than a march. It's a movement."

But what about Brittany Watts and Lauren Garcia?

They of course are the victims of the in Midtown where police say Nkosi Thandiwe shot and killed in the Crescent Avenue parking garage before stealing her car. While fleeing, Thandiwe allegedly shot two more women, including Garcia, who was left paralyzed with spinal cord injuries.

The other woman, Tiffany Ferenczy, was shot in the leg. Watts was white, as are Garcia and Ferenczy.

Thandiwe, who is black, was formally charged with murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, gun possession and other charges last October. He remains in Fulton County jail without bond. There is a motions hearing slated for later this month and his lawyers have asked the court for a mental evaluation.

Last week, Garcia and Ferenczy, along with Brian Watts, whose young wife was killed that mid-summer afternoon, all filed separate lawsuits against Allied Barton Security Services and the owners of the building in Fulton County Superior Court. Allied Barton employed Thandiwe as a security guard at the building and the complaints claim negligence on the part of the company.

And then on Monday, Channel 2 Action News reported that after examining the 43-page lawsuit, it appears that race may have played a role in the triple-shooting rampage.

According to Channel 2, the lawsuit says the accused shooter “demonstrated an intensely negative attitude toward another race, which was unnamed.”

The news outlet went on to report that weeks before the shooting, Thandiwe had been involved in an altercation with a building visitor, as Channel 2 said he “assailed a visiting courier with racial epithets and had to be physically restrained by company personnel from striking and causing harm to visitors.”

And yet, this news item more or less just slipped under the radar. Certainly so when compared to the nation-wide frenzy that is ongoing surrounding the case in Florida.

Where is the outrage from the white community regarding this deadly shooting that could turn out to be the result of a moment of racial hate?

Are white people too apathetic to protest about the brutal slaying of this 26-year-old woman? Are whites too scared about being labeled a racist to protest the senseless shooting of a 22-year-old woman who has been left paralyzed from the waist down?

Why has the killing of teenage boy in Florida caused so much outrage across our country, yet so long ago it became yesterday’s news that for unexplained reasons a young woman in Midtown was gunned down while walking to her car?