From left, Freddy Morrow, Damien Darden and Marcus Merriweather are escorted into court in Springfield, where they were charged with first-degree murder in last Saturday's shooting of Michael Westerman.


From: Nashville Tennessean
By Donne Davis
Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD - At least two black youths accused of fatally shooting a 19-year-old white man thought they were shooting at a truck full of racists, not a friend, authorities say.

Freddy Morrow, Damien Darden and Tony Andrews, all 17, and Marcus Merriweather, 15, were charged Thursday with first-degree murder in the death of Michael David Westerman of Elkton, Ky. The Robertson County, Tenn., prosecutor asked that the Guthrie, Ky., teens be tried as adults.

The shooting has raised racial tensions in Guthrie. An FBI agent was investigating at least four cross burnings that have occurred there since Saturday, and Kentucky State Police officers are helping local police patrol the town of 1,400.

Westerman was shot Saturday in the heart after he and his wife, Hannah, left a Guthrie gas station. Authorities said a carload of black youths pursued them across the Kentucky border into Robertson County.

A Confederate flag was flying from a stand in Westerman's truck bed.

"I've talked to all of them and the only thing that might have motivated them was the fact that the truck had a Rebel flag on it," Robertson County Sheriff's Detective Dave Benton said.

"The suspects thought there were several males in the truck," which had tinted windows, Benton said. "They didn't know until later that they had known him.

"They were friends," he said.

"They played basketball with him," Robertson County Assistant District Attorney B. Dent Morriss said. "They did not recognize him when this incident took place, would not have hurt him, would have defused this situation had they been able to."

Morriss said authorities believe Morrow, who did not know Westerman, fired a .32-caliber pistoi sev-eral times at Westerinan's truck.

Westerman's father, David Westerman, said Thursday that the flag that played the role in his son's death was a simply an expression of pride in his high school, Todd Central, whose teams are known as the Rebels.

"He was the first boy out of my brothers' and sisters' to graduate high school," he said.

"It's a Rebel flag. It hangs in the school. It's no big deal. It's something people kicked up that's not worth being kicked up."

He appealed to whites in the community not to seek retribution.

"Michael would not have done it, and I don't want them to do it," he said. "I just want the justice system to do its job."

Morriss also down played racism as a motive.

"The flag is a thing that is an irritant to some people and under-standably so, because of tough times in our nation's past," Morriss
said. "On the other hand, it's a historical fact."

Clarence Johnson, a retired firefighter and leader of Guthrie's black community, blamed the shooting on the flag.

"They didn't intend to hurt him," he said. "They just wanted to stop him about the flag."

But Morrow's mother, Cynthia Batie of Riverdale, Ill., disagreed.
"The problem that brought this about was racism," she said.

Batie said her son called the incident "an altercation. Racial remarks were thrown out."

She said she believes prosecutors asked that the teens be tried as adults to "satisfy the community."

"They want retribution," Batie said.

Hannah Westerman, who attended Thursday's hearing along with her father and Westerman's parents, said her husband did nothing to provoke the shooting.

"We didn't know we were in trouble until we were sitting in the market and they were pointing at us and laughing," she said. "Then when we went down the road, they was following us. We were worried but we never thought something like that would happen."

Juvenile Judge Burton D. Glover set a Wednesday hearing on the request that the four be tried as adults.

Left: Hannah Westerman sits with her father, Bill Laster, in the Springfield courtroom during the suspect's arraignment.  Right: Suspect Tony Andrews is led into court.




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