Murder and Homicide

1.         Basically homicide is when one person kills another person.  Murder, however, needs the intent to kill another human.  So both involve the killing of an individual, but the separating factor is if there is any intent to kill or not.  If there is, it is murder; if there is not, it is a homicide.

            From looking around there seem to be several categories for each (murder and homicide), and even more is that they seem to overlap to some extent.  It appears, however, that the three main categories for homicide are justifiable, excusable, and criminal.  Within criminal homicide, there are murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide.  Murder is also broken down into the first and second degrees, as manslaughter is broken down into voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.  For murder, there are several categories such as felony, capital, vehicular homicide, and justifiable homicide.

2.         I found an article about a Matthew Hinrichsen who was charged with two accounts of first degree murder, two accounts of use of a firearm in a felony, and arson.  All of this was from when he burned down a mobile home with a Victoria "Vickie" Lee and Gabino Alex Vargas inside, who both died as a result.  Vickie was an ex-girlfriend of Matthew and they had reportedly had some trouble in their relationship.  The articles mainly focused on how Vickie was an outstanding citizen who worked hard and diligently to help her community.  She had many friends who spoke well of her and thought that what happened was a tragedy.  Other than that, the information given is mostly in a matter-of-factly manner, giving information on what happened and who all was involved.  Unfortunately, after quite some time searching for an article on what he was actually convicted on, I couldn't find out.  The last date in the online news was on January 21st.

http://www.ktiv.com/story/20314893/2012/12/11/nebraska-man-accused-of-a-double-murer-makes-his-intital-court-appearance-this-afternoon-matthew-hinrichsen

http://www.southwestiowanews.com/council_bluffs/news/former-mo-valley-resident-council-member-killed/article_b1c40666-3319-57b0-b91e-c105d1daa20d.html

http://www.nelighnews.com/news/article_f5b9f414-43cf-11e2-946f-001a4bcf6878.html

http://www.nelighnews.com/news/article_391c1df8-63ed-11e2-94e9-001a4bcf6878.html

3.         Of course murder and homicide are subjects of many different forms of stories.  For instance, one book, Along Came A Spider, deals with an individual, Gary Soneji, who is a psychopathic serial murderer.  He has quite the history of murders and plans to do more despite being targeted by virtually everyone, including the Secret Service.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13145.Along_Came_a_Spider

            A movie popped into my head for another case about this topic: Se7en.  This story revolves around two homicide detectives trying to catch a serial killer who is murdering his victims in line with the seven deadly sins.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/

Mob Violence

1.         Mob violence is violence acted upon by a mob, which is an out of control crowd usually acting on emotion.  Another definition found is related strongly to mob violence, in the form of a riot: a disturbance of the peace by several persons, assembled and acting with a common intent in executing a lawful or unlawful enterprise in a violent and turbulent manner.  (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Mob+violence)  Two examples include rioting and lynching.

            It exists because groups of people gather, forming a crowd, and then an individual, or group of individuals, triggers the crowd to act out violently because of emotions that now loosely unites the mob together.  People have and probably always will have at least some type of problem with each other and when this dislike or hatred is brought out in a crowd setting, it can turn into something very dangerous.

2.         At its heart, this story, from 1919 in Omaha, Nebraska, revolves around an African American, named Will Brown, who was accused of assaulting a Caucasian woman, Agnes Loebeck.  Brown was shortly later stripped, beaten, shot, dragged, hanged, and burned by a large mob estimated being anywhere from roughly 5,000 people to roughly 15,000 people.  Two other people were killed in the turmoil: a 34-year-old businessman, and a 16-year-old "leader of the mob."

            During this time period, race riots were happening all over the place and it was not necessarily out of the ordinary - or at the very least not surprising when they happened.  There were multiple theories as to how the mob was truly formed.  Many believed that it was actually organized in the shadows by those vying for power and control in and over the city.  Others believe that it was several teenagers who initially started the riot and it essentially snowballed to what it became.  It appears that whether or not the Bee (a newspaper company and also suspected, though not proven, to be one of the ones who may have organized the riot from the shadows) had anything to do directly with the riot, its contents egged on those participating in the riot.

            After the army had finally appeared and gotten the city under control, they began to investigate what had transpired.  Even though around 300 people being taken in for questioning, they were all released soon thereafter and nothing was done to any suspects.  However, the people's faith in the police department of the city diminished despite efforts after the fact by the police department to swell its ranks and gather riot equipment.

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/stories/0701_0134.html

3.         This first source is a book that deals with lynching, something found in relative abundance in the south.  However, this book instead focuses in all areas outside the south, giving a broader view of how lynching occurred throughout America.  Although it's a collection of essays, it brings to light that such events weren't confined to the south and that people of all races were victims of lynching.  The book also showed the distinctions between the different areas such as the West and Midwest.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2688735275993?r=1&cm_mmca2=pla&cm_mmc=GooglePLA-_-Book_25To44-_-Q000000633-_-2688735275993

            The second book I found dealt with the span of 1949 to 1951, focusing on how mob violence was the center of journalism and also the movie industry.  The book recites many different riots that happened and the reactions of the newspapers at the time.  It also showed how the people in the film industry used these happenings as bases for their own material.

http://www.google.com/shopping/product/6469247183651066542?q=Books%20about%20Mob%20Violence&hl=en&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&biw=1600&bih=799&sa=X&ei=J09GUeLgEbTJ4AP5uoGoBg&ved=0CJUBEPMCMAc