In 1992, Russell Hinson, the “Exalted Cyclops” leader of the KKK in the late 1980s, was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting Felicia Houston in the chest with a crossbow as she walked down a sidewalk. Hinson was allegedly upset that he had been ripped off in a dope deal by a black drug dealer, so he wanted to take his revenge on the black community. Hinson even told a friend:
“I’m going to shoot a n****r through the heart.”
It took an all-white jury just a few hours to find Hinson guilty as charged.
But now the case of Russell Hinson–scum of the earth that he is–is before the State Parole Commission. Murder cases are reviewed every three years by the parole commission, and Hinson was denied parole in 2013.
Hinson wants the parole board to know that he’s a changed man. You see, he claims to have found God in prison, as so many who are incarcerated do. And even if Hinson is sincere and he has indeed turned his heart in the right direction, can that ever erase what he did to an innocent 16-year-old girl who is now dead simply because she was black?
Dennis Long, Hinson’s uncle, had this to say about his nephew:
“There’s no hatred there any more. We just have to learn to forgive.”
But Felicia Houston’s father, Eugene, disagrees with Long:
“If it hadn’t been for him, she would still be around with us.
“He got life; he should do life.”
Featured Image by Flickr available under a Creative Commons license.
