Working as a delivery driver is an easy path to a long dark night of the soul. Eight hours of folks wondering why their package wasn't delivered earlier, miserable traffic conditions and heavy carrying heavy stuff up flights of stairs or wheeling boxes around tight corridors on a dolly and people that won't get the hell out of the way is enough to wear anyone down.
And that's before bringing racists into the equation.
From The Washington Post:
Timothy Warren was driving his FedEx truck through a verdant Portland, Ore., neighborhood when the man he would soon kill screamed that Warren was going too fast.
Warren stopped his truck. He was exhausted, he tried to explain to Joseph Magnuson that night in late September, and just wanted to get done with his work.
Magnuson was unrelenting and hurled numerous aggressive insults and racist slurs toward him.
That was something Warren, who is black, could not abide.
He stepped out of the truck, and both men yelled at one another.
Magnuson took a swing. Warren swung back, connecting a single blow above Magnuson's left eye that sent him tumbling to the ground.
Magnuson, 55, briefly lost consciousness, then died later that evening.
When police began the task of piecing together what the hell had happened, they had plenty to work with. Six people witnessed Magnuson's racist rant. Three of the six had seen the whole thing go down, from soup to nuts. Everyone the cops spoke with said that Warren had been driving safely. Read the rest
