No one could sanely argue against the statement that the nation has been overly saturated with the events of Martin-Zimmerman. Irrespective of the thoroughly sopping topic of skin color, we can now sit and watch the New Orleans saga of Coulter-Landry.

Marshall Coulter is 14, black and hospitalized. Merritt Landry is 33, white, and he shot Coulter.

Details to follow.

We will see if the major media follow their usual pattern in reporting such headlines.  I predict, with no doubt, they will, indeed.  It has already started.

The two sub-headlines are: “In a city where fear of crime pervades, the response to a shooting of an unarmed black teen by a white man has been muted.” … “New Orleanians united by fear.”

Al Sharpton’s buddy, Rev. Raymond Brown, wasted no time in dealing the race card. He attended a “unity meeting” organized by Nadra Enzi, founder of Brothers Against Crime. So wonderfully and unexpectedly, other attendees shouted Brown down.

Here’s the crux of the story as set forth in the L. A. Times on Aug. 29:

Landry is married with one toddler and an pregnant wife. He was a football player at Holy Cross High and has been described as “the kind of boy you’d want as your brother or son.”  He is a building inspector for the city of New Orleans with no reports of any prior run-ins with the law.”

The Landry residence is surrounded by a fence of 7-foot-high steel bars, plus steel spikes, with a “pneumatic ram … larger that a man’s arm” that secures the gate to the property within. Friends dubbed it “the cage.”

The surrounding neighborhood is anything but crime-light.

Nathan Harrison, a worker at an office across the street, was mugged by “young kids. Like 13 or 14.”  A neighbor, Steven Spehar, was “jumped … by three kids, maybe 15 years old, tops.”

A man was killed on the same street within hours of the Coulter-Landry incident.

Another neighbor, Charles Hazouri, has a security camera that videotaped Coulter and a friend as they watched the Landry home, trespassed onto the property and leaned their bicycles up against the house.

Hazouri could not decipher exactly how the two got into Landry’s enclosed property, but he saw a “white tank top rising higher and higher, then dropping into the cage.”

It was nearing 2 a.m.

In short summary, Landry’s dog was roused, it barked, Landry grabbed his gun and went to the cage. Reportedly Coulter was 30 feet away, made a gesture and got shot. Shot once, and inside the gated property.

Landry is arrested and he and his lawyer aren’t talking at this point. Sounds like a smart move.

Coulter’s 23-year-old brother, David, did talk, and described his younger brother as a “professional thief.”

David’s not talking now.

It didn’t take long for the flames of judge-connections and race to be to be fanned. Landry’s dad said he would put up his home as bond, and the arrestee was released – within hours versus days. The area’s NAACP demands the judge be investigated by numerous agencies.

Like some states, Louisiana has a home-defense statute or “castle” law, but the drums are beating. Already political pressure abounds with the parish’s D.A. “weighing his options.”

The Times article contained its usual share of speculation by outsiders.  However, the basic facts are bold and clear.

The streets around the Landry residence are inarguably frequented by crime. A homeowner prudently tried to protect the sanctuary of his home, his pregnant wife and 2-year-old chile with an open-and-obvious 7-foot, steel-spiked fence and hugely barred gate.

At 1:45 a.m. on July 26, two intruders took extraordinary measures to breech what should be a family’s safety zone, and one was shot.

How dark was it in that space at 2 a.m.?  Did Landry know the color of Coulter’s skin, and moreover, is color really a factor, considering the fearful heat of that moment’s circumstance?

A threat is a threat. Threats are not designated by colors.

Most of all, why should Merritt Landry be saddled with any undue responsibility for Marshall Coulter’s safety while, with clear evidence, both Coulter and his parents voluntarily waived their absolute duties?

Betty Arenson has lived in the SCV since 1968 and describes herself as a conservative who’s concerned about progressives’ politics and their impacts on the country, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She says she is unashamed to own a gun or a Bible, couldn’t care less about the color of the president’s skin, and demands that he uphold his oath to protect and follow the Constitution of the United States in its entirety. Her commentary publishes Fridays.