1. Ethics miscreant 1: Walmart. Nice vetting and training there, Walmart! The store hired a sociopathic hoodlum, didn’t train her in basic customer service practices, and allowed its law-abiding, unsuspecting customers to wander the aisles unaware that they were at the mercy of violent social misfits.

2. Ethics Miscreants 2: The girl’s parents.

Part A: . No wonder she was raised to be confrontational, violent and disrespectful: those are their proclivities as well. I am tempted to jump to conclusions from the fact that her parents have different surnames: 70% of black teens are born to unmarried parents, meaning irresponsible, untrustworthy parents. Would any of this have happened in they had taught their child basic habits of civilized society?

Part B. Gee, where to begin? 1) You don’t attack strangers in a store. 2) You don’t attack seniors in a store. 3) You don’t attack and beat up people because your teen-age daughter tells you to. What kind of culture did these two ooze out of? There is no justification for this. Have they heard of words? Conversation? Civil discussion?

3. Ethics Miscreants 3: The employee, of course. Again a supposition: this seems like an incidence of assumed racism. Two non-blacks reprimanded a black girl, and she had been taught by her parents and encouraged by the Obamas, progressives and Democrats, Ibram X. Kendri, Charles M. Blow, Kamala Harris, the “1619 Project,” Critical Race Theory, her teachers, her church, Hollywood, race-hucksters, black activists and the George Floyd mob to believe that racism and bigotry is pervasive in all American interactions with blacks. You can add all of those participants and more as Ethics Miscreants 4-10,000.

How hard would it have been for the young woman to say to Bert, “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t paying attention. Is your wife all right?” Too hard. She was never taught basic manners and social skills; she was raised and socialized to distrust and disrespect non-blacks. Walmart never trained her to remember that the customer is, if not always right, at least to be given the benefit of every doubt and treated professionally and politely. Instead of saying “I’m sorry,” she threw a can.

4. Societal and political double standards. If this had been two white parents attacking an elderly black man for complaining when a young white jerk nearly ran his wife down with a cart, the episode would be a national sensation. Black Lives Matter would be raising funds off of the outrage, then buying mansions with the money. MSNOW and CNN would be blaming President Trump. Walmart would be picketed and boycotted.

5. The news media’s bias. The only major outlets outside of Virginia that I see covering this story are the conservative sourced like the New York Post. The New York Times, the Washngton Post, NPR, and the rest: Why, it’s just a local story! There’s no larger significance whatsoever, not like when a white cop accidentally contributes to the death of black perp resisting arrest while he’s overdosing on fentanyl.

6. The parents’ attorney’s defense theory is absurd, but you know, lawyers. He says his clients were defending their daughter—from words she didn’t like!— and that the alleged assault was not premeditated. Right. The parents just drove to the Walmart after their daughter told her about the incident to meet the Atienzas and invite them to dinner. “They did not go there, intending for any of this to happen. It was an emotional situation. Their daughter called them. She was distraught. They went, as any parent would do, to try to make sure that their daughter was safe and then the situation kind of erupted. It was spontaneous almost,” James Broccoletti said. “We think that the evidence establishes at best an assault because they punched the gentleman, there is some evidence my client may have kicked him, but that’s simple assault, that’s a misdemeanor. There is nothing that goes further than that, that indicates that there was any chance or likelihood or probability that this man would die as a result of this.”

A Larry Vaughn! “May have kicked him”! “I’m pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers.”—Amity Mayor Larry Vaughn, “Jaws”

I can’t blame the lawyer: he has a hopeless case, and he’ll eventually cut a plea deal. He is obligated to come up with some defense. That one makes no sense, but I can’t think of a better option at this point. He’s doing his job.