By Melanie Eversley

In a case that echoes strains of Emmett Till, a white Oregon man has been charged in the murder of a Black man after the victim complimented the alleged shooter’s girlfriend.

Ian Cranston, 27, is charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Barry Washington on Sept. 19 outside of a Bend, Ore., nightclub. Cranston also is charged with manslaughter, assault and a weapons charge, the Bend Weekly Source reported. 

Initially, police charged Cranston with manslaughter, but after a community outcry reminded officials of the case of Till, a 14-year-old murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, officials upgraded the charges.

“Our country has a disgraceful history of denigrating, prosecuting and lynching Black men for talking to white women,” Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel said last week. “Over the last week, literally hundreds of people called and emailed me to remind me of this history.”

The district attorney added, “Racism didn’t only happen back then, and down there. It happens right here, and right now.”