Detroit teen arrested for murder of 91-year-old who was beaten, shot, then set on fire

A horrible crime took place earlier this week just south of Eight Mile Road on Detroit's northwest side that you may not have heard about until now.

From the Detroit Free Press:

A 17-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder after authorities say he beat his 91-year-old neighbor and set his house on fire.

George Steward, who lives on Bentler in Detroit, was also charged with felony murder and arson, said Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.

Steward is accused in the killing of Paul Monchnik, a retired TV repairman, in the early hours of Monday morning. Police have said that the assailant had entered the elderly man's home intending to steal, but that an attack soon followed -- and then the assailant, to cover his tracks, ended up buying gasoline and lighting the home on fire.

When authorities were called on reports of a fire at about 3 a.m. Monday, they found Monchnik with a head injury and severe burns all over his body. Monchnik was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a statement, a Wayne County prosecutor said, "The word 'heinous' does not even begin to describe this crime." True, very true.

There is a reason why you probably hadn't heard about Monchnik's murder. The victim was a white man who lived in a mostly African American neighborhood. The suspect is black.

But imagine if the man murdered lived in a mostly white neighborhood--and he was black. Imagine if the suspect was white. The Black Lives Matter protesters would have descended upon the Motor City in force by now and the crime would be a leading national story. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be holding competing press conferences.

All lives matter. But many leftists say such a statement is racist.

They're the racists.

Monchnik's son spoke to the Free Press about his father, who came to the United States from Poland when he was a child. "He lived by himself; he was nearly deaf," the younger Monchnik said, "so he lived in his own little world and got along in his own little world very comfortably."

Until the end of his life, that is.

From my post at Da Tech Guy:

I walked its streets--the tragedy of Detroit.