"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -- Martin Luther King, Jr

Kapali Giridhar Swamy, 27, was killed November 18, 2007. He was punched in the face by Christopher Brett Pennington and he died within moments in the middle of a Cullman, Alabama street. The irony lies in the fact that Kapali was going out of his way for Pennington and giving him a ride home that night. Sadly, his act of kindness led to his tragic and untimely death.

The details of the events leading to the crime are as follows. Three individuals (all names have been released to the public)—Kapali Swamy, Gina Gonzalez, and Christopher Brett Pennington were driving to Pennington's residence shortly after 6am on 11/18; Kapali was kindly giving Pennington a ride home from a night out in Birmingham. Apparently, during the drive and after stopping the car, Kapali and Gina became involved in a heated verbal argument. Once they exited the car the argument continued, at which time Pennington approached Kapali. Words were exchanged, and then Pennington escalated a verbal confrontation to a physical one by punching Kapali—apparently twice. Kapali fell to the ground and was found to be pulseless and without any signs of life when emergency medical personnel arrived a few minutes later. Pennington's right fist was bruised, but his body was without any other signs of an altercation. Gina and a third party witness both assert that Kapali did not touch either Pennington or Gina.

The key evidence supporting the crime is as follows:
1) The alleged perpetrator fully confessed to punching Kapali in his statement to police.
2) Two independent eye-witnesses gave consistent descriptions of the events surrounding his death, directly implicating Pennington as the responsible party.
3) These witnesses confirmed that Kapali did not initiate any physical conflict.
4) The autopsy confirmed the cause of Kapali's death as massive brain hemorrhage and brainstem herniation, the direct result of "homicide."

Despite the concrete, compelling evidence that a crime was committed, a Cullman, Alabama grand jury, in January 2008, inexplicably decided — in a closed hearing — not to indict Pennington on a single charge. And so a killer walks free.

The grand jury determined that there was insufficient evidence to move forward and the case was dismissed.

Based on the Grand Jury's decision, we can only conclude that this appalling injustice was likely the result of either complete incompetence on the part of the local legal system, or, more concerning, a crude and malicious bigotry that devalued Kapali Swamy's life because he was not white and not local, and hence not worthy of being defended by the law.

Several issues lead us to question the adequacy of the prosecution of this case. Principle among them is the possibility that race may have played a part in the criminal proceedings; as hesitant as we are to draw this conclusion, the facts of the case tend to raise this suspicion.

To illustrate this point, we can note that the local newspaper—The Cullman Times—printed a series of completely unsubstantiated stories in which they described Kapali as threatening and even pushing down both Gina Gonzalez and Brett Pennington. In one of the severely flawed iterations of their story, they even went so far as to quote the principle investigator of the case as saying that Kapali punched Brett Pennington to the ground. Yet despite this newspaper continually misrepresenting the case and assailing Kapali’s good name, the authorities failed to request that they retract any articles or print any corrections; they seemed content to allow the local media to insinuate that the whole event had amounted to a case of self-defense on the part of Brett Pennington, even though the perpetrator did not have a single mark on his body except the bruised fist he used to kill Kapali, and two independent witnesses insist that Kapali did not touch Pennington. Everyone who knew Kapali has mentioned over and over again that Kapali was a gentle soul, a true gentleman, and would never hurt anyone…he was not a fighter.

Importantly, Cullman, Alabama is a very small, racially homogeneous community. Its population is almost totally white, with other ethnicities having been cloistered in nearby Colony, AL. Racism is clearly prevalent in this community, as KKK rallies continue to occur with relatively high frequency, and enjoy prominent advertisements in the local newspaper.

Even at face value one can appreciate the travesty that has transpired here, with a young man robbed of life and his alleged killer set free. But those who know Kapali recognize the full depth of this loss and subsequent injustice. He managed to touch the lives of so many individuals and made a tremendous impact on everyone he met along the way by sharing his incredible passion for life!

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