BOSTON MASSACRE

Gentlemen of the Jury,
I stand here before you before you to prove that Captain Preston and his men are not guilty. On the date of March 5Th 1770, five male civilians (members of the mob) were killed. This "massacre" as some may call it was because of the taxes that had been put on everything. The sentinel had punched a young man in the face and then he stayed and rang the bell for help. Captain Preston and some of his loyal soldiers strapped on their bayonets and went to help. They were now facing an angry mob of protesters. The mob started to throw snowballs and hit the soldiers with sticks. The angry mob started to shout "Fire, Fire" and shouting at the soldiers. They then proceeded to keep antagonizing the stressed soldiers. So when a soldier thought he heard the captain shout fire, when it was someone else, he proceeded to fire into the crowd. So then, after hearing the other soldier fire, the others also fired into the crowd. After the firing it ended up as five civillians killed, and six wounded.
So the blame should, and is, in my opinion on the crowd. The crowd is antagonizing the soldiers and hitting them with ice and sticks. So when the innocent soldiers heard fire, they did what they are trained to do. The crowd was also shouting fire to the soldiers. When the crowd was shouting fire at the soldiers, the soldiers may have misunderstood who said it. Some say they saw the captain say fire, but that is false information. So as I said, the crowd is completely to blame.
For Captain Preston, there should be no consequence. He never said fire and he shouted "Don't fire, Don't Fire!" So if we hang Captain Preston and his soldiers, for shooting the five civilians, what does that prove. That we hang innocent people? It is impossible;e to find out the civilians that were yelling fire, so in all honesty who can we punish. We cannot punish the soldiers for doing what they needed too. These soldiers had to defend themselves against the sticks, and ice. So in conclusion we cannot punish a whole entire mob, because we do not know every person in the mob. We can though punish the people who we did know were there and the people who we did see hitting people with sticks and ice balls. So they should be punished with 1-2 years of jail time, for protesting on the streets and violence. So the Captain and his men should be let free because they did what they had to to protect themselves.