Reply #1: This is the felony murder rule

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If you are engaging in a felony, and someone else gets killed in the process, then you are legally responsible as if you had done it. The idea is to discourage people entering into conspiracies to commit felonies. Felonies, especially involving more than one person, cause dangerous situations, so by engaging in one you are assuming the risk that someone might get killed in the course of it.

This applies to any race and would have been applied to this individual in this fact pattern no matter what race he was.