I’m going to have to disagree for two reasons.
First, similar crimes get charged as murder all the time. Second, are you familiar with the murder statue in NC? This fits squarely in the middle of murder.
See below for examples of similar crimes as well as the NC statue and elements.
As to the first item - folks who toss a stranger onto concrete and cause a death get charged with various degrees of murder all the time. (And yes, sometimes they plead out to a lesser charge of manslaughter but that is besides the point) If you intended the act of throwing or tossing them onto the concrete, and it gets the person killed…it 100% can get charged as murder.
Here’s a few examples of a physical confrontation between strangers that turned into murder or attempted murder charges. (It often happens in nightclub incidents where a bouncer gets a little too rough with a patron and slams them down to the ground.) None of these are distinguishable enough from the fact pattern here for you to act like Im somehow enraged (which I’m not) and calling for inflated charges (which I don’t think I am):
A Redondo Beach bar bouncer who had been charged with murder for fatally injuring a patron pleaded no contest Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter in the death.
Meyer, who had been working for nine months as a door host at Pancho & Wong’s near King Harbor, was arrested Sept. 1 for critically injuring 25-year-old Michael Alvey of Harbor City while ejecting him from the bar.
And
A 22-year-old Warminster man was critically injured after a bouncer allegedly threw him from the balcony of a South Street bar during a Memorial Day scuffle, police said.
Lyle Henry, 32, of Willingboro, N.J., was charged with attempted murder and aggravated and simple assault, said Detective Joe Chiaro of South Detective Division.
And
A bouncer at a Philadelphia gay bar is wanted for third-degree murder after allegedly punching an ejected bar patron who later died, police said Wednesday.
The 41-year-old victim struck his head on the sidewalk after the bouncer punched him, a police statement said, adding that the man had been escorted out of the bar for being intoxicated.
And
A man was arrested on a charge of attempted second-degree murder after authorities say he body slammed a man on concrete, knocking him unconscious.
Brody Hurst was arrested and booked in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Tuesday, May 3.
And
A Mississippi mother charged with capital murder was given no bond after making her initial court appearance Tuesday.
Police say Makaylia Jolley “repeatedly and forcibly” threw her baby, Khalysie Lashay Jolley, onto the road last Thursday.
And
A teenager is facing attempted murder charges and will be tried in court as an adult after reportedly getting into a fight with a high school classmate at school on Tuesday.
An arrest warrant states that Arkiva "Aj Rashon" Hunter, 16, picked up a freshman in the air and slamming his head into a concrete floor.
Second, here is the NC law regarding second-degree murder.
§ 14-17. Murder in the first and second degree defined; punishment. b(1): The malice necessary to prove second degree murder is based on an inherently dangerous act or omission, done in such a reckless and wanton manner as to manifest a mind utterly without regard for human life and social duty and deliberately bent on mischief.
Are you really in disagreement that:
tossing an 82-year old man to a concrete floor isn’t inherently dangerous? (it most certainly is);
that this crime wasn’t done in a reckless or wanton manner (it most certainly was)
that this wasn’t done without regard for human life? (there was no regard for this poor man’s life) and
that this act wasn’t deliberately bent on mischief? (beating up an employee to steal some shitty power tools is most definitely mischief).