TO SOME INDIVIDUALS IN THE SOUTH, IF YOU ARE YOUNG, BLACK & MALE, YOU MUST BE BAD!



 

…This Florida State Attorney, Angela Corey, was nominated by the highly unpopular Florida governor, Rick Scott

 

Florida has had more than one episode for showing that the “Sand Your Ground” law must go.

 

In 2012, the software engineer and racist bigot, Michael Dunn, shot and killed a 17 year old, Jordan Davis.  But Dunn was only found guilty of shooting multiple times into a an SUV occupied with 4 black teenagers. 

The shooting occurred just because the 4 teenagers had turned up the Rap music volumes on their car stereo system while at a Florida gas station. 

Now, because of the “Stand Your Ground Law” in Florida, if you feel you are frightened and in fear of losing your life, you can stand your ground.  This is compared to the previous law, where you were required to attempt removing yourself away from the threatening situation.  You may now instead “Stand your Ground” and fight.  This law has now, more than once in Florida, proven that it is OK to shoot and kill unarmed individuals and possibly get off scot-free, as did George Zimmerman, when he shot and killed the unarmed, 17 year old, Travon Martin.

If turning up the car’s stereo volume, is grounds for being shot dead in your own car, there should be multiple shootings where I live, 24 hours a day.

Now, it must be understood that Mr. Dunn was not found guilty of any kind of murder.  This was mainly due to 2 jurors that thought that Mr. Dunn was afraid for his life and that he had shot in self-defense at the teenagers, even as the SUV was speeding away…? 

The prosecutors in the Dunn’s case now say they're confident about getting a murder conviction in an upcoming retrial. 

But why does that statement not make me feel very confident? 

The reason is, that virtually every major case like this that the Florida State Attorney, Angela Corey, and her staff, have ever touched, has been handled wrong. 

Yes, Ms. Corey had also been responsible for the Travon Martin case, the Marissa Alexander case and now the Michael Dunn case.

Oh, you don’t know about Marissa Alexander?

Well, in that case, Ms. Alexander’s husband, who had previously assaulted Ms. Alexander multiple times, and he had finally threatened to kill her.  When the husband had gone after Ms. Alexander, she fired a pistol into the ceiling to scare him to back off.  Under Ms. Corey’s office, Ms. Alexander received a sentence of 20 years for firing a shot into the ceiling…?  Ms. Alexander has since received a new date this year for a re-trial.  She is currently out on bail, but she is restricted to house arrest.

And FYI, these three cases are not the only questionable ones for this state attorney

To be more explicit regarding the Davis killing, if you haven’t been following the case, it was just as senseless as Trevon Martin’s death.

On Nov. 23, 2012, Michael Dunn and his fiancée stopped at a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., that also had a Mini-Mart store.  Mr. Dunn had parked next to a red Dodge Durango with four African American teenagers inside. The young men had made the mistake, ultimately fatal to young Mr. Davis, of having the Durango’s music system turned up too loud for Mr. Dunn.

According to the fiancée’s trial testimony, Dunn had muttered “I hate that thug music.” The fiancée then went inside to buy some wine and potato chips.  The jury was also made aware that the couple had already been drinking, while the teenagers had not. Dunn, who was 45 at the time, had decided to wait in his car.

Dunn then complained to the teenagers about the music. They turned it down.  But the teens then decided that it was a free country and they turned the volume back up. The reality is that there is no law that says young black men have to follow the orders from every random white man who comes along.  As I had said, the old rules said that Mr. Dunn should have just shrugged it off, rolled up his window, and waited for his fiancée to leave the store.

But Mr. Dunn told them again to turn down the music. He testified that Davis, who was only 17, threatened him with what looked like a shotgun in the back seat. However, no weapon was found in the teenagers’ car, and no witnesses saw anything that looked like a gun barrel, or even a broom handle.  The only weapon they saw was the 9mm handgun that Dunn took out of his glove compartment, took the time to load it, and then shot multiple times into the Durango.

Even though no one was physically coming after Dunn, he said he was in fear of his life and he fired 10 shots, three of which struck Davis. He continued firing even as the teenagers’ car squealed away. The medical testimony at the trial said that Mr. Davis was in the back seat and was turning away from the direction of the bullets coming at him.  In other words, the young man was not heading to get out of the car to go after Dunn. Davis probably died within minutes, according to the testimony at the trial.

Now, rather than waiting for the police to arrive, Dunn and his fiancée got into their car and drove to their hotel.  Dunn had been in Jacksonville to attend his son’s wedding, where they earlier that evening been eating pizza and drinking rum and Cokes. Dunn was arrested the following day at his home, not far from Cape Canaveral.

I’m not kidding about this action by Mr. Dunn.  Dunn had basically emptied his gun into a legal vehicle with passengers, he then got into his car and he and his fiancée went to their hotel to continue eating pizza, drinking wine, while they watched a movie.  And the fiancée testified at the trial that Dunn had never said one word after the shooting about seeing the possible barrel of a gun.  This “seeing a possible gun barrel” was the story that Dunn did not come up with until after the police showed up at his home the next day.

On Saturday, February 14^th, 2014, a Jacksonville jury found Dunn guilty on three counts of attempted second-degree murder for shooting at the surviving teens in the Durango, plus one count of shooting a deadly missile at an occupied vehicle. However, due to 2 jury members, it became a “hung jury” as they failed to reach a verdict on the most serious charge of first-degree murder for killing Jordan Davis.

As I said, prosecutors have announced they will retry Dunn on the murder charge. Regardless of that outcome, Dunn still faces 20 years in prison for each of the attempted murder charges, and the judge could still make those sentences consecutive. Dunn might well spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The reality is, we must work to repeal statutes such as Florida’s “stand-your-ground” law, which in both the Davis case and the Martin case, the jury was given the instructions from the judges to consider giving defendants who claimed self-defense, “the benefit of the doubt”.  And that’s what the 2 jurors did to make the Davis case into a “hung jury”.  FYI: 24 states, mostly Red southern states, have some version of the “Stand Your Ground” law.  These laws were originally written by the conservative ALEC organization and were all introduced in the states by Republican politicians.

As a final comment, when Dunn was in jail awaiting his trial, the authorities had recorded his phone calls.  Dunn was recorded saying to his fiancée: “I was the victim!  I was the victim !  When the police said that [none of] these guys have a record, I was like, you know, I wonder if they’re just flying under the radar. Because they were bad.”

Apparently, what Dunn meant by using the word “bad”, was “they were young, black and male.”

Copyright G.Ater  2014