Posted on 11/30/2012 6:06:29 AM PST by Uncle Chip
ATLANTA (AP) - The fatal shooting of a Florida teenager who was listening to loud music in a car a week ago has drawn comparisons to the Trayvon Martin case, but the differences are significant.
Unlike the Martin case, there were several witnesses to this shooting and there was no scuffle before 17-year-old Jordan Davis was shot to death. And notably, the man accused of firing into the car was arrested a day later.
Michael David Dunn is charged with murder and attempted murder in the Nov. 23 shooting at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station. The 45-year-old Dunn parked beside the sport utility vehicle occupied by Davis and three other young men and told them to turn the music down, police said.
Dunn exchanged words with Davis, who was in the back seat, and started firing. He later told police he felt threatened. His attorney has said Dunn saw a gun and shot in self-defense, perhaps laying the ground work for a case under Florida's "stand your ground" law.
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Standing over his son's casket, Ron Davis promised to fight laws that allow people to carry guns outside of their homes.
"Law enforcement should be the only people who should have guns on the street," he said. "That's what's killing our kids more than anything."
Police said they didn't find a weapon in the SUV with the young men, and Ron Davis said he doesn't believe Dunn's claim that he saw a gun. He thinks Dunn is searching for an explanation.
(Excerpt) Read more at kltv.com ...
Not every thread you post belongs under the “History” topic. Please be kind to the FReepers who follow history.
There were no similarities in this case except it was not black on black shooting.
This is nothing more than attempt by the press to push the anti self defense concealed carry issues.
This is nothing like the Trayvon case. The kid posed no threat nor was he acting in a threatening manner. This is cold blooded murder.
“And notably, the man accused of firing into the car was arrested a day later.”
What’s notable about it? Gun owners that kill in cold blood (which may be the case here, but who knows, when the reporter is this biased) have been arrested since the first days that guns were invented. If this ‘reporter’ would just look it up, he’d even find people in Texas being arrested when they kill for no reason.
Can’t see anything notable about it, at least as it’s reported.
Okay — I will remember that.
The stand your ground laws don’t make a lot of sense to me. Anyone can say they “felt threatened”. Self-defense is a more objective standard.
On face value, in this case if anyone had a stand your ground justification, it would be the kid who was shot (and based on the end result, rightly so). The old guy approached him in the car and started the confrontation. The were not on the shooter’s property. He went out of his way to start the confrontation. Even if the kid who was shot had a gun, he was, in essence, in his property, being in his vehicle, and was approached in a threatening manner. Not much different than if he was in his home and someone came banging on his door threatening him.
“The stand your ground laws don’t make a lot of sense to me. Anyone can say they “felt threatened”. Self-defense is a more objective standard.”
Prior to the ‘stand your ground’ law in Florida you had a requirement to retreat when faced with a threat. Unless you were at home.
So if someone approached you with a gun drawn you had to prove you could not run away. If you didn’t run away then they could charge you with homocide.
Extremely loud music is a passive-aggressive assault. I’m not saying it’s worth murder but my guess is the shooter had been pushed and pushed and pushed and the next thing made him snap. I used to live in a zero-lot-line neighborhood. The white kids next door would have their black friends over and they’d sit in the driveway with music so loud the base rattled the windows and doors and made things vibrate off shelves. I think they did it to annoy their parents (children of divorce) who the kids manipulated into fighting with each other. I spoke with dad and he was annoyed to the point of homicide but did nothing because any attempt he made to control “her” kids lead to an argument. One day I went over and stuck my face through the window into the kid’s face, millimeters away. He turned down the music and I asked, in my most deranged ready-to-kill voice, “You gonna be here long?” They shut it off and never did it again. I could hear them turn it off as they rounded the entrance corner from then on.
Note, I found out later that the kids all carried guns. The guns were a fashion accessory. Every one of them was on the high school basketball team. One day when my neighbor’s kids weren’t along, the leading black player, with his car full of kids, stopped to see somebody who owed him money for drugs. The guy told him to shove it and the kid pulled his gun and shot the guy dead for “dissing “ him.
All the kids in the car went to prison as accomplices. (Florida law, I think.) I spoke with the neighbor’s kids about it and they said that “he had to do it, ‘cause the guy dissed him. But after that they were much better behaved.
Oh good grief.
The stand your ground law in Florida and most other states where implemented is a little more definitive than that. Florida and most other states are predicated on a "reasonable belief" of a threat. For example, if you posted something mean to me on FR, I could say I "felt threatened" by it, but that would not justify me tracking you down and shooting you, and I'm pretty confident that any prosecutor and jury would not have any trouble rejecting the notion that my perception of the threat was "resonable."
Territorial marking. I control this place, I’m making it unpleasant for you, and you haven’t got the guts to do anything about it.
Remember the boombox days? There were headphone devices then too. Why carry a twenty pound boombox on your shoulder when you can bass-blast your brain privately? Territory.
That's kind of the way I see it. The kids had the same right to self-defense that he did.
If seeing a gun in another vehicle makes you feel threatened, then seeing Dunn reach for his weapon and load it would do the same. If they had had a gun wouldn't they have the right to use it given his actions??? and yet they drove away.
If Dunn tries the self-defense defense it will be a mockery of those who do use their weapons for self defense.
Having someone draw up to me at a stop light or at the gas pump, and give me the one-finger salute when I remark about the blaring imposition, requires a great restraint against this act of in-your-face trespassing on one's privacy.
"Freedom of speech" only goes so far. I think I might have the same negative reaction to someone engaging in street preaching with a bullhorn.
Absolutely!
The old guy should have gotten in his car and rolled the windows up. After all, how long does it take to fill your tank.
From reading the article, this sounds more like cold blooded murder to me.
Calling the police a couple times, after warning the kids, worked for me...no “ready to kill” act, just making their fun at others’ expense too much trouble.
“Territorial marking. I control this place, I’m making it unpleasant for you, and you haven’t got the guts to do anything about it.”
According to the story the kid was in the back seat having no control over the volume. Also, shooting the speakers of the car would have made more sense if the shooter wanted to reclaim”territory”.
More like peacocks flashing their feathers. We all did it in some form or fashion when we were that age (I was very, very guilty). Be it glass-pack mufflers, loud motorcycles, or blasting country, rap, or whatever music we listened to. It is teenage boys being teenage boys.
It isn’t an ‘assault’ as someone else implied.
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