A retrial is in the works for the killer of unarmed teenager Jordan Davis. From CNN:
It was November 23, 2012, when Michael Dunn pulled into a gas station in Jacksonville, parking next to a red Dodge Durango with four teenagers inside.
The teens had come in for gum and cigarettes; Dunn, meanwhile, had just left his son’s wedding with his fiancee, who’d gone inside the convenience store for wine and chips.
Dunn didn’t like the loud music — “rap crap,” as he called it — coming from the teens’ SUV. So he asked them to turn it down.
What followed next depends on whom you believe. Dunn says Davis threatened him, and he decided to take matters into his own hands upon seeing what he thought was the barrel of a gun sticking out of the Durango.
But prosecutors say it was Dunn who lost control, firing three volleys of shots — 10 bullets total — at the SUV over music he didn’t like.
Prosecutors challenged what he did next: He left the gas station and drove to his hotel, about three miles away. There, Dunn walked his dog, ordered a pizza, then drank rum and cola — “stunned and horrified, (shocked how) things escalated the way they did over a common courtesy.”
After learning almost six hours later that he had killed Davis, Dunn testified that he became “crazy with grief,” experiencing stomach problems for about four hours before taking a nap.
“My intent was to stop the attack, not necessarily end a life,” he testified. “It just worked out that way.”
Yet his fiancee, Rhonda Rouer, testified that Dunn had never mentioned any weapon to her — be it a shotgun, a stick, a barrel or a lead pipe.
In fact, police found a basketball, basketball shoes, clothing, a camera tripod and cups inside the teenagers’ Durango. There was no gun.
And, just as Trayvon Martin was blamed for wearing a hoodie, Davis is now being blamed for his wardrobe:
@Toure not justifying the killing but black youths need to tone down the “hood” element
— punjabilion (@whaleswalk) February 17, 2014
Does this not sound like something we hear all the time?
@Toure @whaleswalk Whoa. So this is the murder version of “She was asking for it by the way she was dressed”? Wow, no.
— jendziura (@jendziura) February 17, 2014
@Toure @whaleswalk There are no clothes that don’t signify something….
— jendziura (@jendziura) February 17, 2014
@Toure @whaleswalk …Suggesting someone dress less “hood” is sugg they dress more… u tell me. Pretty sure that answer’s gonna be racist.
— jendziura (@jendziura) February 17, 2014
@jendziura @Toure less baggy?
— punjabilion (@whaleswalk) February 17, 2014
@whaleswalk LET ME GET THIS: women should wear looser clothes to not get raped, black men should wear tighter clothes to not get murdered?
— jendziura (@jendziura) February 17, 2014
@whaleswalk @Toure Your web of stereotypes is falling apart.
— jendziura (@jendziura) February 17, 2014
Update: Please see this piece from Tonyaa Weathersbee on The Root: How Keeping Our Sons Safe Makes It OK for Whites to Be Racists. Weathersbee points out that telling young black men to take their hoodies off when they enter a store is taking us back to the Jim Crow era.
I also can’t see how it’s any different than telling women to change what they wear in order to not get raped. Rape is the fault of rapists. Murder is the fault of murderers. If a short skirt turns you into a rapist, or a black man’s outfit makes you violent, you should seek treatment, and get yourself the fuck out of society until you’ve fixed your deep-seated personal problems.
