Monday, February 17, 2014
"And so it goes." Part II
Things Michael Dunn and any sane person could have done, by Anthony C.:
He could have moved his car further away, ignore the music, see the car as being full of young kids that were doing the same thing he was doing at the same age.
He could have gone inside the convenience store;
He could have acted like an adult and not inflamed the situation.
He could have avoided bravado even though he knew he could back it up with a gun.
He could have taken his girlfriend to a different store. The kids were being typical teenagers irrespective of their race, God knows that I’m in my sixties and still pump Prodigy Eminem, Nine Inch Nails and Nick Cave hard when I’m in my car and have a thumping sound system that can be heard from afar.
Dunn could have just walked away instead of demanding his way in a public place but when it came down to it he pumped 7 shots into the car and 3 while the kids fled in pure dread.
It was murder pure and simple and he probably meant to kill them all.
Nobody fires so many shots into a crowded car without the intention of homicide.
Nobody still feels threatened enough to fire 3 more shots as the kids fled in fear.
They were the ones who were threatened, they were the ones that felt real fear, they were the ones whose lives were in danger, not Dunn.
Dunn instigated the conflict with malice of forethought, deliberate and calculating.
Dunn escalated his rage into homicide.
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11 comments:
This is a tragic story - truly. But so is US gun legislation.
Hopefully, perhaps, maybe, eventually, a lesson will be learnt from this, and all the stories like them that you read about in America, and, at the very same time, are so sickended and saddened by!
Take Care & Stay Lucky!
Peace,
Steve...
At FRONTLINE’s request, Roman analyzed the pool of 43,500 homicides by race in states with Stand Your Ground laws* and those without them. Because he wanted to control for multiple variables — the races of the victim and the shooter, whether they were strangers, whether they involved a firearm and whether the murders were in Stand Your Ground states — Roman used a technique known as regression analysis, which is a statistical tool to analyze the relationship between different pieces of data.
Using this analysis, Roman found that a greater number of homicides were found justified in Stand Your Ground states in all racial combinations, a result he believes is because those states yielded more killings overall.
Roman also found that Stand Your Ground laws tend to track the existing racial disparities in homicide convictions across the U.S. — with one significant exception: Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be found justified in their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground states, whites are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states, that number jumps to 354 percent.
Ok he should have gotten murder one - but - - but....... BENGHAZI!!!!!!!
ok.....this is why the whold law is a piece of shit... the pertinent section:
A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
has no duty to retreat????
C'mon!!
'reasonably believe'
gimmee a break...
your post is spot on... we ALL have a responsibility to value the life of others.
my undeerstanding is that the teenagers never left their vehicle. I have a hard time accepting that Dunn could have reasonably believed he was in danger.
I stil hope the prosecuter gets their shit together...and it does seem like prosecution was lame...and gets him for 2nd degree. I listened to jury instructions...a joke.
Without getting anecdotal...I had an incident almost thrity years ago where I was confronted and assaulted right outside my residence. I retreated to my house, was followed, had my door window smashed, door broken...only timely arrival of police prevented more mayhem.
My girlfriend at the time would not give me the crowbar she was holding ten feet away for "fear I would hurt him"
damn straight I would have.
I still will never own a gun.
we all have a responsibility to avoid violence. Stand your ground laws are flawed and offered to the public as some sort of anti-crime panacea.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/Sections/0776.013.html
the Fourteenth Book of Bokonon
What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?
Nothing.
....but if I got the cash, I expect a beer.
...this case still bothers me greatly.
Expecting justice under SYG laws in the state of Flori-DUH is like expecting Sarah Palin to say something intelligible.
I noticed how well Dunn was coached by his attorneys. He kept repeating that he "feared for his life," that he was frightened, that he saw a gun barrel. Funny how he never mentioned that to his girlfriend according to what I've read. The attorneys know the SYG law well enough to coach the defendent into repeating that he feared for his life. That's how a person who provokes an incident then kills someone gets away with it.
The old coot who shot the young father in the movie theater said the same thing. He feared for his life.
All the whackos with guns need to say after shooting an unarmed black or white person is that they feared for their lives.
From the Tampa Bay Times:
"Seven years since it was passed, Florida's "stand your ground" law is being invoked with unexpected frequency, in ways no one imagined, to free killers and violent attackers whose self-defense claims seem questionable at best.
Cases with similar facts show surprising — sometimes shocking — differences in outcomes. If you claim "stand your ground" as the reason you shot someone, what happens to you can depend less on the merits of the case than on who you are, whom you kill and where your case is decided."
This from the DallasNews online:
"Prosecutors say it has too often been used to protect gang members and drug dealers in shoot-outs. Although it does not apply if the defendant is committing a crime, the law does not define criminal activity and courts have differed on their interpretations of the statute. As a Times database of nearly 200 “stand your ground” cases shows, simply being a felon in possession of a gun or a drug dealer has not prevented defendants from successfully invoking the law.
Hmm, but does race play any a role in the interpretation of Stand Your Ground law?
A Tampa Bay Times analysis of nearly 200 cases — the first to examine the role of race in “stand your ground” — found that people who killed a black person walked free 73 percent of the time, while those who killed a white person went free 59 percent of the time."
Race plays a role in everything because it is the ultimate excuse that everyone has been made to fear.
Prosecutors say it has too often been used to protect gang members and drug dealers in shoot-outs.
-----
An unintended consequence of this ridiculous legislation.
My question is this: What components of the Dunn/Zimmerman verdicts are racial and what components are maneuvers to maintain SYG. Or are the two virtually synonymous.
My guess is that they're synonymous.
Look at how the Dunn trial ended. Conviction for attempted murder, no conviction, or mistrial, for the actual murder.
My hope is that Dunn faces years and years of incarceration.
Convicted of attempted murder because he shot at the car as it drove away... but what if he hadn't? What if he had realized they were fleeing so he no longer had to "fear for his life" and he could stop shooting? Would he be a free man today?
Dunn needs to be retried and convicted on the murder charge. Another bad precedent will be set if he isn't.
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