JACKSONVILLE, fla. — A man with a gun. A black teen, shot dead. Was it murder or self-defense?
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in Florida in the trial of 47-year-old Michael Dunn, a software developer charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the November 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Jordan Davis outside a Jacksonville convenience store.
Authorities say an argument over loud music led to the shooting. Davis was parked in a vehicle with three friends outside the store. Dunn and his fiancée had just left a wedding reception and were heading home when they stopped at the store and pulled up next to the sport utility vehicle that Davis was sitting in.
An argument began after Dunn told them to turn the music down, police said. One of Davis’ friends turned the music down, but Davis told him to turn it back up.
According to authorities, Dunn became enraged and he and Davis began arguing. One person walking out of the convenience store said he heard Dunn say, “You are not going to talk to me like that.”
Dunn, who had a concealed weapons permit, pulled a 9mm handgun from the glove compartment, according to an affidavit, and fired multiple shots into the SUV, striking Davis in the back and groin.
Dunn 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.
If the case sounds familiar, that’s because it has echoes of a trial that received wide attention and happened only two hours away.
George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, in Sanford, Fla., in 2012. Zimmerman, who is Latino, was acquitted of second-degree murder in July 2013. He was prosecuted by Jacksonville’s State Attorney Angela Corey, who will also be prosecuting the Dunn case.
Like Zimmerman, Dunn said he felt his life was in danger when he fired the fatal shots. But unlike the Zimmerman-Martin case, several people say they witnessed Dunn shooting Davis and that there was no physical scuffle.
While Zimmerman stayed on the scene after the shooting and was not immediately arrested, Dunn was tracked down by police and arrested a day later.
In a letter to WJXX in Jacksonville, Dunn told the TV station that the case “has never been about loud music.”
“After multiple threats of death by Jordan Davis and his brandishing of a weapon, I was convinced that my life was in danger. … I had no choice but to defend myself. I am NOT a murderer. I am a survivor,” Dunn wrote.
Police recovered no weapon from the crime scene, and witnesses said they never saw a weapon.
