Video After The Jump
Last month's shooting death of unarmed Florida teen Jordan Davishas reignited the push to repeal Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.
As we previously reported, Davis was killed on November 23, after he and several friends got into and argument at a Jacksonville, Florida gas station with 45-year old Michael Dunn.
Dunn had pulled into the gas station with his girlfriend. While she was in the store he asked four black males to turn down the music in their SUV. An argument ensued and Dunn claimed he saw a shotgun before firing eight times into the SUV. Three of those bullets struck and killed Davis.
"It was loud," Jacksonville homicide Lt. Rob Schoonover said of the teens' music. "They admitted that. That's not a reason for someone to open fire."
Police say no gun was found in the SUV Davis was riding in.
Dunn and his girlfriend fled the scene. As they left someone jotted down their license plate number. Dunn and his girlfriend spent the night in a Jacksonville hotel. The next morning, they heard someone had died in the shooting and drove back to Dunn's home in Satellite Beach.
Dunn, who is vice president of Dunn & Dunn Data Systems in Vero Beach, was arrested at home Saturday November 24, and charged with murder and attempted murder. He is being held without bond
Michael Dunn
Dunn's family is supporting him.
"He got threatened and had to do what he had to do, and it's sad, so sad," his daughter Rebecca Dunn told FirstcoastNews. "A terrible tragedy on both sides. It really is. I don't know. What are you going to do in that situation? You don't know what you are going to do. He just reacted."
Dunn's lawyers has indicated he would use the "Stand Your Ground" law as a defense.
Florida’s Stand Your Ground law gives shooters the right to use deadly force when they feel threatened and does not require them to retreat.
According to the Huffington Post, civil rights groups, including Color of Change, the NAACP and the Urban League, as well gun control groups such as the Second Chance on Shoot First campaign, have joined forces to gather online signatures for a repeal of Stand Your Ground laws in 26 states. The groups also plan to restart a campaign to lobby state legislatures in January, said Ginny Simmons, director of Second Chance.
Ron Davis, the father of Jordan Davis is embraced as he arrives at the funeral home for the visitation for his son Jordan, last month in Jacksonville, Fla.
“What we are doing with these laws is allowing our country to become more dangerous than a war zone,” Simmons said.
"Unfortunately, we have had another one of these tragic incidents that highlights how horrible these laws are and how dangerous they can be in that they empower vigilantes and provide them cover," said Rashad Robinson, the executive director of Color of Change. "We also live in a cultural environment in which young black men are feared and seen as a sort of universal threat. Their mere existence, is for some people a problem. That’s the cultural climate in which these laws have been implemented.”
Rap stars 50 Cent and Talib Kweli have been helping to raise public awareness about the case by sending messages to their Twitter Followers.
Davis was buried in Powder Springs, Georgia on Saturday afternoon.
Davis' mother, Lucia McBath, who lives outside of Atlanta, asked that her son's death not be thought of as a hate crime.
"We don't know where he was or what kind of dark place he was in at that moment, but something snapped in that man. Something snapped in him, so we are not looking at it as the hate crime because that's not going to honor Jordan," McBath told FirstCoastNews.com.
News coverage of Jordan Davis' funeral
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