Florida gunman will not be charged after killing man because of 'stand your ground'

"Shooter was white and victim was black, reopening debate about laws' application

"A woman who watched as a man shot and killed her boyfriend in a Florida parking lot, has claimed the shooter 'wanted someone to be angry at', after police said they would not be charging him with any crime as a result of the state’s controversial self defence laws.

"Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced he did not intend to charge 47-year-old Michael Drejka, who is white, over the shooting death of 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton, who is black. Mr Drejka shot and killed Mr McGlockton last week in a parking area outside a convenience store in Clearwater, 25 miles west of Tampa.

"Video showed Mr Drejka aiming at and shooting Mr McGlockton as he sat on the floor, after Mr McGlockton had shoved him to the ground, after an argument over a parking space became heated. The video showed Mr McGlockton run back inside the store before falling to the ground. He died 30 minutes later after being taken to hospital."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ckton-michael-drejka-clearwater-a8460376.html

Florida, stand your ground law, possible racism involved, law enforcement initially not wanting to arrest the shooter... this is starting to sound familiar.

 

Familiar in what way?

Edit:

"Mr Gualtieri said his office will forward the case to prosecutors for a final decision. “I don't make the law. I enforce the law. I'm going to enforce it the way it's written. Others can have the debate about whether they like it or not," he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

He said the case would be reviewed by the state attorney who will determine whether Mr Drejka should be charged. But he said prosecutors would have to provide “clear and convincing evidence that [he] was not entitled to use force”. Mr Drejka, who has yet to comment on the incident, owned the gun legally and possessed a concealed carry permit."

 

So what I'm getting from the jest of this post is that white people have no right to protect themselves if the assailant is black.

 

"Stand Your Ground became the object of national scrutiny when George Zimmerman, a white male, successfully used the law to avoid criminal charges after fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, in 2012. Trayvon’s death was subsequently the impetus for the Black Lives Matter movement."
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article...illed-black-father-over-disabled-parking-spot

 

He didn't use "stand your ground" avoid charges; one, he was charged and tried, and two, "stand your ground" was not used in his defense at his trial.

 

And just like hands up don't shoot, the Left created a narrative based on a lie. BTW, Zimmerman nor his lawyer ever brought up stand your ground as a defense. Since he had no way to retreat, it didn't apply. So your article is a lie as well.

 

Any debate over anything but people’s behavior is racist itself. I love a good self defense story where a piece of trash chooses the wrong victim. If that’s not the case here, discuss that. Race shouldn’t have anything to do with it.

He wouldn’t have gotten away with this shooting in Texas. Starting an argument that escalates into a shooting removes your defense to prosecution. Since his argument was with the guys baby mama, authorities may consider the attack by the dead guy as a separate unprovoked attack. I don’t know what the authorities/grand jury were thinking. We’ll see.

 

Anything in that article should not be trusted (and honestly, you should have known that it was wrong.) Zimmerman did not use "Stand your ground" as his legal defense. it was simple "self defense" he used as his legal defense. When you are being assaulted and your head is being crashed into the ground repeatedly, you are in process of stopping a violent felony (FL self defense).

 

I love how the anti-gun, anti-self-defense lobby accuses anyone who uses a gun in self defense of being "a white male" attacking "a black teenager."

Zimmerman is Hispanic, not white..

Trayvon Martin was not just "a black teenager" but a burgeoning criminal thug with a fascination with cage fighting and a growing history of violence and substance abuse; including photos of himself brandishing stolen firearms on his Facebook page.

Martin had Zimmerman down on the ground and was beating him, bouncing his head off the concrete and breaking his nose before Zimmerman resorted to deadly force to protect himself.

The Black Lives Matter movement is a terrorist organization that celebrates violent criminals like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and encourages violence against law enforcement.

George Zimmerman never used "Stand Your Ground" as part of his defense, but the media continues to perpetuate that lie.

 

Such would apply only if George Zimmerman invoked the law as a defense for his actions. He did not. Instead he argued his actions were justified on a basis of self defense, as he was denied the ability to retreat from the assault since he was pinned down on the ground. Therefore there are no similarities to be had between these two cases.

 

Why are you less likely to be convicted of a crime if you shoot a non-white person while standing your ground?

"Race, law, and health: Examination of 'Stand Your Ground' and Defendant Convictions in Florida

"Previous analyses of Stand Your Ground (SYG) cases have been primarily descriptive. We examine the relationship between race of the victim and conviction of the defendant in SYG cases in Florida from 2005 to 2013....

"Our results depict a disturbing message: SYG legislation in Florida has a quantifiable racial bias that reveals a leniency in convictions if the victim is non-White, which provides evidence towards unequal treatment under the law. Rather than attempting to hide the outcomes of these laws, as was done in Florida, other states with SYG laws should carry out similar analyses to see if their manifestations are the same as those in Florida, and all should remediate any injustices found."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615300642

 

Have you seen the video?

The guy who was shot was an ********. But he was retreating when shot. How is this a threat requiring discharging a gun?

 

good question, I am sure the experienced DA will examine that fact

 

The op is focused on race and possible racism because the shooter was white and the assailent was black. That's the jest of the op. If the assailent was white and the shooter was black then racism would not have been a factor. Thus blacks can shoot whites who attack them but whites can't shoot blacks who attack them. That is what the op is saying imo.

And it does go both ways. We had a young man in Tulsa go to the black side of town bent on shooting up blacks. Made all the national news. Why? Because he was in a hatred rage that his father was killed by a black man who he was fighting with in much the same fashion as this current situation. The black man pulled his gun and shot him and was not charged

If I feel like my life is in danger I'm not going to stop from pulling the trigger because my assailent is black. Ya 'll should stop being so focused on skin color. It's shallow..

 

Ask the prosecutors who believe a minority individual is incapable of acting in a legal manner. Ultimately they are the ones who decide whether or not to pursue indictments and press charges. the law itself has nothing to do with it.

 

Yeah, I saw the video and this doesn't look like a valid SYG defense to me. The guy was already in retreat when Drejka shot him. I would be surprised if the State Attorney doesn't charge him.

 

dup thread

 

Eh, close enough, perhaps some folks shouldn't initiate physical violence upon others and these things could be avoided, as that appears to be the bigger issue...

 

Update:

"A Florida man who invoked the state’s controversial 'stand your ground' law last month to defend fatally shooting a 28-year-old father of three following an altercation over a parking space has been charged with manslaughter."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stand-your-ground-charged-clearwater-florida_us_5b7315fbe4b03d52e490fd

Hopefully, justice will be served.

 

Nothing I have seen indicates the Florida man invoked SYG; it was the justification for decision by the Sheriff not to charge him.
My personal opinion is the case should at minimum gone to a grand jury. Then, based on a Grand Jury’s decision, gone to trial or been dismissed based on their decision after hearing all relevant evidence and witness testimony.
As for your comment on ‘justice being served’, you mean he the justice associated with the crime you have already judged him guilty of committing in your mind.

 

He was laying on the ground after a violent attack. It's not an SYG issue.

 

Whether a crime, a SYG, or a SD issue, it’s not up to us to armchair or the media to judge and convict. Nor, should it have only been up to the Sheriff. The question should have been put to the court. Or, do you ascribe to the notion of lynching because you think the shooter guilty enough not to have a trial at all?
A nearly identical senario happened to me in 1984 when I was ejecting an unruly patron from my pub in Milwaukee. The fellow I was tossing went down. He tried drawing a gun and didn’t win, my boots were faster. It was witnessed by two off duty cops that had followed us out the door. I went before a grand jury. I was vindicated. I was unsuccessfully sued. My liability insurance increased significantly. He got 3 years. Quite a number of witnesses were called, including a male and female patron that were both assualted and threatened with further harm in my pub, which was the reason I ejected him in the first place. While I didn’t shoot him, I certainly kicked him as hard as I could.

 

Nope, I think it's going just the way it should have.

 

I figured it would. Too many questions and the video doesn’t reveal all. I am for SYG and SD laws, but I have no problem with a full investigation and a presentation of evidence in the courts.
I tell my students, to expect their lives will be changed forever the moment they pull a trigger. I repeat it constantly. If in the decision to shoot to protect life and limb overcomes legal and civil consequences, then there is a higher probability a defense was reasonable in the balance of outcomes. There are few free passes without any consequence.