Teenager shot dead after playing loud music

[cubby1223]

It is possible though and highly likely they did stash their weapon. They had every opportunity and motivation to do so.

That's why there is a trial. However if I were on the jury and the evidence presented in court is no more than what has been presented by the media thus far, I would have to say the chances they had a gun is so small it absolutely does not equate to "reasonable doubt".

Yes, it is possible they had a gun. But at this moment with the information we know, it is not reasonable to believe they had a gun.

So that's why there is a trial, to allow both sides to present their case and their evidence, before a verdict is decided.

 

[HomerJS]

That's why there is a trial. However if I were on the jury and the evidence presented in court is no more than what has been presented by the media thus far, I would have to say the chances they had a gun is so small it absolutely does not equate to "reasonable doubt".

Yes, it is possible they had a gun. But at this moment with the information we know, it is not reasonable to believe they had a gun.

Unless in your core belief system all black men are suspect. We know who the people here that subscribe to that.

 

[Exophase]

Right, and as a felon he couldn't be around guns. That leaves common sense as the reason why they stashed the weapon to avoid more serious felonies and automatic jail time.

"shit! We gotta get rid of this firearm or I go directly to jail for 10 years!"

"How do you know he had a gun?" "Because he was stashing something."
"Why do you think he was stashing something?" "He would have had to have gotten rid of his gun."

Being able to construct a plausible story doesn't make it true. Although I suppose the real answer you'd give is "because the shooter says so." Although oddly, the story changed from "it's definitely a shotgun, my client would not possibly mistake a shotgun for something else" to "it was a shotgun or something else."

Also, could you show me where in Florida law it's specified that a convicted felon can't be around guns in any capacity? The descriptions of possession I'm finding require that the convicted be in control of the firearm.

 

[fskimospy]

Here's his definition :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35234668&postcount=62806

lol. Remember guys, he's not a racist though.

 

[Daverino]

To many here all you need is a black man talking loud. They equate that as thug.

Nuff said

Yes, they used to be called, 'uppity Negroes' but now they're called 'thugs.' We have a thug in the White House, dontchaknow.

Apparently Blacks are not allowed to tell whites to fuck off. That's assault and terrorism. But I'm white, so I'm more than happy to tell Spatial and Spidey to go fuck themselves in whatever racist jizzhole they crawl out of before posting here.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Here's his definition :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35234668&postcount=62806

That was a play on trayvon's own words about making certain people bleed. However, you and the rest of your crew mass-reported the post and got what you wanted... Another public lynching.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Please show where I called him a thug.

That's not what he asked you.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

That's not what he asked you.

Ok, please show where I've claimed Jordan Davis was guilty of a crime or was a criminal.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Ok, please show where I've claimed Jordan Davis was guilty of a crime or was a criminal.

Why? I was simply pointing out that wasn't the question that was asked.

Just in case you forgot, here's Vic's question:

"What crime was Jordan Davis ever convicted then?"

 

[Geosurface]

If I were going to try to define "thug" in a modern society I would say it is someone who is willing to use violence and intimidation to get their way. Someone who is prepared to engage in criminal activity - though often it petty criminality.

When I think of a "thug" I think of a young man primarily, though this isn't exclusive to them. A young man who saunters through society enjoying the fact that old ladies and everyone else are intimidated by them and worried by their presence.

Someone who is looking for an excuse to get in a fight. Someone who carries themselves in a certain way, dresses in a certain way, listens to certain music, drives a certain type of car in a calculated cultivation of a persona which is meant to be disruptive and intimidating to polite society.

The real genuine thugs are perpetually involved in criminality, though not always serious criminality.

Important to note: there are lots of young men who play at embracing this motif to some degree because they are insecure and still learning how to be men, and they want a shortcut to getting respect. So just because it walks like a thug, talks like a thug, and dresses like a thug, isn't conclusive proof that it's a thug.

Even more important to note: there are thugs from every racial group, and they don't all listen to the same music or dress the same way. Some tatted up white guy who creates a threatening presence deliberately and gets into fights all the time, sells meth, whatever - he is a thug. Certainly any sort of skinhead idiot is a thug.

In our society currently blacks and Latinos contribute disproportionately to the "thug pool" but I don't see why people are acting like, or pretending anyone else is acting like they are the ONLY thugs. Far from it. Again, thugs come in every color and there are even female thugs. It's just that each gender and each racial group do not provide the same numbers or the same percentage of thugs.

The line between "wannabe thug" and actual thug can be very hard to call. In the case of Trayvon Martin I think his perpetual fights, drugs, suspensions, illegal guns, and actions on the night of his death establish him firmly as an actual thug. In the case of Jordan Davis, I'm unsure. The music and yelling "fuck this n----r! turn that shit back up!" and continuing to flip out and yell at Dunn might all just amount to "wannabe thug" - but I would say that if he did make an actual threat on Dunn's life, that would push him over the edge.

 

[Genx87]

Sounds like you described Dunn. A wannabe tough guy using his gun to shut up that "thug" music.

 

[Geosurface]

Sounds like you described Dunn. A wannabe tough guy using his gun to shut up that "thug" music.

If he shot out of anger rather than fear, if his life wasn't threatened, then sure he could be called a thug.

Though to me I prefer to attach the name to those who perpetually try to intimidate the whole society around them and cultivate their entire persona for that purpose.

But using a singular, thuggish event to justify calling someone a thug is fine by me if you want to. I'd probably call Dunn a psycho if I thought he had shot up a car full of teens simply out of anger.

 

[Vic]

In less than a week, the state of Florida is going to call Dunn a murderer.

 

[Geosurface]

In less than a week, the state of Florida is going to call Dunn a murderer.

I agree this is almost certainly what will happen.

I also think there's a VERY good possibility it is what SHOULD happen.

Two things make me sort of halfway wish he gets off though:

1.) I have a fondness for seeing extremely firm, confident predictions turn out wrong.

2.) Much more importantly, I don't see how the jury can KNOW with real confidence (beyond a reasonable doubt) that Davis did not threaten to take Dunn's life. Such a threat is attested to by the shooter, and consistent with Davis' attitude and behavior at that time as attested to by his friends, AND is most certainly consistent with what his best friend who was next to him in the backseat admits - which is that Davis was trying to open his door during this argument. No reason to open his door other than to get out escalate the situation in some way with Dunn. It also is just frankly difficult to believe he'd fill a truck full of bullets over music and rudeness.

 

[Exophase]

In less than a week, the state of Florida is going to call Dunn a murderer.

If that happens it's not good news for spidey. He says he understands the self defense laws in his state very well and that Florida's are very similar - and he's very confident that Dunn did nothing illegal. Well I suppose he could argue that would be an incorrect verdict on the part of the jury, but that's not really going to make a difference to Dunn. And it wouldn't make a difference to him if he applied his understanding of the law to his own situations and ended up tried the same way.

To me the big takehome is this - if you think a group of people sounds like a bunch of thugs listening to thug music don't engage them. Either your intuition is right and they are dangerous or your intuition is wrong but your prejudice could still end up causing you to shoot them because you misinterpreted an action as a threat on your life.

If you do engage them and they get angry deescalate. Apologize and leave. It doesn't matter if you're the reasonable one or you're the right one. I have zero doubt that if either one of the two parties did this things would have ended there. I also think that if you have a weapon and there's any chance you'll use it you have the greater responsibility to deescalate and disengage with strangers at all costs. Do they teach this at CCW training? If not they should.

I'm just dreading the day when stand your ground is invoked to say you have no duty to back down from an argument or return anger because another person initiated it.

 

[Exophase]

1.) I have a fondness for seeing extremely firm, confident predictions turn out wrong.

So what does that make you, a contrarian or just a troll?

2.) Much more importantly, I don't see how the jury can KNOW with real confidence (beyond a reasonable doubt) that Davis did not threaten to take Dunn's life. Such a threat is attested to by the shooter, and consistent with Davis' attitude and behavior at that time as attested to by his friends, AND is most certainly consistent with what his best friend who was next to him in the backseat admits - which is that Davis was trying to open his door during this argument. No reason to open his door other than to get out escalate the situation in some way with Dunn. It also is just frankly difficult to believe he'd fill a truck full of bullets over music and rudeness.

The beyond a reasonable doubt criteria for lacking threat in self-defense immunity has been presented a few times now.. I won't pretend I really know the laws beyond what I tried googling recently. Definitely not like some say I should, but I'm okay with that because I don't own a gun and if someone else shoots me it no longer matters to me if they're convicted or not (going to ignore the cases where I'm still alive).

But if the criteria really works this way it's pretty obvious it shouldn't. I pointed this out a few pages back. Proving someone isn't a threat is a very strong criteria. It's pretty easy to concoct an excuse for why you were threatened that can't be disproven, especially when mere presence and verbal threats alone are enough. A lot of these incidents had no witnesses except a person who is now dead. We can't simply give shooters the benefit of the doubt. Accepting that they were legitimately afraid cannot be enough of a justification by itself.

As far as I'm concerned, the question of proof beyond reasonable doubt should apply to whether or not someone committed an action. If a person was really the one to shoot someone else. In this case that's qualified. The question of motive is a different story. Situations like this where motive determines what you're convicted of or even the difference between guilt and innocence are edge cases and I'm not sure the same standards apply.

On the other hand, I may be focusing too much on an abstract idea of whether or not I feel this person deserves some kind of punishment for his behavior. Pragmatically, I'm not sure if putting this man behind bars accomplishes much. I don't see an argument that he's a dangerous criminal now, and I can believe he won't make these mistakes again.

I do think it could be prudent to strip him of his CCW rights if he goes free. Somehow I get the feeling that that idea would be even more offensive to some than putting him in jail..

 

[Geosurface]

But if the criteria really works this way it's pretty obvious it shouldn't.

Proving someone isn't a threat is a very strong criteria. It's pretty easy to concoct an excuse for why you were threatened that can't be disproven, especially when mere presence and verbal threats alone are enough. A lot of these incidents had no witnesses except a person who is now dead. We can't simply give shooters the benefit of the doubt. Accepting that they were legitimately afraid cannot be enough of a justification by itself.

I agree it's a very tricky situation where abuse of the law becomes very easy. But then, isn't that sort of unavoidable? People have always been able to get away with horrible things by covering their tracks carefully. How many murders have been successfully disguised as natural, suicidal or accidental deaths?

If two men meet in a darkened alley at night, and the cops are called to the alley 10 minutes later because one has been shot dead by the other, and the surviving CCW permit holder claims that the other man approached him, said "I'm gonna fucking kill you!" and appeared to have a knife in his hand, then we have a tricky situation.

The deceased is no longer able to provide his side of the story. The cops find that there was no knife, but a Snickers candy bar is near the dead man's body still in it's wrapper, and may have been what was in the man's hand. It was dark, though, and how could the shooter be expected to discern it was a candy bar and not a knife when he only saw it for a moment, and the man was rapidly approaching him and saying he'd kill him?

If the CCW guy just felt like killing someone, or maybe the guy with the Snickers had actually just said "what are you looking at, asshole?" instead of making any threat, then how incredibly awful would it be for the shooter to get away with a cold blooded, illegal murder just because he conveniently eliminated the only other witness? It's shocking to think of someone being able to get away with such an act, consequence free.

Yet, on the other hand what if this jackass really did threaten the shooter? What if he was holding up the candy bar like it was a knife? What if he was just trying to scare a stranger for a laugh, but did it too damned convincingly? What if the dead guy was a bit drunk and a practical joke like that seemed like a good idea?

What if the shooter was honest to god terrified he was about to get stabbed to death, and reacted as his training dictated? If that's the case, then isn't it just as horrible to contemplate him going to prison for the rest of his life or a sizable portion of it, because he reacted in a natural way to a perceived threat? Simply because a prosecutor felt like pressing charges and was able to convince a jury not to give the man the benefit of the doubt?

I say how can we NOT give someone the benefit of the doubt, as unpleasant as doing so may feel? After all, the other dude is dead and nothing will bring him back to life. The only life which still hangs in the balance is the shooter's life.

 

[Exophase]

It is nuanced, I can't deny that. There's a lot at stake with both positions. I still kind of feel like a licensed weapons holder should have an elevated level of responsibility. Especially when dealing with someone who could be a minor, such as in this case. And that could mean keeping your distance when confronting strangers so you can accurately ascertain if they're a threat before they have time to do something to you.

And I also still contend that if this guy had time to grab his gun from the glove compartment he had time to leave, and I don't think stand your ground laws should be so unbounded as to remove any responsibility with engagement whatsoever. I'm not saying repeal them entirely - that obviously didn't work in Florida - but do something to limit it. Maybe getting a weapon from a glove compartment instead of driving away should be too far. And if he got the weapon before he fired it, let's just say that once you make this decision you should have a responsibility to do what you can to reasonably deescalate or disengage.

If there is one thing that seems easy to argue against in all of this it's the lack of requirement for Dunn to have notified the police. I just don't see the benefit. "I didn't think I hurt anyone" doesn't cut it. When you brandish a weapon at someone or fire a warning shot deliberately meant to miss them it's still considered to be showing intent to kill and you're culpable for this. Surely if you fire directly at someone several times that should also be considered intent to kill and surely that should require notifying the police immediately.

I just don't see what purpose this serves, and the issues are obvious. Even if you had perfect justification for shooting. At the very least you could be delaying when the family is notified of the death and you could be causing the police to enter a missing person's investigation.

 

[Geosurface]

And I also still contend that if this guy had time to grab his gun from the glove compartment he had time to leave

Maybe getting a weapon from a glove compartment instead of driving away should be too far.

Keep in mind that if he legitimately believed Jordan Davis had a gun and every intent to kill him with it, putting the car in reverse (and possibly having to start it if he'd turned it off), then backing up and driving off (and thus leaving his fiancee behind) would have left Davis ample opportunity to shoot him as he did so.

If he TRULY believed Davis was moments from shooting him, the only way to neutralize that possibility was to kill Davis first or create a situation where he would have no ability or desire to try using his firearm. Laying down suppressing fire until the truck was sufficiently distant from him may have seemed to him to be the only way to ensure that nobody in the truck would take a shot at him as they drove off.

When the Durango backed up, it was directly behind Dunn's car and perpendicular to it. That would have been a golden opportunity to blow Dunn's head off with a shotgun if Dunn had ceased firing and allowed them to regain their composure.

I think people are using an awful lot of 20/20 hindsight in judging Dunn. We should all try to keep in mind just how little information he had to work with at that moment he opened fire.

We sit back in the comfort of our computer chairs and say "oh he killed an unarmed 17 year old with no criminal record whose parents loved him and only one of the 4 kids in that truck had a felony conviction! There was no weapon in the car!! And he could have done this this and this other thing, and why'd he shoot so many bullets???"

But let's put ourselves in Dunn's shoes at that moment. What information did he have?

He knows that the red SUV next to him has three young men in it and they are blasting rap music so loud as to make Dunn's car vibrate and the rear view mirror in it shake. He knows that at least one of them is FURIOUS at him and getting increasingly more so and has already said "fuck that n----r turn that shit back up!" Now the fourth young man Tommy Storns:

walks back out of the convenience store and gets back into the driver's seat. Now, in Dunn's mind it's four on one. They're all younger than him. There are signs of extreme aggression and rage coming out of their truck in the form of Jordan Davis' yelling. The truck's windows are the darkest legal tint allowed. This creates an increased feeling of threat because he can't see what they're doing or what they have in their hands in there. He can't see the faces of anyone but Jordan clearly because the other windows are up. He doesn't know that only Tommy Storns has a felony and that it's not a particularly serious one. For all he knows, all four of them have a rap sheet as long as his arm filled with violent crimes. He doesn't know that there is seemingly no weapon in the truck other than the small knife in Jordan Davis' pocket. For all he knows, every single one of them is packing.

And the transition from "what the hell? that kid is way more pissed at my request than is normal" to "oh shit! he just said he's going to kill me and now I think I see a gun coming up over the window!" would be almost instantaneous. There isn't a lot of time for deliberation and uncertainty, or considering all your options.

We know now that seemingly it was Jordan Davis and Jordan Davis alone who wigged out and was aggressively confronting Michael Dunn. At the time though, it must have seemed to Dunn like everyone in that truck was on exactly the same page and they presented a unified front, and a unified threat. He had no time or opportunity to discern whether the other three were supportive of Jordan's reaction or not. Btw I'm guessing they were at least amused by his reaction, and probably not discouraging it.

The point is, I don't think it is completely unreasonable to think that there may have been an atmosphere there of a credible threat, in Dunn's mind. And with things like Davis' best friend admitting Davis absolutely flipped out AND that he was working the door handle, I don't think it's crazy to wonder if Dunn might not have seen that door start to open and felt that he had to act NOW or die.

This post will make me sound like I'm entirely decided on what happened. I am not. I am merely trying to get people to back down from this very simplistic "he blew that kid away over loud music and because he was racist and didn't like being talked back to and there can be no other explanation or consideration whatsoever, it was cold-blooded murder pure and simple and any sympathy toward Dunn whatsoever qualifies you for super monster status!!!!"

I just think there's more nuance here than that. I appreciate your acknowledgement of that, Exophase.

 

[mugs]

It does however provide reasonable doubt

To be clear - do you actually care about what really happened, or do you just want to see Dunn get off?

 

[Geosurface]

Has everyone who comments in this thread taken the time to watch Dunn's police interview? I just finished watching them again.

The thing that strikes me is that until he's told at the end of it that he's being charged with murder and attempted murder, it hadn't even occurred to him that this was a possibility. It takes him a hell of a long time to even really process that he's in trouble. The guy is clearly intelligent, bit of a computer nerdy type guy, so there could be some of that disconnect from reality that real serious nerds sometimes have.

But I just don't think he's the type of person who would fail to consider his situation due to being a space cadet. I get the very strong impression watching the whole hour and a half interview (for the second time) that he is completely assured of his actions being justified. He is completely confident that Jordan Davis both directly told him he was going to die and that he was opening the rear door of the Durango and coming out. And that Davis had reached down to the floor of the Durango and then come up with something which he was holding like it was a shotgun.

I noticed in the trial that they said a camera tripod was found on the floor of the Durango. If someone was saying "you're dead bitch" and had just been saying to their friends "let's kill this motherfucker" and then they reached down to the floorboard of the vehicle they were in, and came up with this:

obscured behind a halfway up darkest legal tint window... in that moment of adrenaline might you be convinced it was a shotgun? If you're only seeing about 6-8 inches of it (which Dunn indicated with his hands in the interview)?

Is it entirely out of the realm of possibility that Davis got extremely pissed (this is established fact) about the polite request (acknowledged fact by the other boys) to turn down the music, and when Dunn wasn't having the desired reaction (being scared just based on the shit Davis was saying to his friends, and high-tailing it out of there so Davis could mock his cowardice) ... that Davis decided to up the ante, and in a moment of extreme stupidity, decided to grab the tripod and make this guy THINK his life was in danger? Is it impossible that a 17 year old would be momentarily stupid enough to forget that people do in fact carry firearms, and that this little stunt might be completely convincing?

I believe a threat was probably made. I believe he was opening the door. I believe this because Dunn shot at the friggin' car, which none but the most ridiculously brutal criminals our species produces would do based merely on someone back talking them. Dunn just doesn't fit that profile, at all. I also don't think you make it to 46 years old with basically no record, if you're the type of person who does that. I don't think you drive around with a pistol in your glove compartment for over 20 years without ever using it if you're the type of person who fills a car full of bullets based on nothing more than getting some lip.

And again, the best friend sitting with him in the back seat admits he was operating the door handle at some point during this, and frankly Dunn was in a better position to see if Davis was opening that door than his friend was anyway. The friend also had a LONG pause when asked if Davis threatened Dunn, whereas he answered *instantly* and confidently when asked if any of the other three did. The boys also appear to have lied about child locks on the car making it impossible for Jordan to have opened his own door. The locks were not found engaged. If they lied about that, as it seems they did, doesn't that demonstrate consciousness that Jordan's actions needed white washing and covering up?

I just don't see how anyone can feel good about this guy, who frankly seems like the prototypical tech guy who you'd find on these very forums, going to jail for the rest of his life when you have established facts like Jordan going ballistic about the request, operating the door handle, and just frankly the mere common sense that Dunn almost certainly would have ONLY did what he did if he'd felt threatened. And do you honestly think a guy who had tried to kill four people and succeeded in killing one, would be surprised he was charged with murder, if he'd done it deliberately and out of malice?

You guys are honestly going to tell me you feel good about this guy going to prison, among the type of people you find in prisons, and his whole life being destroyed... based on Davis' best friend's hesitant word and a narrative about him unloading on a car full of people because they cursed at him? Come on. And last thing I'll say in this rambly post is that the issue of whether he fired too many times or got too carried away is separate, and that may have a lot of merit. As he says in the interview, he was operating on adrenaline and was trying to prevent them returning fire.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Wow - lots scared people here. How do you even manage to get out of your homes each day?

 

[Geosurface]

Wow - lots scared people here. How do you even manage to get out of your homes each day?

You wouldn't be afraid if someone in a fully occupied truck with tinted windows, blasting rap music, started yelling "fuck that n----r! we should kill this motherfucker!" then proceeded to lift up something from the floor of the truck and said to you, as they started to open the door, "you're gonna die bitch, this is happening now!" ???

Congrats on the nerves of steel, but forgive me if I'm skeptical.

 

[Newell Steamer]

You wouldn't be afraid if someone in a fully occupied truck with tinted windows, blasting rap music, started yelling "fuck that n----r! we should kill this motherfucker!" then proceeded to lift up something from the floor of the truck and said to you, as they started to open the door, "you're gonna die bitch, this is happening now!" ???

Congrats on the nerves of steel, but forgive me if I'm skeptical.

I wouldn't tell them to turn down the music. I would finish gasing my car and leave.

No need to get ahead of yourself and assume anything further either. But, then again,... you are one of the usuals who cooks up all sorts of "what-ifs" and "one time,..." stupidity that has nothing to do with reality,... just your fears of life.

It's sad.

 

[Geosurface]

I wouldn't tell them to turn down the music. I would finish gasing my car and leave.

He wasn't getting gas he was parked next to them waiting for his fiancee to come back out of the store with a purchase.

I wouldn't tell them to turn down their music either. But let's say you'd just had a few drinks at a wedding, not enough to make you really intoxicated or dangerous to be behind the wheel, but enough to lower your inhibitions just enough that you have the really bad idea to ask them if they'd turn down their music, a momentary lapse in your usual judgment.

No need to get ahead of yourself and assume anything further either.

I'm just working within the framework that what Dunn claims happened (that he was threatened and Davis was coming out of the Durango) is true. I think that's a pretty basic thought exercise to do in a thread about the incident.

And I'm asking you to put yourself in that situation, the (stupid?) decision to ask them to turn down the music is already made, the threats are happening, you're telling me you aren't scared at that point?

I find it ironic that you're mocking people for being scared, while at the same time saying how stupid it would be to ask a truck full of young black men to turn down their bass-bumping rap music. Which implies pretty clearly that we should be MORE afraid of them, not less.