‘Stand your ground?’ Detroiter shot dead asking for help in white suburb

After getting into a car accident at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, 19-year-old Renisha McBride, who is black, went to a home for help in a predominately white neighborhood in Dearborn Heights.

Moments later, McBride was shot in the face with a shotgun, left to die on the front porch. The homeowner said the gun went off by accident, and he believed the woman was an intruder.

Now the case is in the hands of police, who are working with the prosecutor’s office.
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Clouding the shooting is Michigan’s “stand your ground” law, which generally states that a person is not required to retreat if he or she feels threatened by someone, regardless of where the person is.

Michigan’s law is nearly identical to the one in Florida, where George Zimmerman was exonerated in the killing of Trayvon Martin, in no small part due to the “stand your ground” law.

“The problem with a law like ‘stand your ground’ is that it excuses and encourages deadly force against ‘perceived’ threats,” Rania Khalek wrote on her blog. “In the United States, where implicit and structural racism persists on a vast scale, is it wise to empower people who almost certainly have irrational and racist fears, to kill instead of call police who are trained (at least they’re supposed to be) to deal with potential threats?

“Race also appears to play a significant role in whether a homicide is deemed justifiable. A recent study conducted by John Roman of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center found, ‘The odds that a white-on-black homicide is ruled to have been justified is more than 11 times the odds a black-on-white shooting is ruled justified,’ a reflection of the racial disparities that plague all aspects of the US criminal justice system.”

McBride is a recent graduate of Southfield High School and worked for Ford Motor Co.

From The Detroit News: Prosecutor asks for more details in fatal shooting of Detroit teen

Here is Michigan’s ‘stand your ground’ law

Sec. 1. (1) An individual who uses deadly force or force other than deadly force in compliance with section 2 of the self-defense act and who has not or is not engaged in the commission of a crime at the time he or she uses that deadly force or force other than deadly force commits no crime in using that deadly force or force other than deadly force.

(2) If a prosecutor believes that an individual used deadly force or force other than deadly force that is unjustified under section 2 of the self-defense act, the prosecutor may charge the individual with a crime arising from that use of deadly force or force other than deadly force and shall present evidence to the judge or magistrate at the time of warrant issuance, at the time of any preliminary examination, and at the time of any trial establishing that the individual’s actions were not justified under section 2 of the self-defense act.

  Dearborn Heights, George Zimmerman, Rania Khalek, Renisha McBride, Stand your ground, steve, Trayvon Martin

Steve Neavling

Steve Neavling lives and works in Detroit as an investigative journalist. His stories have uncovered corruption, led to arrests and reforms and prompted FBI investigations.

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