Michael
Dunn, a Florida man who invoked Florida’s Stand-Your-Ground defense after an
argument with a teenager over loud music at a gas station turned violent and
then deadly, wrote lots of letters to his grandmother while in jail. Those letters
have now been released and they don’t help his cause.
 |
| Michael Dunn |
In
the dozens of letters, Dunn lashes out at the media, the State Attorney’s
office, and black people in jail with him.
WESH.com reports: In a letter to his grandmother [Dunn] writes, "The jail
is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but
if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when
they're threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their
behavior."
It does sound radical. It also sounds pretty racist.
Authorities said Dunn parked at a
Jacksonville gas station next to the vehicle where Davis was sitting with three
other teens. Dunn complained about the loud music, and they started arguing.
Dunn told police he thought he saw a gun and fired eight or nine shots into the
vehicle.
Dunn’s
letters continue saying, “"I was thinking an easy way to die would be to
ask a car load of thugs to turn their stereo down," Dunn wrote.
That doesn’t sound at all like standing your ground against a deadly threat that you didn’t provoke, the whole point of “stand-your-ground” laws which go against a common law duty to retreat in the face of a threat before using deadly force. Picking a fight, then using deadly force, is not stand-your-ground. That’s where Dunn is likely to run into trouble. It’s also where proponents of stand-your-ground laws have run into trouble; people like Dunn who misunderstand the defense and the point of the defense and try to use it as a proactive weapon to pick fights and start firing, then try get away blame-free.
Trial to come.
Should be interesting.
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