Michael Dunn

The case of Michael Dunn started at a gas station in Florida. Michael Dunn is a middle aged man that shot at a car full of black teenagers. This case brings up three of the main things we have looked at over the course of this year, labels, gun violence, and the justice and legal system. It all started at a gas station when the SUV carrying 4 black teenagers drove up next to Michael Dunns car. The kids were playing rap music very loud, this is when Michael Dunn asked them to turn it down, which they did. I believe Michael Dunn first labeled the kids. As soon as he heard the rap music he started to think "thugs", which was far from accurate. The kids actual lived in the suburbs and went to a private school. Dunn then claimed to have heard shouts coming from the car saying something along the lines of “I should kill him”. Dunn said it was only after he heard the shouting that he started to fear for his life. Personally I think he was subconsciously scared the whole time. This gave him as excuse to reach for his gun. After hearing the kids shouting at him, Dunn claimed to have seen what looked like the barrel of a shotgun and saw the back door of the car open. This is when Dunn opened fire on the car, he hit and killed one of the boys in the back seat, Jordan Davis. This whole incident happened in Florida, which has a law that says you can shoot if you feel that it is in self-defense.

During the case Dunn's lawyers try to prove that the boys could have had a gun in the car and that the police did not conduct a thorough search. They also try to prove that the boys are not credible witnesses because they are only testifying out of anger toward Dunn because he killed their friend. Later on in the trial when Dunn's girlfriend testified she said that he had never mentioned seeing a gun until well after the incident happened. In the end Dunn was found guilty of three counts of attempted murder, this would be the other three boys in the car. However there was a mistrial on the count of first degree murder. Through this process we saw gun violence in that Michael Dunn shot at four teenage boys and killing one of them. He shot at them because he labeled them as thugs and was scared. Finally his case went through the legal system where he was found guilty of three counts of attempted murder. This case also deals with many more topics that we covered this semester, but I thought these were three of the biggest points that came up through this case.