Theodore Wafer, 54, is to be charged with 2nd-degree murder, manslaughter, and a firearm charge for shooting 19 year-old Renisha McBride in the face with a shotgun on November 2nd, prosecutors announced today. Wafer is expected to turn himself in today to formally answer the charges. This case has drawn accusations of racial profiling, along with inevitable (but utterly baseless) comparisons to the Trayvon Martin case. ‘Stand Your Ground’ and ‘Castle Doctrine’ laws will play no part in this case at all . . .
Not every bump in the night is an intruder bent on mayhem and murder. Sometimes that person ringing your doorbell at 3:00 a.m. really did run out of gas or really does need you to call an ambulance. Renisha McBride’s family says the 19 year-old was disoriented from an earlier car crash when she knocked on the door of an unnamed Detroit homeowner on November 2nd.
She certainly was disoriented. The Wayne County coroner released McBride’s postmortem toxicology reports, which indicated that McBride was heavily intoxicated at the time of death and had marijuana metabolites in her system. Marijuana metabolites are not indicative of marijuana intoxication, only that the person has used the short-acting drug in the recent past.
This earlier report from the BBC brings us some of the details of the shooting:
Renisha McBride, 19, received fatal injuries on the front porch of a home in Detroit, Michigan, on 2 November.
Her family says she was disoriented and looking for help after having just been involved in a car crash nearby. The homeowner said he had feared a burglary, but civil rights leaders are demanding justice.
…the unidentified 54-year-old man…told police he fired his shotgun accidentally. A lawyer for the man said he was “torn up” by McBride’s death, but that he had feared for his life at the time.
A post-mortem examination report released on Monday confirmed that McBride had been shot in the face, but not at close range.
Additional details were provided today during the District Attorney’s press conference. According to police, the evidence suggests that Wafer filed the fatal shot through his still-locked screen door. He then called police to report that he’d shot an intruder, and then hung up.
Despite Wafer’s prudent choice to call 911 and then STFU, this does not add up a legitimate DGU. Here’s why:
- McBride was alone and unarmed, which indicates that it was probably not reasonable for Wafer to grab a shotgun at all.
- His decision to open the inner door is not consistent with his decision to arm himself: why would you opening your door if you were worried enough to grab a shotgun?
- The coroner’s finding that McBride was not shot at close range is even more damning. It’s not generally reasonable to ‘fear for your life’ from a single unarmed young woman, especially when there’s a locked screen door between you.
- The 21-foot knife rule doesn’t apply here, because she she didn’t have a knife and she couldn’t have charged him through the locked screen door anyway.
Wafer seems to be hedging his bets by also claiming that he fired the shotgun by accident. This claim is immediately suspicious, because this ‘accident’ happened after he’d already aimed his shotgun at McBride’s head.
Even if the fatal shot was accidental, this might only reduce the crime from Murder 2 to Manslaughter. But there is no such thing as a ‘justifiable accidental killing’: either a homicide is justified because the killer reasonably feared for his life, or it’s not justified at all.
The ethically-questionable Al Sharpton, as well as the NAACP, have been marching and protesting for nearly two weeks to demand criminal charges in this case. I strongly disagreed with their stance in the George Zimmerman case (with which they are desperately trying to draw unwarranted parallels) but in this case I think Al Sharpton was actually right.
And I don’t think I’ve ever said that before in my entire life.
A lease is a contract between two grown up people for good money, what two consenting adults decide is mostly only between them. Once we get into the business of telling a landlord what they can and cannot permit on their property, then their property is no longer really theirs, we have taken a major step to socialism. While I certainly don’t like that landlords prohibit a lot of stuff, its their property, and property rights trump most other rights for me.
For example: You landlord can inspect your property during reasonable times with sufficient notice. You don’t really have the same expectation of privacy as if you owned it. Your landlord can determine what utilities you have, which may indeed dictate what news you can watch. Within certain parameters they most certainly can screen tenants, within certain legal parameters. They can tell you not to smoke, and not to have pets. The can tell you not to burn incense [which may be fundamental to your religion].
I had a landlord put in the lease what color curtains I had to have. You cannot be “expressive” and paint the walls purple.
Are the tenants “second class citizens” because they are giving up something. Perhaps, but its a contract which means they are giving up something to get something (there are many days I long for the years when I only had to call the landlord to fix the plumbing and had no gardening or fix-it projects to do).
Oops, I ‘accidentally’ fired my shotgun into some drunk girl’s face.
Your point boils down to the relationship between a landlord and tenant, which in most states is spelled out in state law. You are right to state a list of rights that would not be restricted in a tenant situation, however guns are (potentially) a different issue. The reason is simply that while you are renting from a landlord, they give up their rights to unrestricted access and usage in exchange for payment. However, as the owner’s, they retain the right to limit access to anything that may cause harm to their property or impose upon them additional liability. Remember that when you are renting, despite it being your legal domicile, you are paying for the right to occupy that space, but the owner retains the right to dictate how that property is used. This is why many landlords dictate the type and number of pets that are allowed in a rental unit; they maintain an interest in ensuring the safety of their property and choose to do that by limiting pets. The difference here of course is that pets do not fall under constitutionally protected rights. However, a landlord would have the right to limit firearms on their property in the event that they could show that their presence posed a danger to the property, or imposed on them an additional liability. For example, if the gun was being used irresponsibly and caused damage to the property, they could limit access. Some places may also limit flammables in a rental, and so could limit storing powder or primers. The reality however is that the vast majority of landlords do not want to directly limit firearms in a lease because of the potential legal ramifications and resulting costs. The exception of course is state-owned as well as educational institutions which are largely “gun-free zones” by state and federal law. That is not, however, an issue of tenant law.
“… ten people arrested for the neighborhood crime spree.” When I first read that I thought it was about Detroit. THAT‘s where MDA should have their next rally.
Why is there a link to the Charter Arms Undercover review?
Yeah Chuckie, let’s outlaw the Internet. Moron.
At least now she can’t run into any (more?) innocent people, driving drunk.
Wtf?! Of course those are things the prosecutor will say, but they are completely off the wall otherwise.
For the first bullet point, at 3am, any knock on the door is reasonable suspicion for trouble. How was he to know she was alone?
For the second bullet point, your first bullet point doesn’t preclude opening the door if upon investigation the facts warrant it.
For the third, I agree, this is where things seem fishy. Then again, he wasn’t claiming self-defense, and accidents can happen at any distance.
For the fourth, lets continue with the assumption for self-defense, how was he to know she had a knife or not? A strange person shows up in the early AM stumbling and mumbling, clearly under the influence of intoxicants, if they are being aggressive (not saying she was, as this wasn’t self-defense but an accident) you are in reasonable fear for your life.
As for the whole bit about there being only justified and criminal homicide, no accidental, perhaps that’s the case in Michigan, but that’s not the case everywhere. Florida has excusable homicide which could be applied in this case. It was even present in the Zimmerman jury instructions (3x more than no duty to retreat was mentioned).
I had a similar situation occur in my youth.
When I was 17 or 18, (before cellphones existed) I fell asleep at the wheel while driving home at 2 AM. I crashed my car on a country road about 5 miles from home. I was NOT intoxicated, only sleep deprived. I walked to the nearest home and knocked on the door. The homeowner opened the door with a revolver in his hand, POINTED AT THE FLOOR. I apologized, explained my situation, and asked to use his phone.
That’s how this incident SHOULD have gone down. It is totally justifiable to arm yourself when answering the door in the dead of the night. It is NOT acceptable to open the door pointing your gun at the unknown, finger on the trigger. I feel for the homeowner because had this girl not been driving drunk and caused a wreck, he probably would have continued to live a normal life. However, he should not have been pointing the gun at her when he opened the door, and HIS FINGER SHOULD HAVE BEEN OFF THE TRIGGER. I hope they don’t completely throw the book at him due to some trumped up “racism” claims, but I think manslaughter would actually fit the bill in this case. It’s a terrible tragedy for all parties involved.
The only thing that I’m not sure about is how crazy she acted due to being “highly intoxicated”. However, I still don’t see this being a justifiable shoot.
And as for Sharpton being right – all I have to say is that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
This so much. Police are almost always great people who mostly don’t even want a select fire AR with all the toys. And a lot that do are very well trained and knowledgeable with their weapons. But in the end police are just people, like the rest of us. They can be idiots, and when given stuff like surplus M16s and MRAPS because “they’re police” they can be even bigger idiots.
So,,, If I had been the RSO I would have intoned “Ya know, if you show your LEO ID ya get free Ice cream and a free lane change, don’ cha?”
I concur with the prevailing assessment that it was a bad shoot, but ‘she was unarmed’ isn’t my basis for deciding that.
It seems odd that a website that is this popular with people who practice concealed carry would be saying that the homeowner’s actions were unjustified on the basis that no weapon was visible.
Crazy, right? I’m not gonna shot an unarmed women unless she actually possesses the clear and present ability to cause death or serious bodily injury to me or to someone else. That’s it. No qualifiers.
I have a Benelli like the one shown. I’m taking the shotgun.
More versatile, long and short range capable, can be used to bash doors or heads in, wide variety of ammo
Which is why bought it. The Benelli is worth every penny
As a landlord, I’ll set whatever legal rules are necessary to protect my investment. Don’t like them? Too bad, live somewhere else. Renters think of it as a home and that’s great, landlords look at it as a business transaction with liabilties and profits.
Walther P22 without a doubt. I dont care how fat you are, you ain’t concealing a shotgun on your person. Something which is easily accomplished with a pistol. And in an urban situation that is what counts.
What about all of your other Constitutional rights within your home? Is it OK for a private corporation or invidual to violate those under the guise of contract law?
Because H.O.A. corporations have been restricting the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th Amendment rights of home owners for decades. And all I hear from conservatives and libertarians is how H.O.A. corporations are manifestations of the free market (i.e., they’re “Free Market Alternatives To Zoning“), and that the home owner “agreed” to whatever restrictions are placed upon him by a some-document-called-a-contract. Never mind that the “consent” is usually a legal fiction known as “constructive notice”. Like it or not, courts enforce H.O.A. documents as contracts, fine print and all.
Some H.O.A. corporations have banned gun ownership within their “communisties”, although they usually reverse their anti-gun policies when faced with bad publicity. As far as I know, there is no law or legal precedent that says H.O.A. corporations can’t ban private gun ownership, since such bans have not been challenged in court. And if you say “..but the 2nd Amendment”, you’re hopelessly naive, because private corporations — and H.O.A.s are private corporations — are not bound to respect your constitutional rights. It’s an example of
Think of the Cheyenne “government” in season 2 of Jericho.
If the gun-owner control lobby were smart, they would privatize gun control by encouraging H.O.A. corporations to restrict, or even ban, private firearms ownership within their jurisdictions. “Hey, there have been incidents of home owners shooting board members. You might want to do something to protect yourself…” Bloomberg’s M.A.G.I. (“Make All Guns Illegal”) group could start in anti-gun states to set precedent, and after a while, 60 million Americans could lose their gun-rights without a single law being passed. Instead of “The Road To Serfdom”, we’d get “The Privatized Toll Road To Serfdom”, which leads to the same place. But we’re supposed to believe that one is somehow preferable to the other, because, uh, “‘private corporations’ and ‘contracts’ good; government regulation of H.O.A.s bad”. And it’s usually by the same people who love to quote that “He who gives up liberty in exchange for security deserves neither”, and then tells everyone how happy he was to give up his liberty to the H.O.A. corporation in exchange for the false promises of protecting property values.
Considering the short range of this gun a plastic knife is probably as great a threat and doesn’t need to be reloaded.
He lost a son two days ago. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
At this point it is my opinion that the poor girl was killed. Still, I remember siding with Trayvon at first too. The media can paint things any way they want.
Very,very sad event!
Let the arm chair quarterbacking begin! If this, if that… He shoulda, woulda, coulda…
Only one thing is obvious, mistakes were made.
The first one was a young lady driving drunk at 3am. The second was her banging on a stranger’s door at 3am.
Very little good happens at 3am and at 3am, having been awakened from a deep sleep, I’m not sure I would remember all the correct tactical procedures to follow. I hope that I would have the wits to grab my gun and dial 911 while at the ready. Of course in Detroit, it might be hours before the police get there to check out the situation, given the state of the city’s finances.
The next guy might put his gun away and go out to help the young lady. He might get jumped by three of her mates hiding in the bushes too.
The Benelli. Pure intimidation from a shotgun like that would most likely end any looter incursions without a fight. Could take small game or deer if need be. If it was a P99, I’d consider the pistol, but if I had only one gun it’s not gonna be a rimfire, especially not a rimfire handgun.
One fact no one has brought up is this happened in Detroit. A city with a totally dysfunctional PD with an average “high priority” response time of 58 minutes. A city where people hire private security to walk them to the parking lot at close of business. A city where ” the wild west” description might indeed apply. NOT defending this guy without all the facts, but an over the top response anywhere else might be the prudent response in Detroit. Again, I don’t know all the details, but consider if you had zero confidence in your local PD, might that influence your actions? If you knew violent crime was a common occurrence in your neighborhood, would that be a factor?
It’s the landlord’s home. His home, his rules. I’m a libertarian, and I believe that people should be free to discriminate as they see fit with respect to their property. The landlord should be free to favor renters based on their religion, their political leanings, or even their race. The landlord could feel free to do most of the ridiculous things that DZ mentioned (except for the voting fraud case), but any landlord that attempted to enter such clauses in their contracts would find themselves losing money and alienating customers for no good reason.
Look at it from the landlord’s perspective. Some people feel uncomfortable with an individual keeping arms in their rental property. If someone breaks in and kills you, then the landlord loses the money remaining on the lease. If someone breaks in and you kill them, the landlord has to replace several sheets of drywall. At this stage, it makes economic sense for some landlords to restrict guns on their property.
The way to address the issue isn’t by limiting property rights, but by addressing tort law. Any person who creates a gun free zone should be assumed liable for the protection of the individuals inside that gun free zone. Now the landlord can either buy an expensive security system, which doesn’t really guarantee anyone’s security, or he can allow renters to be armed. By changing tort law, you’ve changed the incentives to allow weapons in rental homes.
Heard this on Sunday. Obviously I don’t agree with the man, but props to Dick for taking this interview. Hopefully all the backlash will help him see where he went wrong.
It doesn’t sound like he’s disagreeing with the course of events laid out by the investigation. He’s admitted to shooting an unarmed woman that he chose to open his door to. Either murder 2 or manslaughter. If you f*ck up and kill someone for no justifiable reason, that’s still a crime, you pay the consequences. Not a damned thing to do with gun rights. Might not have anything to do with race either.
-D
Wow.
I don’t really car that he didn’t pick or name his column, it was the meat of the column that was all Mr. Metcalf.
Just another Fudd… “I believe in the Second Amendment, but…”
Give the man his Gabby the meat puppet and mda membership cards.
I think Dirk has some competition for impressing Mrs. Watts…next stop MDA vice prez!
Looks like Chuckles didn’t get the message: outlawing has been outlawed.
The Walther P22 was by far the least reliable handgun I’ve ever owned.
Looking back, relatives noticed that there were signs of tension in the marriage
If any of this crap IS real, and our representatives really DON’T know about it, I’m more worried than ever.
Are you guys really that ignorant of the real issue here? This nonprofit — they not only offered “trade in your gun — but could-be thugs also had a real oppty to take FREE IT CLASSES and get certified in high level IT programs that would start them out in the fast growing IT field. It was an oppty for them to LEARN instead of using that gun. I don’t care if it didn’t work right, if it was their grandmom’s, or even if grandma brought it in for them. It gave them a CHOICE: use that gun vs. get an education and become someone, make a lucrative career that is LEGAL and likely makes more money than a life of crime. How the initial post doesn’t see the “big picture” of this amazing, hardworking for over 15yrs nonprofit’s vision, is beyond me.
I am suspicious of those who use the phrase, “conspiracy theory.”
At 3 a.m. in Detroit it may be reasonable to answer a bizarrely irregular middle of the night knock at the door armed, as a good Samaritan. However, if you’re going to accidentally shoot the person in the face, resist the ‘good Samaritan’ impulse. The innocent won’t thank you for the hole in their face.
If you are armed and know there is still a locked screen door to protect you, why not open the door….slowly? You can help an innocent if that’s what appears. If not, well, you’re armed. However, “Buying a violin does not make you a musician.” “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
So, um… Where’s the book review?
I’m still trying to find where I can read this for free.
Currently, free means you have to join amazon prime at $79 bucks a year. Or try the 30 day free trial, but you still have to give them your credit card info.
Should be, you can read this if you don’t mind giving personal credit card info over the net and jump through some hoops. It’s a good book, but I’m not going to really tell you a thing about it.
Sorry to sound critical, but I was kinda hoping for a book review.
Just Dating Just Married
Has Texas Rep. Louie Gomert Lost his Mind?
Yes, long ago. Next question.
Guns in secret, or guns in the open. You decide.
Well done article, I agree with most points presented. When I chose my rifle I initially leaned toward the AK. After looking at several I couldn’t stand how poorly and cheaply they were made. I am sure they are dependable, as their reputation is solid, but for mymoney the SKS was a better deal. I like solid metal and old style wood stocks, a Yugo SKS cost me $155 when I bought it, at the time the cheapest AK I could find cost $350. The AK in that price range was also rough, the SKS looked unissued. If I could cheaply and legally own a full auto AK I would have one, but that is not the case.
“Limp wristing” a firearm, is a common term that’s been around for years (decades) not related in any manner to anyone’s sexual preferences. It means to keep your wrists locked so an auto won’t jam.
Is there any logical limit to infringements in the name of public safety against the individual right to bear arms?
That’s A kill threat and we’ve got it on tape,time to arrest that ahole and make him stand trial.
Gun limits, abortion limits, fast food limits. I thought texas was a free state.
I still see “.223” Saigas (chambered in 5.56, but stamped .223 for importation reason) available on gunbroker etc. A perfectly fine way to go.
Bulgarian is the same quality as Izhmash.
This did not happen in Detroit. The girl was from Detroit. This happened in Dearborn Heights, a much safer suburb 20 minutes from Detroit western border, and not at all a low income area. The facts are wrong in this article and the comments are cringe worthy from misinformation.