Renisha McBride

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.

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90 COMMENTS

  3. Sounds like he followed Joe Biden’s advice to the letter. The VP should be called as “expert witness” being that he is among the most senior level members of the executive branch and law-enforcement.

    • I don’t think any of the stories mentioned what *type* of shotgun was used. If he had been following the letter of the law as handed down by JB, it would have been a double-barreled shotgun.

      He obviously got the “blast” part down, but I’m going to call bs on the “back door” clause. This was obviously a front door, and as such would not be covered under the law.

      That is, unless you desire to resurrect Clarence Darrow and debate the normality of house alignment as to whether the door was “front” or “back” based on the cardinal direction in which it was aimed. I’d actually pay good money to see that debate.

      (BTW, love your vids. no updates lately? — fellow CA subject)

    • Not to mention that Biden is an expert on guns, since he headed that investigation about gun control and only experts can lead fancy government things like that 🙂

  4. 100% agree. This gives gun owners a bad name, we can’t support people who do dumb things like this.

    I will say, however, that this is extremely overblown solely because a white person killed a black person. White people get killed by blacks all the time and you never hear much, if anything about it.

        • ….Gonna go out on a limb here and say perhaps they want MSM proof that white people constantly get killed by black people.

          I was under the assumption that it was black-on-black in most low-income areas, mostly related to drugs and gang affiliation (or “slights” as we might refer to them), and white-on-white was parents versus their children using the “i didn’t know it was loaded” or “i never lock it up” excuse. 😛

          But I guess it does just take a few minutes on the intarwebs to find out. (pfff, who has the time for that?)

    • Citation needed for what? How about the 3 youngsters that attacked and killed the WWII vet? Where were the civil rights activists then?

      I agree that this is tragic and he should be charged, but like Nick said, it’s overblown because a white guy killed a black girl.

        • actually, those were the guys in Oklahoma who killed the Aussie baseball player b/c they were bored. One was white and two were black.

          Separately – Two black guys utes killed a WWII in Washington state during a robbery after he resisted.

        • Ummm… All were black. This is by the same criteria by which BHO is not white. And frankly, I think we might setlle this minor disagreement by researching how the perp in question identifies himself instead of how the media describes him. He looks like a very light skinned black kid. The facts that he was hanging out with two black kids and participated in an assault on a white guy give more support to the idea that he identies as black than as white. He may identify as ‘interracial’ but I don’t think that is the case

    • The reason why this gets attention is because the case itself is unusual. Most black-on-white violence is caused by career criminals, or wannabes in the making, who just happen to be black (I can go on about why a disproportionate number of criminals are black, but this really isn’t of importance here). On the other hand, in this case, we have a guy who is not a criminal, but who nevertheless was trigger happy enough to shoot an unarmed person in distress seeking help in the face. While we don’t know what made him so jumpy, there are some reasons to believe that a certain amount of racism was involved here (“black person at night” -> “no good”).

      The other aspect is that this happened in a place which has been prominently racist historically, and where the populace has demonstrated that it’s unwilling to acknowledge that fact.

  5. I’m inclined to agree with you Dumm, but I’d still like to see the evidence at the trial before coming to a definite conclusion.

    • Same here. Regardless of public opinions or the trial outcome, this sounds like some really bad decisions on the homeowner’s part. So he’s guilty of being a moron, at least.

    • Last night, before the charges were announced, I’d written an article on this same story entitled “Could This Conceivably Be A DGU?” My feeling, based on the information available so far, was that this went way outside the limits of justifiable use of deadly force.

      The article was in the scheduling queue but hadn’t been published yet when this news broke today. In it, I predicted that charges of Manslaughter (or worse) would be coming down the pike very soon. I didn’t expect the Murder 2 charge, however, and I don’t expect it to stick if Wafer is brought to trial.

      The DA’s press conference revealed additional details (the blood alcohol level, the locked screen door) that make this case look even worse for the homeowner. Unlike George Zimmerman who was being straddled and beaten by a large male opponent, Wafer was still on his feet, unharmed, in his own home, and armed with a shotgun against an unarmed young woman. Zimmerman didn’t have the option of just walking away once Martin started the Ground & Pound, but Wafer could probably have just shut the door and locked it.

      If he doesn’t take a deal, probably to Man 2, he’ll have to convince the jury that the circumstances that night justified him imminently fearing for his life, and that the accidental discharge was not the result of gross negligence.

      There’s always a possibility that some undiscovered bombshell evidence will come to light in favor of the defendant, but that doesn’t happen terribly often.

      This case has no parallels to the Zimmerman case, but it does bear comparison to the case in Boulder, Colorado where a homeowner shot a heavily-drunk young woman who broke into his home and even broke into the homeowner’s bedroom despite his shouted warnings.

      That was a righteous shoot where no charges were filed, but those facts don’t look *anything* like these.

      • I must point out that Wafer had no way of knowing that the young woman was unarmed. And he had no way of knowing that the young woman did not have accomplices on either side of the door. We should also keep in mind that this happened in Detroit which I believe has the second highest per capita violent crime rate of any city in the nation. Every Detroit resident should be highly suspicious of anyone approaching their door any time of day, much less someone pounding on their door in the whee hours of the morning.

        Don’t get me wrong — I am not defending Wafer here. I am pointing out that the situation was not as clear to Wafer at the time as it is to us with the benefit of all the evidence so far.

        Last but not least, assuming that the victim crashed because she was heavily intoxicated, she is mostly to blame. None of this would have happened if she had refrained from driving while intoxicated. Did Mr. Wafer choose foolishly? That very well could be. Nevertheless, the victim was definitely foolish if she drove while heavily intoxicated.

        • >> I must point out that Wafer had no way of knowing that the young woman was unarmed. And he had no way of knowing that the young woman did not have accomplices on either side of the door.

          You have no way of knowing that any random person walking past you on the street isn’t an undercover jihadist who is about to take out an Uzi and mow you down, Nairobi-style.

          These kinds of arguments only go to reinforce the antis’ point that SYG is about “shoot first and just say that you were afraid later”. As we all know well here, this is not how it works – it should be a reasonable expectation of harm coming your way before you can pull the trigger. While it is reasonable to be suspicious of a person knocking at your door at 3am, it is not in any way reasonable to take a shotgun, and then go open the door, and then blast them once the door is open.

          >> Last but not least, assuming that the victim crashed because she was heavily intoxicated, she is mostly to blame. None of this would have happened if she had refrained from driving while intoxicated.

          Ugh… no. Just no. The blame is on her for the crash, for sure. But there’s no reasonable causality chain that would link that to getting a shotgun blast in the face in a rational world. The responsibility for that lies squarely with the guy who pulled the trigger, and no-one else.

  7. If you’re answering the door at 3:00 AM, it is entirely reasonable to grab a shotgun. You have no way of knowing the person banging on your door is unarmed and alone. That said, the rest of the shoe fits. He shouldn’t have opened the door is he was worried enough to point the gun, and he shouldn’t have pointed the gun if he didn’t intend to shoot (which he contends he didn’t).

    • “If you’re answering the door at 3:00 AM, it is entirely reasonable to grab a shotgun”

      If it’s reasonable to grab a shotgun when opening the door, it’s not reasonable to open the damned door.

      • Then how the hell do you propose seeing what’s on the other side of the door? Most doors these days don’t have peepholes.

        • Yes. Last time I had a 3am knock at the door it turned out to be local PD asking if I had lost a child.

        • Most doors aren’t soundproof, either. It’s entirely possible to have a conversation through a closed, locked door. Perhaps a couple of questions like, “Who are you?” and “Why are you knocking on my door at 3 AM?” could go a long way toward figuring out the situation before you open the door.

  8. There are some ‘odd’ things about this case tho. She wasn’t just ‘intoxicated’ according to the local news McBride’s blood alcohol level was 0.218%. Which would put her in the realm of the Mayor of Toronto. There was also two hours between when she crashed and when she ‘knocked’ on the guy’s door.

    We have no way of knowing how urgently she knocked on that door, if she ‘banged’ it hard enough to seem like she was trying to break it down or what.

    He better have a good lawyer tho.

    Detroit Free Press article: http://www.freep.com/article/20131114/NEWS02/311140094/Renisha-McBride-Worthy

    • See, he fucked up. You’re supposed to go out onto your balcony, fire two warning shots, THEN fire through the door. The Biden Protocol works every time, but you gotta follow the correct procedure.

  11. 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’m sorry, what? It seems prudent to avoid convicting the guy online without us having all the evidence, but you’re really reaching here.

      • Perhaps you meant to reply to somebody else, because the overwhelming majority of what I wrote was to Chris Dumm regarding what he wrote, some of which was reaching and other bits being completely irrelevant.

  12. 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.

    • The only thing Al Sharpton might get right every day all day long is breathing, but then again he may suffer Sleep Apnea.

  13. I disagree with this:

    ■McBride was alone and unarmed, which indicates that it was probably not reasonable for Wafer to grab a shotgun at all.

    I always answer the door with at least a handgun. After 10PM, shotgun with lasers and lights are the tool of choice.

    She may not have been a danger but there is no way for the resident to know. One of the favorite methods used by home invaiders is to have an innocent looking female ask for help. When the door is opened they rush the house.

    With that said, there is NO way i would have opened that door.

  14. Looks like Michigan law has a statute for virtually this exact circumstance…

    http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(iom5n0ezrmagio2yxr1str45))/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=mcl-750-329

    750.329 Discharging firearm pointed or aimed at another person resulting in death; manslaughter; exception; “peace officer” defined.
    Sec. 329.

    (1) A person who wounds, maims, or injures another person by discharging a firearm that is pointed or aimed intentionally but without malice at another person is guilty of manslaughter if the wounds, maiming, or injuries result in death.

    (2) This section does not apply to a peace officer of this state or another state, or of a local unit of government of this state or another state, or of the United States, performing his or her duties as a peace officer. As used in this section, “peace officer” means that term as defined in section 215.

  15. The man had a firearm, but not the training. There is a responsibility attached to owning a firearm, knowing how and when to use it, knowing when not to use it. Home defense is starting off behind and playing catch up, he fired first and thought later. Be ready, but don’t be eager. (A brief only).

  16. 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’m going to withhold judgement until more info comes out- including her behavior, but barring any more exculpatory info this guy seems to be in trouble.

        I’d be interested in a laymans explanation of how cops are trained, or better, how the best trainers are teaching how to quickly make the no-shoot/shoot decision.

        Ayoob talks about the three elements of “lethal force” justification for self-defense, if I recall correctly- you have to fear for your life, or serious harm to you or those around you- and determine when based on the bad-guys:

        1. Ability – means are varied- this could be a bad guy big enough to overpower a fragile old person, down to a 14 year old with a gun-

        2. Opportunity- is the person close enough to be a threat- a bad guy with a knife walking a block away is not a threat. A bad guy at your door is (21 foot rule is what I’ve heard most mentioned- dunno if thats enshrined in LEO tactics and teaching but it makes sense to apply for civilians, too)

        3. Immediate Intentions- they have to be actually right there, intending to hurt/kill you.

        If I got this correct- then in this case, I’d say the drunk woman didnt fit any of the three.

        I understand why the homeowner might have been scared, and might have shot by accident- but that still doesnt justify lethal force. When you take up a gun, you take up a huge responsibility, and if you fail, you can ruin your life too.

        • If that guy doesn’t do time, you can bet dollars to donuts that everyone from Jesse Jackson to the NAACP will sue him for everything he’s worth and then some.

  17. Yeah,

    I can’t believe this guy “Joe Bidened” it. Both him and Joe should face felony charges for this shooting through the door crap. He should never had followed Joe’s advice.

  18. “McBride was alone and unarmed, which indicates that it was probably not reasonable for Wafer to grab a shotgun at all.”

    Woah, hold up, back up, try again. I’ll give you some of the other points but who the hell are you to claim that we are supposed to know an intruder is not only alone, but also unarmed (as if unarmed means “no danger”), not only during the day, but more at night when lack of ambient light prohibits making such an assertion? An unexpected pounding on your door at 2am doesn’t prompt YOU to be sure your firearm is ready?

    Yes, yes, she wasn’t inside that door but that’s besides the point with your comment and it’s dangerous precedence.

    • YES. Thank you! Why are we claiming its unreasonable to tool up when we push home carry!? Wtf?? How could he POSSIBLY know for a fact she was unarmed?

      Im not justifying anything but that little list of “facts” is badly skewed.

  19. “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.”

    … guess he’s been reading gun forums, right? He and I have a different definition of ‘intruder’… insofar as I think intruding upon one’s restful slumber is not what we mean in this context.

  20. I think Al Sharpton was actually right. And I don’t think I’ve ever said that before in my entire life.

    I said that once, after I overheard Sharpton mutter “well, I’ll be damned.”

  21. McBride was alone and unarmed, which indicates that it was probably not reasonable for Wafer to grab a shotgun at all. **EXCEPT SHE MIGHT NOT BE ALONE**

    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? **I ALWAYS ANSWER MY DOOR ARMED**

    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. **UNLESS YOU THINK THE SINGLE UNARMED WOMAN HAS A VAN FULL OF THUGS JUST OUT OF SIGHT**

    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. **HOW WOULD HE KNOW?***

    • Circumstances warranted caution, and keeping a locked screen door and a weapon at the ready are reasonable cautions in my book. Shooting was not at all reasonable. Only cops get to shoot if people look at them funny.

      “Could have a van full of thugs just out of sight” is not justification for deadly force.

      Verdict really depends if his claim of accidental discharge smells right to the jury. I’m not sure how one proves that or disproves that.

  22. 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.

  24. 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.

  25. Theodore Wafer needs to articulate a better reason for being in fear for his life other than “there was a drunk teenage chick on my porch at 3:00 am.” Some people actually pay for that.

    Maybe he could say that she made a furtive movement. I’ve heard that it works for some people.

    The accidental shot seems like a realistic scenario. Of course, he’d go to jail if he admitted it. Which is probably why he raised the self-defense flag.

    His story seems wafer thin, no pun intended.

  26. 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?

    • If I lived in a third-world hellhole like Detroit, one of the primary ways that would influence my behavior is I wouldn’t open the door at 3 AM.

  27. If you lived in Detroit and someone was banging on your door you would be dumb not to answer it armed. I’m sure there has never been a Home Invasion done with the “Damsel in Distress” as a decoy to get into the house.

    Now Shooting someone through the screen door….. they would have to be doing somthing pretty threatening (like with a firearm) to be justified in shooting, when he coldve just shot and locked the main door as a viable option. If it was accidental I’m betting it was set off by the startle reflex and his poor muzzle discipine caused it to be fatal….

    Until shooting is imminat in a DGU its best to follow the 4 rules. low ready with finger off the bangswitch, is still plenty fast up onto target.

  28. If you lived in Detroit and someone was banging on your door at 0300 you would be dumb not to answer it armed period.

    FIFY.

  29. 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

    • No. Besides murder, and voluntary/involuntary manslaughter, the law recognizes negligent homicide, as well as excusable homicide.

      The prelimnary details could well not support a murder 2 or voluntary manslaughter charge. You have to show not just actus reus, but mens rea. If through negligence, not intent, then the mens rea is lacking, and involuntary manslaughter all the way to excusable homicide are the options. Since real negligence, not excusable, but could still be negligent homicide, rather than manslaughter

  30. Awful event. Moral: get training and NEVER listen to Joe Biden.
    Unfortunately, my parapelegic sense of humor also triggered this:
    “Another marijuana-related death!” John Belushi, “EX Police” sketch, Satuday Night Live, ca. 1976.

  33. No problem with arming up with someone out there at 3 am. Opening door, mistake, but no inconsistent with apprehension of danger. Pointing in on the women without a reasonable basis: assault. Finger on the trigger while pointing in without a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm: recipe for a negligent discharge and manslaughter charge assuming we believe his story. He’s in a heap of trouble.

  34. 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.”

  35. Forget hypotheticals

    Would he even know that it was a girl, her age, disposition, that she was alone until he opened the door? 3:40 am. Pounding at the door. I grab my gun and go to investigate. Note, I know nothing about whom it is. Therefore, most of the points are irrelevant. Unless Mr. Dunn is psychic, or thinks everyone has CCTV cameras at their front door to check.

    Negligence? At the very least, absent more details. But racial profiling? My ass. Wouldn’t know until he already had the gun and was there.

    And opening the inner door might be a way to let her explain her situation without fully trusting her yet.

    Of course, that he car accident was elsewhere, and a couple of hours before has no bearing I am sure…

  38. First he tells 911 he shot an intruder, then says to the cops that it was an accident. Why didn’t he tell 911 that he accidently shot somebody on the front porch?

    • Because there was more than one accident: the first was the trigger pull, the second was the dumbass story.

  39. Holy hell, are there really people here saying its almost reasonable because it was detroit and there may have been a uhaul truck with her assault team in it?

    IF it happened like reported, thats negligent homicide at the minimum. If you think otherwise youre a dummy and why gun owners look like batshit insane people

  40. So someone who is high on dangerous drugs – specifically alcohol – who was driving drunk, got into an accident and begins beating on doors at 3 am gets shot by a homeowner in Detroit of all places is a surprise? Seems the woman made some very poor choices in life and was more at fault here for her own demise than the homeowner. Moral – don’t drink and drive and stay away from dangerous drugs like alcohol.

  41. Seldom does any critical incident go perfectly.

    Detached reflection is not demanded in the presence of an upraised knife.

    Let’s wait until more facts come out before we start choosing sides, shall we?

    John

  42. I’m so glad they are charging him with murder, it’s people like this that hurt the gun rights fight. There is zero reason to shoot anyone, let alone a unarmed young woman basically a child, in the face with a shotgun for committing the crime of coming onto your porch to ask for help. I hope he gets life, make an example of these irresponsible and hateful gun owners that make all of us look like paranoid lunatics and racists.
    Same goes for people like the ex-state dept guy in MN, Little Falls I think. Where that thief team of 17 year old brother and sister robbed his home while he was gone a few times stealing gold coins, he laid in wait and not only murdered each one about 15 minutes apart from each other but he tortured both but more so the young girl by shooting her with a small caliber revolver in the limbs before reloading and dumping 8 rounds into her face.
    Same goes for the old guy in WI who murdered the poor black kid in front of his mother while taking out the garbage after accusing his older brother of stealing from him.
    I could go on an I could include many police officers murdering in the same fashion.
    These people are an enemy to us true gun rights folks. We need to support and demand full punishment of our own when they go off and murder for pleasure or anger. Not to is to support gun control as that’s what we will get if we continue to defend every action of a gun owner and not separating the good from the evil.

  43. How was she driving drunk at age 19??? The law says you have to be 21!!!

    We need to pass stronger laws to create NO DRUNK ZONES.

  44. There seem to be two divergent thought paths outlined in the comments, here–one that leans toward blaming the victim, and one that leans toward blaming the armed homeowner. With the minimum of facts being related, there does not seem to be any justification for this woman to be killed. There does, however, seem to be ample justification to cause the homeowner who killed her–that is not in dispute, is it?–to face a trial on charges ranging from negligent homicide to 2nd-Degree Murder, the latter being the typical ‘out there’ charge that DAs will file in such matters in hopes of a quick resolution by plea-bargaining to a lesser charge.

    I do find it troubling that so few of those blaming the victim seem to be able to get past the part about her being drunk and (shudder!) ‘high’ on marijuana, a dangerous drug known to cause homicidal home-invading thoughts in those that use it–if they can just avoid salty or sweet snacks and watching cartoons long enough /sarc/. Or, maybe it’s because she was Black and in Detroit.

    I think it boils down to this: Can you visualize your own daughter (or son) in the same situation, being guilty only of having made some rather poor choices over the short term prior to her life ending, and can you truly accept that she deserved to have her face removed by a shotgun blast for pounding on the wrong door at night?

    No matter the outcome of this, if the facts are remotely similar to how they have been reported, this woman did not deserve to die. The person who discharged a shotgun into her face must bear the criminal liability for it.

  45. Are we sure that the actual cause of death wasn’t her lips smothering her when she fell flat on her face?

  47. “especially when there’s a locked screen door between you.”

    I don’t think that means what you think it means. Pets and small children prove day in and day out that a screen door is only a speed bump, not an actual obstacle to movement. That being said, this story was fishy from the gate, and I’m completely NOT shocked that the guy is being charged.

  48. 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.

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