TriceEdneyWire.com) – As the national focus continues on high profiled shootings of unarmed young Black men, some say the controversies have caused them to fear attack even when they are doing what is right and normal.
With fallout from the Florida-based Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin cases – and the not so recent, but still relevant, Sean Bell and Oscar Grant cases – all brimming with racial undertones – Black males seem to be in danger of being killed for that reason alone – being Black.
Most recently, Michael Dunn, 43, of Jacksonville, Fla., shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis during an argument at a gas station. Dunn opened fire, shooting toward an SUV carrying Davis and three friends. He claimed he thought he saw a gun during a dispute over the teens’ loud music.
Though convicted by a jury of three counts of attempted murder, the jury could not reach a verdict on the first degree murder charge in relation to Davis’s death. Dun’s sentencing has been delayed until he is retried on the remaining first-degree murder charge May 5.
The case of Jordan Davis is reminiscent of scenarios that civil rights leaders argue the Black community has heard far too often. That scenario is that a young African-American male is unjustly killed and the trial often ends in a disappointing verdict.