Jordan Davis trial - "white noise"

John Spencer wrote a blog about the trial of Jordan Davis' killer which happened in Florida this past week.

The trial has been called the "loud music" trial because, according to the killer, Michael Dunn. that is what caused him to have a confrontation with a car full of people, a confrontation that resulted in him getting a gun an shooting into the car.

There is so much that is odd about the case.

1) Why if he was scared enough to shoot up a car, did this adult not tell his girlfriend or call the police?

2) In another case around here, a mother said her son died of an overdose because his friends were too afraid of recriminations to drive to a hospital. Did that come into play here? After all, these are teenagers, hence still kids.

3) Did the kids tell the police everything to begin with? In which case, why did the police not look to see if a gun had been stashed THEN rather than waiting until later. (I don't believe there was a gun - but because the police did not look THEN the defense introduced reasonable doubt).

4) If the kids left something out (for reasons that kids do not tell adults everything) do they accept responsibility for some of the outcome? If the police did not know to look for a gun, how can you hold them accountable?)

5) If the music and the kids bothered him, why didn't Dunn leave as soon as he could? He could have gotten the gas, moved his car closer to where his girlfriend was, and left.

We are developing a culture with great disrespect all around. No generation has a right to disrespect another - and yet here were two groups (Dunn and the kids) who dissed on each other. He made rude comments about their music, and the dished it back.

"Stand your ground" has been abused in both these cases. Dunn entered the space of the teenagers (not vice versa) and Zimmerman should have stayed in his car - again rather than step into someone else's space.

I think the one charge that the jury could not decide was muddied by the police not looking for a gun immediately - by the kids moving their car (who blames them for that? I would have driven to the police then), by whatever else was going on in the car at the time, by Dunn not calling the police as soon as he fired - by his actions he acted as if nothing had happened so who know what happened to other evidence.

All in all, the jury decided on what they could. Dunn will spend his life in prison. And maybe we will all get a little nicer.

My opinions are colored by the kids I teach. A large percentage end up arrested for drugs (so it colors my opinion about why the kids didn't call the cops immediately) Some of them are gang wannabees. They posture, threaten, talk big but have nothing behind the facade. Doing that to the wrong person can have disastrous consequences.

Personally, I would like to see as much talk about the black-on-black crimes, since this is a much larger cause of death. I wrote about that before.