What if the shooter had been black and the 19 year old woman white?
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By Travis Gettys
Friday, November 15, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
A man who fatally shot a Detroit woman who crashed her car near his Dearborn Heights home has been charged in her death.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said 54-year-old Theodore Wafer has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride.
Wafer had said he believed the woman was trying to break into his home about 3:40 a.m. Nov. 2.
McBride’s family believes she may have been seeking assistance following her crash into a parked car about an hour earlier when she knocked on Wafer’s shut and locked screen door.
McBride was killed by a shotgun blast to the face, which the prosecutor said was fired through the closed screen, and the homeowner claimed the gun discharged accidentally.
According to dispatch records, Wafer waited about an hour to call 911 to report that he’d shot someone on his front porch.
Toxicology reports released Thursday by the Wayne County medical examiner’s office showed McBride’s blood-alcohol level at the time of her death was 0.218, ten times higher than what’s permitted for drivers younger than 21, and marijuana was also detected.
But Dr. Werner Spitz, the longtime Wayne County medical examiner and one of the preeminent experts in forensic pathology, reviewed the report and said that the level of THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana, was low enough to suggest that she hadn’t used it the day of her death.
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Charges Filed in Michigan Porch Shooting
Authorities charged a 54-year-old suburban Detroit man with second-degree murder after he allegedly shot 19-year-old Renisha McBride in the face
Theodore Paul Wafer, 54, allegedly shot McBride in the face through his front door in the early hours of the morning, after she crashed her car nearby.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Friday morning in a press conference there is no evidence the suspect acted in lawful self-defense, and he will be charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. At Wafler’s arraignment, a judge set $250,000 bond, and ordered him back in court on December 18.
“There is no duty to retreat when you’re in your own house, but someone who claims self-defense must have an honest and reasonable belief of imminent death or imminent rape or bodily harm,” Worthy said.
The case has drawn widespread attention for what civil rights activists see as similarities to the cases of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager killed last year in Florida, and Jonathan Ferrell, an unarmed black man who was shot by North Carolina police in September after seeking help following a car accident. Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted on self-defense grounds; the officer who shot Ferrell has been charged with voluntary manslaughter.
McBride’s case has also become yet another battleground over so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws, which allow the use of lethal force against a serious threat, even when escape is an option. Michigan, like at least 21 other states, extends this right to almost anywhere, while many other states restrict it only to the defense of one’s home.
Police believe Renisha McBride crashed her car on Nov. 2 in Dearborn Heights, a suburb west of of Detroit, before appearing “bloody and confused” at Wafer’s door around 4:30 a.m. She was unarmed, there was no sign of forced entry and the two did not apparently know each other, authorities said. According to Worthy, Wafer opened the interior door but shot McBride through a closed screen door. Police found McBride with a “very large gunshot wound to her face.”
Addressing Wafer at a press conference, Renisha’s mother, Monica McBride, said, “You took a life and you took a beautiful life that was starting to blossom into a beautiful woman.”
Worthy declined to comment on reports that McBride had asked for help at another house before Wafer’s. Police scanner audio obtained by the Detroit News suggests that Wafer called 911 immediately after the shooting. Worthy said she believes Wafer was in lawful possession of his firearm.
Worthy said that the case is not about the fact that an unarmed black woman was shot by a white man. “The charging decision has nothing to do with the race of the parties,” Worthy said. When asked about the comparison with the Trayvon Martin case, Worthy said she has been focused on the 40 other homicides her office is currently investigating.
“The day that a prosecutor’s office makes their decisions on public opinions is the day that that prosecutors office is shut down,” she said.
A toxicology report found that McBride had a blood alcohol content of .218 at the time of her death, which is more than twice the legal limit for driving. For drivers under 21, the legal limit in Michigan is 0.02. Mary Mazur of the Wayne County Examiner’s Office said McBride also had a very small amount of marijuana in her system, but “it’s not even clear that she used it that day.” Wafer did not have a toxicology test.
Worthy said that McBride’s inebriation had no bearing on the case.
Gerald Thurswell, an attorney representing the McBride family, said the suspect should have called 911 instead of shooting McBride. ”There was no evidence, no evidence at all, that she made any attempt to break into his house,” he said. “The best he could say is that she was loud, she was boisterous, she was noisy, that doesn’t give anybody the right to blow off someone’s head.”
Thurswell added that McBride’s toxicology report shows that she would have been even less of a threat to the suspect. “We don’t blow off people’s heads because they’re intoxicated,” he said. “Look how many people would be dead on New Years Eve.”
“It would be our hope, so that the family has closure, that he pleads guilty,” Thurswell said. “As long as this case is pending the family is not going to have closure until he pleads guilty or is found guilty.”
Wafer’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Murder Charge in a Shooting on Doorstep
Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
Theodore Paul Wafer of Dearborn Heights, Mich., was arraigned on charges of second-degree murder Friday in the shooting death of a woman on his porch.
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: November 15, 2013 399 Comments
DETROIT — After a two-week investigation, the prosecutor here charged a white suburban homeowner on Friday with second-degree murder in the killing of an unarmed young black woman. The prosecutor rejected the man’s assertion that he had been acting in self-defense when he opened his front door and fired a shotgun at the woman through a locked screen door, striking her in the face.
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Related
Fatal Shooting of Black Woman Outside Detroit Stirs Racial Tensions (November 15, 2013)
Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
The prosecutor, Kym Worthy, said she found no evidence of self-defense.
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The man, Theodore Paul Wafer, who is white and an employee at the Wayne County Airport Authority, entered a not-guilty plea during an arraignment on Friday. Mr. Wafer had told the police that he believed the woman was breaking into his home. The prosecutor, Kym Worthy, said that she found no evidence of an attempted break-in and that the woman, Renisha Marie McBride, 19, had been knocking on the door.
The shooting has ignited an anguished conversation in this largely black city and beyond about why another unarmed black person has been killed and whether the legal system would call anyone to account. It was the third high-profile, racially charged case this year, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida and the recent police shooting of Jonathan Ferrell in North Carolina after he sought help following a car accident.
Ms. Worthy, who is the Wayne County prosecutor and who herself is black, said, “Race is not relevant.” She based her decision “on the facts and the evidence” and not on public opinion or mounting comparisons to other cases, she said.
Emphasizing that the shooting had not met the provisions of Michigan’s self-defense law, Ms. Worthy said, “There is no duty to retreat in your own home.” But reading from the state code, she said that a person may use deadly force only if “the individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual.”
Some, however, said that charges were only a start.
“I think people don’t understand that this stuff is happening all the time,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, the Detroit leader of the National Action Network. “We’re happy we got a charge in this case — that’s progress — but this whole situation tells us that there is still work to do when it comes to race in America.”
In a courtroom in Dearborn Heights here on Friday afternoon, Mr. Wafer, 54, stood largely silent. Seeking a bond lower than the $250,000 that was ultimately set, his lawyer, Mack Carpenter, told a judge that Mr. Wafer was a longtime Michigan resident who took care of his 81-year-old mother. Mr. Carpenter said Mr. Wafer had the highest possible security clearance at the airport authority where he works. Michigan State Police records show Mr. Wafer has had two driving offenses, decades old.
By the end of the day, Mr. Wafer had posted bond and was to be released, the authorities said. He was placed on administrative leave from his job, an official from the airport authority said.
In addition to murder in the second degree, Mr. Wafer was charged with manslaughter and a weapons violation, connected to using his Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. The weapon, Ms. Worthy said, appeared to be legally owned by Mr. Wafer. The charges could carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. His lawyer, Mr. Carpenter, said he would offer a strong defense.
Members of Ms. McBride’s family, who say they feel certain race played a role in her death, are hopeful about the prosecutor’s decision to bring charges.
“Renisha can rest now,” said Bernita Spinks, Ms. McBride’s aunt. “It shows that nobody can get away with what he’s done.”
Civil rights leaders here, who had questioned why Mr. Wafer was not arrested immediately after the shooting, said that the charges were as serious as they could have anticipated and had come with relative speed.
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