It was two AM in the Dearborn subburb of Detroit, Michigan when it happened. An auto-accident which meant that those involved would need to find new rides home, deal with police, file insurance claims.
A miserable end to a night for any of us. But that conclusion would have been better in every possible way then what ended up occurring.
Instead, 19 Year old Renisha McBride lies dead this morning after a door knock of a nearby home owner. There is no prosecution planned. The home owner, hearing the knock of a young, african american girl late at night did the thing that Michigan law provides for: he stood his ground, and shot her in the head on his porch.
http://www.detroitnews.com/...
While Joan Mar and others today have really linked to the heart of this tragedy, there is another tragedy at work here today.. and that is how the media and the community are letting this issue be defined... I want to spend just a little bit of time on that.
The family of Renisha McBride, 19, said she went for help after a car accident around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. She died of a gunshot wound to the head after knocking on the door of a home on the 16000 block of Outer Drive near Warren in Dearborn Heights, near where the accident occurred. Her cellphone battery had died, her family said.
Few other details about the incident have been released by the Dearborn Heights Police Department.
“Dearborn Heights (has) identified the person who fired the shot and killed the woman,” according to a press release. The statement added that a final report on the shooting will be forwarded to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office for review in the near future.
McBride’s maternal aunt, Bernita Spinks, said the shooting was not justified even if the resident believed McBride was an intruder breaking into the home.
“He shot her in the head ... for what? For knocking on his door,” said Spinks on Tuesday. “If he felt scared or threatened, he should have called 911.”
Whether the owner of the property was scared or not, at this point there is no information that an attempted break in occurred. The door was not opened and no windows were broken.
What is for sure, though, is that the simple door knock and the presence of fear in the property owner is enough to entitle him to exact the ultimate penalty: death.
I raise this question again, something I have brought up before.. we fail to adequately address the fact that by encouraging people to dispense death as a first line of defense is a way to change our culture for the negative, to desensitize us to the realities of killing another human being. What is most troubling is that the media provides early assumption of facts by using word choices that influence the way we think about this story, using buzz words and quick phrases to dismiss real guilt and deflect tragedy.
Media Refuses to call the Inconsistencies Take #1
Throughout the day, this story changed tone.. it began with police reporting that her body was 'dumped' in Dearborn Heights. No media sources, outside of blogs note how this storyline has changed, from a definition of a 'dumped' body to a 'case of self defense'. But it is easy to read behind the lines: when the assumption was that she was killed in a community that is primarily African American, the assumptive was 'and she was dumped in this quaint little (nearly all-white) community'. As that story fell apart, the story became: Self Defense.
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/...
DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. (WJBK) -
A young woman is shot and killed, her body dumped in Dearborn Heights. Now her family wants to know who would do this and why.
And the story changed later in the day to the fact that a home owner shot her on his porch.. she wasn't dumped..
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/...
Dearborn Heights police believe Renisha McBride, 19, was shot in self-defense as the shooter believed she was an intruder. Her family was initially told by police that her body was "dumped" and discovered near Warren Avenue and Outer Drive, but now police are saying she died on the man's front porch.
Detectives have identified the man they believe shot McBride.
Her family is calling this a "senseless death." They believe she went to the home, knocking, looking for help. They don't know why or what happened from the time she left home until she ended up in Dearborn Heights.
What is important about this story isn't just the tragedy of the fact a young girl is dead, and the local media outlets are framing it this way:
"Self Defense Gone Wrong".
This word choices asks the reader to feel sympathetic for a terrible thing that happened TO THE SHOOTER, who thought they were defending themselves and now will have to live with the fact that he has killed an innocent person.
While this may be partly true, the real headline to this story is:
Young Woman Shot and Killed by Home Owner
Which allows them to get across the storyline without injecting pre-judgements of 'self defense' and rationalization of this shooting.
But in a state like Michigan - and maybe like so many more soon - we will rationalize these senseless deaths by saying 'they were standing their ground'.... on the other side of a shut door from a young woman who just happened to be the wrong race in the wrong neighborhood.