The Renisha McBride case, where a white man shot an unarmed black girl knocking on his door through his door.
http://nation.time.com/2013/11/15/legal-experts-weigh-self-defense-and-race-in-michigan-shooting/How does one justify the use of deadly force against another person who is separated by a door and not posing a threat of bodily harm?
If there is a big black salesman (or debt collector) knocking aggressively on your door, do you stand your ground and shoot him?
If there is an angry black student in your dorm hammering on your door (he’s drunk and it isn’t his room), do you shoot him.
Another injustice that I can see coming, is that this white man who fired the shot is 100% screwed. The case will turn racial. Even if the white man may not have realized Renisha was black (he was just reacting to his door being pounded on by a drunkard and reportedly his door did not have a window on it), he’s screwed. Regardless of what the court finds, his life is over; the media and angry members of the public will hound him for years. Even in prison he will have to be kept in solitary to prevent black criminals from pouncing on him.
The victim had taken some actions that are not directly responsible for her being shot, but which do create a situation where she might be shot. EG she got drunk often and crashed her car 4 times, she was loud and belligerent and uncooperative with bystanders earlier on, she didn’t go straight home but wandered around the neighbourhood. Obviously none of this deserves a shot in the face, but it does show that she exhibited sufficiently bad judgment to put herself in a bad situation or give people a bad impression of her.
My personal view is that I would like to take race out of this case. The victim’s conduct was not sufficient to justify violent action against her. The shooter was trigger happy and exhibited poor judgment. He opened an interior door and shot the woman through a screen door, meaning he affirmatively took action to reduce the distance between him and his victim, instead of genuinely standing his ground (Eg sitting on his sofa with a gun on his lap, waiting to see if there was any forced entry.) He also did not make effort to communicate with the victim, nor did he attempt to contact the police first. Sounds like a fairly reasonable 2nd degree murder case.
