sloane7777
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yay! ..... and tears for his MOM!
I think Dunn should have expected the verdict and just be grateful he's not getting the same sentence he gave Jordan.
@lucymcbath: Jordan! You did it! I love you eternally !!!!!! MOM
Cathy ‏@courtchatter 26s26 seconds ago
#JordanDavis parents always speak with such grace. Never with hate. #MichaelDunn #dunntrial
Just watched the parents, amazing composure from them at this time. As Jordan's mother said "Justice for Jordan. Justice for Treyvon." His dad was so eloquent, and passionate and sensible. And then the prosecution. How can you not be impressed by that team? They brought justice for a 17 year old child gunned down before he could even leave school. Michael Dunn will die in prison. Justice has been served!
As a long-time Duval county resident, I must say I am so relieved that the verdict is in, and that the justice due in the case has been served. I've tried to withhold judgment throughout, even during the trials, because you never know if you have all the facts in a case until they've been presented to the jury. So I've bit my tongue throughout, because I could see both sides of this.
When this shooting happened, it chilled me to the bone. A shooting like this, in an area I grew up in. A safe place, or at least not the scary, dangerous one it became to me after Michael Dunn visited town. A random shooting at that location was so very hard to imagine. Ok, so a non-random, gang-related shooting was unlikely, but possible. Crap like this happened in the inner city in Jacksonville, places that had reputations even when I first moved to Jacksonville in the late 1960s, or they happened in south Florida. This didnt happen in the suburbs of Jacksonville. This didnt happen minutes from where I lived just 3 years earlier, and it didnt happen to kids who went to the same high school that I had graduated from, and who cruised the same suburban shopping malls that I did at their age Or did it?
Had times changed that much? Was I so removed from my old community in my childhood home that it had truly turned the corner to that extreme? Was I perhaps that naïve, and random shootings were frequently occurring just minutes from when I shopped at those same stores, and fueled at those same pumps so many times? Id stopped for gum at that Gate like the boys, Id stopped for wine at that Gate like RR, I had dinner at that adjacent restaurant like witnesses had, so many times. Id always felt safe. Or at least not unsafe.
Was I that naïve? Had I missed so much deterioration in my own home community? Was my old stomping grounds now so scary after dark that dangerous thugs lurked on every street corner, brandishing guns and pretending to be in gangs? Were thugs, or wanna-be-thugs scaring aging computer programmers just after dark so badly that they risk getting killed? By the time of this incident, I was a computer programmer, like MD. Though I dont own a gun, I believed in the Castle doctrine, I even believed in SYG, like MD. If my life was threatened by a gang of hoodlums, I believed I had a right to defend myself from imminent harm, and as a woman if I had a gun (which I dont) and I felt someone was going to kill me, I wouldnt chance aiming to wound, because I might miss and then Id be killed. If I was fighting for my life, Id defend myself to the death. I know that. But was this really a life-and-death decision here? Now? Truly in my own backyard? That was hard to believe, and even harder to stomach.
When I first heard the local news, I believed the risk of harm was from gang fights. No, then Im told it was random. Wow. So was the threat from a gang-banger who thought they encountered a rival gang? No. Rival gang wanna-be? No. Then I learned the threat, the scariest part of that night was actually caused from a white anglo-Protestant. Not too different from me. Im a woman, but Im a technical geek, who believes I have a right to defend myself, and ok, Im not the most personable person in all social circumstances. I could almost understand where this guy might be coming from.
Except that I couldnt, I cant, and I never will be able to. Where Dunn claims he saw fear, I see the smile of my next-door neighbors son. Thank God that young mans graduated high school and enters college in a few months. Hes cruised with friends, played loud music, stopped for gum on his way to the mall to hit on high school kids of the opposite sex. Heck, who hasnt? Has my neighbors son mouthed off to cranky older men who fussed at them? Im sure he has. Did my friends? I know they did. There but for the grace of God
Did I (and those friends) still become honest, good, tax-paying and contributing members of society? I believe I did, and like to think we all did. But if there had been a Michael Dunn at every street corner when we grew up, that wouldnt be the case. If every adult today only sees threat when they see teenage boys, then heaven help us all. I am so relieved that a jury of my peers, and of MDs peers, decided MD is guilty. Right or wrong, it restores confidence to me that the suburbs in town, the places Ive grown up in, may still be comparatively safe, as long as zealots like MD are not returned to the streets.