Anthony Branca is an attorney specializing in self-defense and personal protection laws. He offers legal training courses for gun owners and a weekly Law of Self Defense show on his website at Patreon. Branca is also a contributor to Legal Insurrection and posted this shortly after this Florida incident broke in the news.
There’s been a shooting in Florida (naturally?) that resulted over an argument about a non-handicapped person parking in a handicapped parking spot, and it was captured on a rather poor quality surveillance camera recording, according to news reports.
It seems that the shooter, 47-year-old Michael Drejka (who happens to be white), was giving his piece of mind to 24-year-old Britany Jacobs for having parked in a handicapped parking spot without the necessary permit. The victim, 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton, who happens to be black, was Ms. Jacob’s boyfriend, and he emerged from the convenience store and approached the argument.
McGlockton approached Drejka, and shoved him viciously to the ground, with McGlockton looming over the downed man.
In response Drejka appears in the surveillance footage to present a handgun at McGlockton. As McGlockton sees Drejka apparently initiating the presentation of his hand gun, McGlockton immediately takes several steps backwards away from Drejka.
It is then that Drejka fires the single shot that would ultimately kill McGlockton, nearly two full seconds after initially presenting the gun at McGlockton.
I have watched the video many times and have come to the same conclusion as Mr. Branca.
Given that McGlockton was backing up, however, this strikes me as a scenario that plenty of prosecutors would be happy to present to a jury, and argue that the fired shot was not lawful, and which I expect in this instance plenty of police officers would determine at least created probably cause to believe that the shot was not lawful.
Of course, there may well be facts not known to us that could have shaped the Sheriff’s conclusion to not arrest. That, of course, is not the end of this matter, either criminally or civilly. The evidence is being presented to local prosecutors, who will decide whether to take the matter to trial, and the girlfriend of McGlockton, with whom she had three children, has already announced her intention to seek civil compensation for the killing of her children’s father (even throwing out the legal term-of-art “wrongful death”).
This is not an easy call, but I don’t believe this was a justifiable case for using deadly force.
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