Once Again, a Black Person Is Shot and Killed While Looking for Help

http://gawker.com/once-again-a-black-person-is-shot-and-killed-while-loo-1459780870

Less than two months after Charlotte police shot and killed an unarmed man who was trying to find help after having a car accident, a woman is dead in Michigan under similar circumstances, shot in the head while reportedly searching for assistance late Friday night.

Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old from Detroit, is presumed to have been asking for help when she knocked on the door of a Dearborn Heights home at 2:30 A.M. on Saturday. McBride's family says McBride had been in a car accident and her cellphone was dead. Rather than offering shelter to McBride, however, the homeowner came out and shot her in the head with a shotgun. The buckshot entered McBride's head from the back, according to statements from her aunt, as the girl had already turned to walk or run away from the home. Police reports say the teenager was found dead on the home's front porch.

While the initial stories around McBride's death dubbed it a "possible case of self-defense gone wrong," today police sent a request to the Wayne County prosecutor asking for charges to be filed against the unnamed resident who shot McBride.

"He shot her in the head ... for what? For knocking on his door," McBride's aunt told the Detroit News. "If he felt scared or threatened, he should have called 911."

Michigan's self-defense act, which bears a resemblance to Florida's infamous stand-your-ground law, says that an individual "may use deadly force against another individual anywhere he or she has the legal right to be with no duty to retreat" as long as that person "honestly and reasonably" believes deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death, great bodily harm, or sexual assault.


http://gawker.com/homeowner-says-he-shot-renisha-mcbride-in-the-face-on-a-1460294357

A Dearborn Heights, Michigan, homeowner told police that he shot Renisha McBride in the head when his shotgun discharged accidentally early Saturday morning. McBride was presumably looking for help following a car accident, but the man says he took her for an intruder and mistakenly shot her in the face.

The Detroit Free Press spoke with police Lt. James Serwatowski, who said, "This man's claiming—believed the girl was breaking into the home. And he's also saying the gun discharged accidentally." Serwatowski added that McBride was not shot in the back of the head, as her family has been claiming. "I don't know where the family is getting this," he said. "She was shot in the front of the face, near the mouth."

Police confirmed that McBride was in an accident and said that "some hours transpired" before the shooting, though they have yet to publicly describe what happened in the interim between those two events.

The Wayne County prosecutor's office today said it is awaiting further police investigation before deciding if it will press charges against the homeowner.