You have heard this horror story too many times before: A Black teenager shot down during a mundane errand.
In 2012, it was a quick trip to a convenience store. The teenager was 17 and he was on his way back to his father’s place with a bottle of juice and a bag of Skittles. He was wearing a hoodie. His name was Trayvon Martin.
And a 28-year-old neighbor, George Zimmerman, claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot Trayvon.
There had been a series of robberies in the area. He said he shot Trayvon because he was afraid. He feared bodily harm. Months passed before Zimmerman was actually arrested and charged. Zimmerman was not charged on the spot because police said they could not disprove his version of the events: That he was defending himself; That he stood his ground.
After weeks of protesters sounding the alarm, Zimmerman was finally charged with second degree murder. Eventually, he was acquitted.
In 2020, a 25-year-old Black man went for an afternoon jog in a coastal Georgia town. His workout caught the attention of three local men who grabbed their guns, hopped in a truck and began to follow the jogger. The men said there had been a string of robberies in the area. They said they were scared. They said they thought the jogger was the thief.
The jogger was Ahmaud Arbery. The men chased him down, and shot him dead. Still, they also walked away from that shooting as free men. They claimed they were defending themselves under the state’s stand your ground laws.
More than 10 weeks passed before the men were arrested. They were eventually convicted of murder.
“Stand your ground” laws exploded after 2012, when Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. Laws in at least 28 states and Puerto Rico allow that there is no duty to retreat an attacker in any place in which one is lawfully present. Instead, a person who reasonably believes they are in danger of death or serious harm can use deadly force.
But that law tends to exacerbate some potentially fatal racial…
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