Detroit man found guilty of murder in shooting death of Renisha McBride
A Detroit man was found guilty of murder in the shooting death of an unarmed woman who knocked on his door late at night seeking assistance after having a car accident.
The case garnered national attention because the shooter, Theodore Wafer, was white and the victim, Renisha McBride, was black.
The New York Times says that neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney made an issue of the racial element. The jury took only two days of deliberation to convict Wafer of second-degree murder. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced Aug. 21.
The shooting took place at 4:30 a.m. the morning of November 2, 2013. McBride crashed her car around 1 a.m. after a night of partying that included vodka and marijuana. After the accident, she left the scene, ignoring neighbors and passers by who had tried to get her to wait for an ambulance.
She somehow made her way to Wafer's house where he says he was sleeping. He said that he was so afraid of the pounding on his door that he did not want to look outside and alert the person someone was home.
A major contention of the prosecution was that he should have called the police. Wafer claims that he could not find his cell phone, and he does not have a landline. He then picked up a shotgun he owned and fired through the locked door of his house. The round hit McBride in the head, killing her instantly.
Wafer claimed self-defense in court, but Michigan law only allows the use of lethal force if someone enters another person's home, or if they "honestly and reasonably believe" that the use of such force is necessary to save their own life or prevent grave bodily harm.
