Second Degree Murder Charges Filed In Shooting Death of Renisha McBride

Renisha McBride, 19, was killed in Dearborn Heights, Michigan outside Detroit. She had walked onto a porch seeking assistance., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

November 15, 2013

Murder Charge in a Shooting on Doorstep

By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times

DETROIT — After a two-week investigation, the prosecutor here charged a white suburban homeowner on Friday with second-degree murder in the killing of an unarmed young black woman. The prosecutor rejected the man’s assertion that he had been acting in self-defense when he opened his front door and fired a shotgun at the woman through a locked screen door, striking her in the face.

The man, Theodore Paul Wafer, who is white and an employee at the Wayne County Airport Authority, entered a not-guilty plea during an arraignment on Friday. Mr. Wafer had told the police that he believed the woman was breaking into his home. The prosecutor, Kym Worthy, said that she found no evidence of an attempted break-in and that the woman, Renisha Marie McBride, 19, had been knocking on the door.

The shooting has ignited an anguished conversation in this largely black city and beyond about why another unarmed black person has been killed and whether the legal system would call anyone to account. It was the third high-profile, racially charged case this year, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida and the recent police shooting of Jonathan Ferrell in North Carolina after he sought help following a car accident.

Ms. Worthy, who is the Wayne County prosecutor and who herself is black, said, “Race is not relevant.” She based her decision “on the facts and the evidence” and not on public opinion or mounting comparisons to other cases, she said.

Emphasizing that the shooting had not met the provisions of Michigan’s self-defense law, Ms. Worthy said, “There is no duty to retreat in your own home.” But reading from the state code, she said that a person may use deadly force only if “the individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual.”

Some, however, said that charges were only a start.

“I think people don’t understand that this stuff is happening all the time,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, the Detroit leader of the National Action Network. “We’re happy we got a charge in this case — that’s progress — but this whole situation tells us that there is still work to do when it comes to race in America.”

In a courtroom in Dearborn Heights here on Friday afternoon, Mr. Wafer, 54, stood largely silent. Seeking a bond lower than the $250,000 that was ultimately set, his lawyer, Mack Carpenter, told a judge that Mr. Wafer was a longtime Michigan resident who took care of his 81-year-old mother. Mr. Carpenter said Mr. Wafer had the highest possible security clearance at the airport authority where he works. Michigan State Police records show Mr. Wafer has had two driving offenses, decades old.

By the end of the day, Mr. Wafer had posted bond and was to be released, the authorities said. He was placed on administrative leave from his job, an official from the airport authority said.

In addition to murder in the second degree, Mr. Wafer was charged with manslaughter and a weapons violation, connected to using his Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. The weapon, Ms. Worthy said, appeared to be legally owned by Mr. Wafer. The charges could carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. His lawyer, Mr. Carpenter, said he would offer a strong defense.

Members of Ms. McBride’s family, who say they feel certain race played a role in her death, are hopeful about the prosecutor’s decision to bring charges.

“Renisha can rest now,” said Bernita Spinks, Ms. McBride’s aunt. “It shows that nobody can get away with what he’s done.”

Civil rights leaders here, who had questioned why Mr. Wafer was not arrested immediately after the shooting, said that the charges were as serious as they could have anticipated and had come with relative speed.

“It doesn’t change the fact that a young lady is dead, but the community feels calmer,” said the Rev. W. J. Rideout III of All God’s People Church in Detroit. “There was a thought that this might be pushed under the rug, but it shows that this will not be Trayvon and that people cannot get away with it.”

Charges were brought in Mr. Martin’s death in March 2012, six weeks after he was shot and killed by Mr. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. There were two prosecutors in the case. The first refused to bring charges and recused himself. The second charged Mr. Zimmerman with second-degree murder, but he was acquitted this summer.

The case raised national concerns about laws, like Florida’s Stand Your Ground statute, that offer wide latitude to defendants who say they felt threatened and therefore relied on deadly force.

Even with the charges against Mr. Wafer, much remained unclear about what took place in the early morning of Saturday, Nov. 2, when Ms. McBride was shot. Hours before her death — which was first reported to the police by Mr. Wafer with a 911 call — she had been in a car accident on a west Detroit street, six blocks from Mr. Wafer’s home.

Ms. McBride had hit a parked car and apparently hurt her hand, witnesses said, before leaving the wreck, returning and then leaving again.

An autopsy showed that she was intoxicated and that her blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit for driving, a fact that Ms. Worthy said was irrelevant to the case. Neighbors near the accident said that they had tried to offer Ms. McBride assistance, but that she was unresponsive and disoriented and disappeared into the darkness on foot.

Her family said that they believed her cellphone had run out of power and that she wandered off searching for help.

Ms. Worthy offered few details about what happened to Ms. McBride and where she had been in the hours between the accident, just before 1 a.m., and the 911 call reporting her death shortly before 5 a.m. She suggested that such details would emerge later, as she tried the case in court.

Asked whether Mr. Wafer’s call to 911 had come immediately after the shooting, Ms. Worthy declined to say. According to police documents released on Friday, Mr. Wafer emerged to greet police officers from a side door of his house after the shooting, his hands out to his sides. He directed officers to his gun, which was perched on the floor just inside the front door.

Ms. McBride’s family members said they felt uncertain whether they would ever know exactly what happened to Ms. McBride that night. “If she was just coming to your house, asking for help, why would you do this?” said Ms. Spinks, her aunt. “She was a good girl, a good heart.”

Steven Yaccino contributed reporting from Chicago, and Susan C. Beachy from New York.