I’ve been reluctant to write the following piece. I mean, what about the white guy’s experience isn’t the most useful frame for the Trayvon Martin case. And unlike the founder of this blog, I try to keep my personal life personal; the most I usually write about myself is I took my bike somewhere. Still, the discussion of the stand your ground laws make me think of the time my housemate was killed, and I wonder what might have happened if we’d had stand your ground laws here in Washington like those in Florida.
Basically, the story is this: After college, I was underemployed and bumming around suburbia. Eventually, I moved into a house with several other people. The house was advertised in the local paper and I didn’t know any of the people before I moved in. It was cheap while I got myself onto a better situation.
It was a large house and people moved in and out all the time. One couple moved in and was constantly late on payments and was constantly getting into arguments with the landlord.
One weekend the landlord shot him and then claimed self defense. The forensic evidence didn’t back up his claims, and eventually he plead down and will be in prison for a long time, but I wonder if it would have been easier for him to concoct a story if we had those sorts of laws, and if it would have been a tougher case for prosecutors.