Murder of Jordan Davis

On November 23, 2012, at approximately 7:30 p.m., Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old African-American teenager, was shot and killed at a Gate Petroleum gas station in Jacksonville, Florida. Davis was one of four occupants — along with Tommie Stornes, Leland Brunson, and Tevin Thompson — in a red Dodge Durango SUV parked next to a black Volkswagen Jetta occupied by Michael David Dunn, a 45-year-old software developer, and his fiancée Rhonda Rouer. Dunn objected to loud music playing from the SUV, telling Rouer he "hate[d] that thug music" before she went inside the store; Dunn later said he used the phrase "rap crap." After an exchange in which Davis asked that the volume be turned back up after it had briefly been lowered, an independent witness overheard Dunn say, "No, you're not gonna talk to me that way." Dunn then retrieved a handgun from his glove compartment and fired into the SUV, striking Davis in the legs, lungs, and aorta. As the SUV backed away, Dunn exited his vehicle and continued firing. No independent witness or SUV occupant reported hearing Davis threaten Dunn, though Dunn maintained this was why he fired.

Following the shooting, Dunn and Rouer returned to their hotel without contacting police. Dunn was arrested the next morning at his home in Satellite Beach after a witness reported his license plate to authorities. Dunn later claimed Davis had brandished a "gun or a stick," but no weapon was found in the SUV, and Rouer testified Dunn never mentioned a weapon to her.

Davis's parents, Ron Davis and Lucy McBath, along with other vehicle occupants, filed civil wrongful death and defamation lawsuits against Dunn, which settled for an undisclosed amount in January 2014. At Dunn's first criminal trial, his defense invoked Florida's stand-your-ground law. On February 15, 2014, a jury convicted Dunn on three counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of firing into an occupied vehicle, but could not reach a verdict on the first-degree murder charge, resulting in a mistrial on that count. Florida prosecutors pursued a retrial, and on October 1, 2014, Dunn was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole plus 105 years. His appeals were denied by Florida's First District Court of Appeal in 2016 and by the Florida Supreme Court in 2020.

The case drew national attention to Florida's stand-your-ground law and to broader concerns about violence against young Black men, with commentators linking it to the earlier killing of Trayvon Martin. Davis's mother, Lucy McBath, later was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 6th congressional district in 2018 on a platform that included gun-law reform, and was reelected in 2020. The case was the subject of the 2015 documentaries "3½ Minutes, 10 Bullets" and "The Armor of Light," and inspired the young-adult novel "Dear Martin" by Nic Stone.