Jury selection began Monday in the case of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, shot to death when she knocked on a man’s front porch in the middle of the night following a car crash.
McBride’s family says she’s the victim of a senseless attack.
“I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams what that man feared from her to shoot her,” Monica McBride, her mother, says.
Early in the morning of November 2, 2013 McBride crashed her vehicle into a parked car.
Investigators say she was intoxicated. She went to the front porch of Theodore Wafer’s Dearborn Heights, Michigan, home looking for help.
Wafer told police he thought someone was trying to break into his home; he opened fire, and McBride was killed.
Wafer has said he felt threatened and that’s why he shot McBride. He admits he picked up his shotgun, opened the front door and shot McBride through his screen door.
“The defense has to show that he acted in self-defense or at least give the element to show that it was reasonable that he acted in self-defense,” says attorney Todd Flood.
Defense attorneys had hoped to show the jury cell phone photos of McBride apparently flashing gang signs and holding a gun. That request was denied, but it does give a glimpse into how the defense plans to argue this case.
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