Florida Stand Your Ground shooter released from jail for pretrial hearing in shooting of Black man
Witnesses said after Michael Drejka shot down Markeis McGlockton last July outside a convenience store in Florida, he seemed proud of his kill and even boasted that he had it coming, the Daily Mail reports.
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Drejka was charged with manslaughter after he gunned down McGlockton in Clearwater, mere seconds after he shoved him during a confrontation with McGlockton’s girlfriend Britany Jacobs over a handicapped parking space.
Drejka claimed Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ defense and said in the interview that he was afraid.
But witnesses are disputing Drekja’s claim that he was scared saying the 48-year-old was a confident killer who was more so irate than afraid according to NBC News.
On Monday, Drekja was released from jail on bail as he awaits his pretrial hearing October 19. But one witness, Robert Castelly reportedly heard Drejka utter after the shooting: “I just shot someone. What’d you think was gonna happen? He shouldn’t have ran up on me.”
Vicki Conrad, another witness said while she didn’t hear Drejka speak, his body language told a grim tale.
“His demeanor was, you know, uh, like, proud,” the witness says in police transcripts.
When asked if Conrad thought Drejka didn’t care about killing McGlockton, she responded saying that he acted like, “it’s all cool.”
The witness statements are key as Drejka tried to assert that he was acting in self-defense.
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McGlockton, 28, emerged from a store to find Drejka arguing with his girlfriend. McGlockton pushed him away but Drejka said he “didn’t know it was a shove.”
“It felt like I was tackled, or someone hit me from behind with something. I left my feet, and slid along the ground,” Drejka, 48, said in a previous interview.
He defended his decision to shoot McGlockton saying:
“I followed the law the way I felt the law was supposed to be followed. I cleared every hurdle that the law had to put in front of me.”
Previously Drejka said he was devastated, but he offered an apology to the family.
“I’m sorry. That’s all I can really say to them. …Thinking about it, would you accept those kinds of words from someone? I don’t think I would,” he said. “I think there’s too much hate already … for me to be able to say anything that would make any kind of difference,” he said.
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