|
 Walter Ray Simmons and Monica McBride spoke publicly Friday after
Theodore Wafer was charged with second-degree murder and
manslaughter in the death of Renisha McBride on his Dearborn Heights
porch.
"I can't imagine what that man feared from her. I would like to know
why," Monica McBride said.
Police say Renisha McBride was shot a couple of hours after being
involved in a nearby car accident on Nov. 2. Family members say the
former high school cheerleader likely approached Wafer's home for
help. Wafer's lawyer, Matt Carpenter, said the pre-dawn hour and
McBride's condition — a toxicology report found she had alcohol and
marijuana in her system — contribute to his client's "very strong
defense."
McBride's parents are relieved to see the wheels of justice turning
but can't accept any claim to self-defense.
"I couldn't accept no apology because my daughter don't breathe no
more," said her father, Walter Ray Simmons. "I believe this man took
my daughter's life for no reason. We just want justice done."
Wafer, 54, was arraigned Friday afternoon on the murder and
manslaughter charges as well as a felony weapons charge. A probable
cause hearing was set for Dec. 18.
What happened between when McBride crashed into a parked vehicle
several blocks north of Wafer's neighborhood and the shooting
remains unclear. Police received a 911 call from Wafer about 4:42
a.m., in which he tells the dispatcher: "I just shot somebody on my
front porch with a shotgun, banging on my door."
They found McBride's body on the porch.
Under a 2006 Michigan self-defense law, a homeowner has the right to
use force during a break-in. Otherwise, a person must show that his
or her life was in danger.
Prosecutors say evidence shows McBride knocked on a locked screen
door and did not try to force her way in. The interior front door
was open, and Wafer fired through "the closed and locked screen
door," said prosecutor Kym Worthy, who declined to discuss details
about the investigation.
"We do not believe he acted in lawful self-defense," she added.
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A toxicology report released Thursday showed McBride, a 2012
Southfield High School graduate, had a blood alcohol content of
about 0.22, more than twice the legal limit for driving. Her blood
also tested positive for the active ingredient in marijuana.
The shooting has drawn attention from civil rights groups who called
for a thorough investigation and believe race was a factor in the
shooting — McBride was black; prosecutors said Wafer is white. Some
have drawn comparisons between the case and that of Trayvon Martin,
the black, unarmed 17-year-old Florida boy shot in 2012 by a
suspicious neighbor. Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman
was acquitted in July of second-degree murder.
Worthy insisted Friday that race wasn't relevant in her decision to
file charges and wouldn't compare the case to Martin's death.
Wafer is a 10-year employee at a local airport and has a clean
record except for having been in court for past drunken-driving
cases, Carpenter said.
Wafer's brick bungalow is in northeast Dearborn Heights, a town
adjacent to Detroit and a diverse area that's home to white, black
and Arab-American residents. His neighborhood consists mostly of
well-kept bungalows and small ranches, and is near a community
college campus and a mosque.
McBride's family members also they were hesitant to point to
McBride's skin color as a reason she was shot.
"We didn't want to make this a racial situation. We didn't want to
inflame anybody," family attorney Gerald Thurswell said. "The family
is not taking a position that this is black or white. You don't take
a gun and shoot somebody because there's a noise outside."
[Associated
Press; COREY WILLIAMS]
Associated Press writer
Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.
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