Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Perp guns down dad of three over parking spot!

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

A white man who is seen on security video fatally shooting an unarmed black man during an argument over a Clearwater convenience store parking space at faces a manslaughter charge. Michael Drejka claims he has immunity under Florida's "stand your ground" law. Nancy Grace looks at the case with Benjamin Crump, the Florida civil rights attorney who represents the parents of Trayvon Martin -- the teen killed by George Zimmerman in another infamous "stand your ground" case.  Also joining the discussion are forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober, Atlanta prosecutor Kenya Johnson, veteran detective Steven Lampley, defense lawyer Robin Ficker, and reporter Chuck Roberts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph. Does it never end? That's my first question. I remember looking for the first time at the photo of Trayvon Martin's father adjusting his tie when he was a little boy. And then he ends up dead on the ground, shot down by the captain of the neighborhood watch for what? Going to the 7-Eleven and getting a Diet Coke for Pete's sake? And the shooter walks free. We all know the name George Zimmerman.

And he walked free based on a legal theory that I think is total BS. It's some derivative of self-defense. It's called stand your ground. And now a Florida man who we are learning allegedly threatened three other people three different times before shooting the man in his latest stand your ground case. I mean, when will it end? I mean, see, Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

I can just tell you this much. Do not get in an argument with anybody over a parking spot in Florida because you can get gunned down dead and the sheriff won't lift a finger. Guys, before I go any further, I've got a special guest with me right now. It's Benjamin Crump, my longtime friend. He worked on the Trayvon Martin case. He is the lawyer behind the Benjamin Crump law firms across the country, the author of Open Season, Legalized Genocide of People of Color. And he is part of the Trayvon documentary on BET Paramount.

Benjamin, I know you're rushing off to another court appearance, but I just want you to tell me what is happening now. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. It really is unbelievable, Nancy, when you look at the similarities between the Trayvon Martin case six years ago and what is happening in Clearwater, Florida with Marquise McLaughlin. But before I get to that, Nancy Grace, I just want to say thank you on behalf of Trayvon Martin's parents, Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, because you used your platform to really educate people about what happened in the killing of their son. And I will never forget that last interview after the verdict that you did with his parents and especially Sabrina, the humanity you showed to this mother who had lost her child simply walking home from the store minding his own business.

So let me just say thank you for that first and foremost. You know, Benjamin, even now, sometimes if I let John David walk from here to there, I think about Trayvon Martin, because John David, believe it or not, Benjamin, you haven't seen a photo of him in a long time. He is just 10 years old. He's almost as tall as Trayvon was right now. And I just think, I just think, and I think about Trayvon's parents and what they went through.

But that's a whole other can of worms. Thank you for your compliment. What are we going to do about Clearwater? Marquise McLaughlin and his girlfriend, Brittany Jacobs, had come home from her job. They were on their way home. They had three little babies in the car with them, their babies, five-year-old Marquise Jr., three-year-old Marlee, their daughter, and four-month-old Marshawn. They stop at this convenience store to get the kids some snacks. As she's putting in, there's a truck in the parking lot. So she just grabs the first space that she sees.

She says they're only going to be there for a minute. Marquise Sr., Marquise Jr., get out of the car, go into the convenience store. They're literally getting some snacks for the kids and coming right back out. This wannabe cop, this self-appointed wannabe cop, Michael Drinker, and you can see it all on the video, Nancy. You don't have to take my word. He comes out walking around the car at first, and then you see him yawning in the car and pointing his finger in the window.

Now, imagine if you're a mother with your two babies in the backseat, and some strange man just come up to you yelling and cursing and pressing at you, and that's what happened to her. Somebody goes into the convenience store and tells Marquis, somebody's assaulting your family out at the car. He comes out and you see it all on video. He walks up, he pushes him. A lot of men would have came to try to defend their family. That's exactly what Marquis was trying to do. If standing ground should apply to anybody, it should have been him. However, you see him pushed on the ground, and you see this guy go to his pocket, pull out a gun, and he pulls out the gun, and when he does that, Marquise jumps back and takes four steps back.

Brittany, she starts retreating, as well as there's a white gentleman who walks into the video frame. You can see it on the video. He jumps back and starts retreating. Everybody is retreating. He is not an intimate fear of his life. But yet, after they are all retreating, he shoots Marquis unjustifiably. And you see on that video what happens next next he uh runs he stumbles back into the store his five-year-old son is right there and he is reaching out for his father his father falls

at his son's feet and that is the last time that five-year-old boy would ever see his father alive again. And you can imagine all the counseling these children are going to need. But the sheriff of Pinellas County, with that video evidence, and not to mention the history of this, wanted to be caught up attacking people of color. He pulled a gun on some Hispanic women when he had a road rage incident that he provoked. He also pulled a gun on another African-American person in the same handicapped spot because instead of calling the police, he took the law into his own hands. But the sheriff would not arrest him. He went home and slept in his own bed that night. And it was only people saying,

this isn't right. This stand your ground law is a license to kill, especially if you are not a person of color and you shoot a person of color. We got to address this. We can't be silent about this because too many people are dying unnecessarily. We don't have to solve our problems with violence. We should solve our problems by talking to one another, not pull out a gun and just shoot the person, make sure they die, and then say, I will stand on my ground. So that's what we're dealing with, Nancy. And thank God the DA did charge him with manslaughter. With me is Benjamin Crump, longtime friend and associate Florida civil rights lawyer, who was critical in the Trayvon Martin case. You know what, Benjamin, even if the guy's charged, even if he goes through the revolving door and gets booked and fingerprint

and makes a bond and walks out, it doesn't mean anything to me. Look what happened in Trayvon Martin. Look what's happened over and over and over again. Just because somebody gets charged, that doesn't mean a hill of beans. And look at Cosby. Look at that guy. They say guilty and he's in his fancy brownstone having a private chef made him lunch today. So until the guy is sentenced and sent to jail, it don't mean a thing, Benjamin Crump. And I'm just so sick about these children. Benjamin, what about the fact there is no way? Well, you know what? I take that back.

There's always a way. But under the law, all of these prior similar transactions should come before a jury. Have you noticed that he keeps picking on women? You've got him picking on the wife in the car with the babies this time over a parking spot. Then you've got him picking on, as you said, the Hispanic woman in a car. It's always somebody that's sitting in a car, seated, and he comes up, standing up, and we know he's got a gun. Why does he even have a gun to start with? And that is something that we certainly want to educate the public on. I know the police officer in the prior incident where he pulled the gun on the young Hispanic women, he said he didn't pull it on them, but yet he had the gun in the center console

when the sheriff, I mean the police officer, came forward and pulled him over after they said, you know, he just pulled a gun on us. And then he told the police officer when he pulled him over before the police officer even told him why he was pulling him over. He said, they're lying. I didn't pull a gun on them. And so the police officer said, well, if you didn't pull a gun on them, why do you know why I'm pulling you over? And so it was almost he told on himself. And then the police report, as clear as day, the police said, admit, I do not believe you.

I believe that you did assault these young women for nothing more than you said. They were going too slow in a school zone. He blew his horn at them. They were going 15 miles an hour. And this is the kind of thing he has been doing in the past. Well, Ben, you know what I always say, Ben, when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. Didn't pull a gun. My my rear end he always pulled a gun over and over and over in the past a hispanic lady an african-american lady it goes on and on and on why should i believe now he's suddenly turning around and running back to the gate i don't believe it benjamin crump join us again when you can as this case unfolds. Listen to this. I'm still in shock how this white man, this stranger, came up to my car and harassed me and my babies.

He's a troublemaker. He just, he always hanging out here like to see if there's any problem or something just to, just to start a problem with somebody. It's not, he's not normal. That was the store clerk inside the 7-Eleven where this family stopped just for a quick in and out and ends up the dad dead in the parking lot over a parking spot. And now the defense stands your ground, has reared its head. We've seen it many times before. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. With us, Stephen Lampley, police vet, former SVU detective, author of Outside Your Door, Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist, renowned defense lawyer Robin Ficker, Chuck Roberts, Crime Stories investigative reporter, and Atlanta felony prosecutor Kenya Johnson. Straight to you, Chuck Roberts, CrimeOnline.com reporter. Let's just back it up for a moment. Let's start at the beginning. We just heard the store clerk with our friends at WFLA describing that this guy hangs around there all the time in a weird way. You know, Chuck, I remember working at, I worked at a law firm. I worked somewhere else. And I also worked at a sandwich shop to get myself through law school. And there were regulars that always came to the sandwich shop.

And I would know them at a distance. This guy hung around not just to get a sandwich, a number four, and leave, but to just hang around. Chuck, start at the beginning. What do we know about this guy, and how did that fateful day unfold? Well, you mentioned the earlier road rage incidents in which he pulled his weapon out of frustration and not fear. But three months ago, Draco was in a fight with another customer at the very same convenience store. Richard Kelly, a truck driver, stopped by, parked in that same handicapped spot, and according to Kelly, a truck driver, stopped by, parked in that same handicapped spot.

And according to Kelly, Draco walked around the truck checking for decals and then confronted Kelly about why he parked there. The fight quickly escalated, and Draco threatened to shoot him, according to police, called the truck owner, a cut-rate septic tank, spoke to the owner, John Tyler, and said he was, quote, lucky he didn't blow his employee's head off. This is according to documents filed with Pinellas County Court. Listen to this with our friends at WFLA. This isn't the first time Draco has picked a fight over the parking spot. Richard Kelly parked in it once and says it set him off. He was basically threatening me to shoot me that day. While investigators go through all the evidence, those who saw what happened have many questions. It's murder. He murdered someone. He took someone's family member.

The kid had kids. Okay, go back to what happened the day of the shooting. Let's just start with that day. Okay, so the families together, take it from there. Marquise McLaughlin, father of three, 28 years old, pulls into the Circle A food store on Sunset Point Road, goes in with his five-year-old son, at which point Michael Draca, a 48-year-old, comes up to his girlfriend, that is, McLaughlin's girlfriend, and confronts her about parking in a handicapped spot. That also escalates and becomes loud enough that some other customer comes in and tells Marquise McLaughlin that someone is threatening his girlfriend and his family. So he runs outside and quickly shoves Draco to the ground forcefully. The video shows that at that point, there's about a four-second pause, and Draco pulls a weapon.

It appears that McLaughlin is backing away and Draco fires one round into McLaughlin's chest. He stumbles around his five-year-old boy is right there with him, uh, screams. Apparently the, the, the, the girlfriend gets out, tries to apply pressure. Uh, but there's, there's no hope for McLaughlin. He's dead within an hour. And this is a standard ground case that the sheriff initially decided would not be prosecuted. But later, obviously, it was overruled by the district attorney who said it's manslaughter. Well, I'm also confused about why it's charged with manslaughter, because let me go to Kenya Johnson, felony prosecutor. Kenya, when you're working with a grand jury, as I did,

and as I'm sure you have done, you charge with the highest charge it could possibly be, and then all the other lessors, so you can give the jury the alternatives that they may need when they determine the case. And if you don't charge with murder one, which this case could easily be determined to be murder one, that's off the boards. They can't bring back a verdict going up. They can only bring back a verdict with what's charged or lesser. How do you see this case, Kenya? I see the fact that the grand jury did not charge murder one as they even realized or thought that this gentleman or the suspect didn't have any intent that it wasn't a premeditated murder. So that's okay. But then there's also involuntary manslaughter.

There's your heat of passion. And then there's your voluntary manslaughter where you commit an act and you mean, but you didn't mean to bring about the death. So that's what we're looking at. The grand jury is speaking and saying that they don't believe McLaughlin had intent to kill him at the moment that they encountered. However, he set about a course of action that resulted in McLaughlin's death. And so that's where the manslaughter charge comes from. But it does put the state at a disadvantage because it only leaves the jury to decide the lesser charge of manslaughter or something not even related to murder, such as aggravated assault.

So it does handicap the state in their prosecution, but it sends a message that even the grand jury didn't think that there was any intent in his actions. So the law is this. The jury can come back on this charge voluntary or any lesser included offense, such as involuntary or aggravated assault. But here's the deal. Self-defense goes like this. Let me go to Robin Ficker. Robin, isn't it true? Self-defense goes like this. You can come up and slap me, and under the law, I have the right to exert equal amount of force to defend myself. I can slap you back. But I can't, when you slap me, I can't pull out an Uzi and gun you down. Unless I really believe you're about to kill me. Would you agree with that, Robin Ficker? Well, yeah, I agree with that, Nancy. This case has nothing to do with civil rights. This case involves Mr. McLaughlin coming out of the store. And essentially, it reminds me of a knockout case where he just ran up to this gentleman and didn't push him, didn't shove him. He knocked him down, then stepped forward towards him. He also reached into his waistband. It all happened within microseconds. And I'm really not surprised he got shot. If I went outside the

courthouse and did this to 10 people and knocked down 10 people as he did with that amount of force, I would get shot by at least one of them. This is clearly self-defense. As for the hold your stand your ground, 27 states have that. And here he's on the ground. He can't go anywhere. He's fearful of this great big thug standing over him about to beat the crap out of him even worse than he was hit before. So I don't see how. Well, I would argue with you on that figure about who's the thug. And you very conveniently, I mean, if I was charged with murder, I'd definitely hire you, Robin.

But you very conveniently left out the entire first part of the scenario. And that is defense of others. A man looks out the 7-Eleven window and sees another man with a gun berating his wife and children, cowering in the car. You darn right he's going to come out and punch

the guy. You darn right he is. What kind of man would he be if he didn't come out and do something? He didn't see any guns. How do you know that? He saw some conversation going on. Oh, polite conversation. Mr. McLaughlin should have gotten in his car with his wife and kids and driven away and he'd be living a happy life today. Window treatments is one of those terms for something necessary but boring.

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Now my kids would never be the same without their father. He was a rapper. He loved to sing. He loved to draw. He was there for his kids. And he didn't have to go like this, man. He didn't have to go like this man he didn't have to go like this you are hearing britney jacobs um the wife of the dead man the mother of his three children she was at a 7-eleven when with her children in the car when the perp accosted her, came up yelling at her, arguing

with her about being in a handicapped spot. True, they were not handicapped, but really, did he deserve the death penalty? Then other people tell the guy in the 7-Eleven, hey, the man is screaming at your wife. He comes out, pushes the guy away from the car, and the guy shoots him dead. That's the scenario as I understand it. Take a listen to the Pinellas County Sheriff, Bob Guattari, explaining why he did not charge the shooter, Michael Jacob. The facts of this case can lead reasonable people to different determinations. The law says don't arrest in this situation and

let the state attorney figure it out. As far as my decision not to arrest Draco, my decision is based on the requirements of Florida's Stand Your Ground law. It is a preliminary decision about arrest and not a final decision about charges. Again, I make decisions about an arrest and the state attorney makes decisions about charges. That's our system. If charges are filed, then a judge decides whether to dismiss the case.

And if not, a jury decides guilt, followed by an appellate court deciding if the prior decisions were right or wrong. My decision not to arrest is because Florida law creates a situation where someone is immune from arrest if their conduct is arguably within the parameters of stand your ground. This is not a defense to be merely asserted at trial or after commencement of criminal proceedings. This is an immunity from arrest. A person who uses or threatens to use force as permitted under the law is justified in such conduct and immune from criminal prosecution. And that section of the statute goes on to define immune from criminal

prosecution is including arrest or detaining somebody in custody. In some, the law has taken away law enforcement discretion to arrest unless there is no stand your ground as a matter of law. We were talking about the most recent stand your ground shooting, as they are called, in Florida. Why are they all coming out of Florida? Number one, there are some others peppered across the country, but mostly we're hearing from them out of Florida. And joining me from Florida, Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist. Dr. Bober, boy, do we need a shrink. Question to you.

This whole thing started ostensibly at first glance over the victim's wife and children in a handicapped parking spot. They were not handicapped. But what we know is the shooter hung around in a weird way all the time at that 7-Eleven, and I call it 7-Eleven generically, like copies or Xeroxes. But he hung around there all the time, and he had argued with other people about parking in the handicapped spot. And we know he had pulled a gun on other people, particularly women in traffic scenarios. That's really where the case starts is his background. That's how this starts. His

pattern, his MO, his modus operandi, his method of operation. That's where it really starts. But let's start with that day. What is it, Dr. Bober? Why do people think they have to get so indignant and angry over a parking spot or a driving issue like the two women going too slowly in a school zone? I nearly go out of my gourd when I, because I'm anxious and impatient. Those are my two of my really big faults, and I know that. And when I get behind a slow poke, I nearly jump out of my skin. But I now know, A, don't shoot a bird, okay, because I don't want the children to shoot birds,

and B, don't blow the horn or they will shoot you. I've learned that the hard, by covering these cases. But what is it? Then there are times when I'm looking up directions and I find myself going 10 miles an hour and somebody behind me very kindly not blowing the horn. My question is, why do people get so angry? They want to start a fist fight or confront a lady with her children in the car. What is it about the road that drives people insane? You know, Nancy, this guy, just like George Zimmerman, is a guy who's a weak, inadequate person who seeks out confrontation because he doesn't feel strong enough about himself. You know, we have these stand your ground laws. We think they make us safer, but they actually don't. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association

showed that in Florida, when they passed the stand your ground law, there was a 32 percent increase in firearm related homicides in the state of Florida, while in the country, in states that didn't have stand your ground laws, the homicide rate remained flat. that didn't have stand-your-ground laws, the homicide rate remained flat. It didn't change. So there's a huge public health issue here with these stand-your-ground laws, and they're not making us safer. They're just making us feel safer, but it's an illusion. What about this?

About three months ago, a guy named Richard Kelly tells Pinellas County sheriffs that he was approached by the same guy, Draco, at the Circle A food store, same place, the same store where he guns down McLaughlin. And according to this witness, Richard Kelly, three months ago, Draco was mad at him because he parked in a handicapped spot. Look, I get mad at handicapped fakers, too, because my brother-in-law is handicapped. He's paralyzed.

And you should see what my sister, for the last decades, goes through trying to physically get him out of the car, get him situated, get him into a store or wherever they're going. And you pass by the handicap spots, they're all full. And there is my sister. She was the sweet, smart one, by the way, pushing my brother-in-law who we adore all the way from the back parking spot into the store because somebody mooched, faked a handicap spot. You know how mad that makes me when I think of my sister going through that? It happens all the time. But am I going to pull out a gun? No. So three months ago, he confronts another guy. And this is the important part,

Dr. Bober. And listen to this, Kenya and Dr. Daniel Bober and Robin Ficker, listen to this. Three months ago, he gets in a fight, same store, about the same handicap spot, and he starts a loud fight, and he tells Kelly he's going to shoot him. So here we go. He just did it three months ago, and I can name two other instances where he pulls or threatens to pull a gun, Dr. Bober, over parking or driving. Help me, Daniel. Nancy, this guy is just, again, someone who is looking for confrontation. You would think he would have better things to do besides sitting outside a convenience store and looking for a fight, finding a way to use his

firearm. But that's the problem. That's the issue. This individual has some sort of personality disorder where he seeks out these situations. Not only this, we learn to Robin Ficker, a defense lawyer, joining us out of the Maryland jurisdiction. Court documents say Draco wanted to complain to Kelly's employer. This is the last guy he threatened about a gun. So he spoke to the owner and told the business he was lucky he didn't blow his employees head

off. That's what Chuck Roberts was telling us earlier. What about that? I mean, he's got a track record, Robin Ficker, of getting mad at people over parking spots and driving. Minor, minor infractions. One, he was mad because the one was going too slowly and threatening to shoot them or pulling a gun. Robin, what's your defense to that? He's got a history of chit chat with people about minor infractions. But here we have an intervention of an extremely rough and vicious attack physically by Mr. McLaughlin. That's where he stepped over the line. Marquise was a general giant.

He was a man above all men. I raised him to be a man. And unfortunately, it cost him his life. We need to put an end to this. Any kind of law that allows one man to kill another man, and the man that pulled the trigger don't even get fingerprinted, needs to stop. Something needs to be done. You're hearing the father of the victim now responding to his son gunned down in a parking lot over a handicapped parking spot.

With us, Benjamin Crump, Florida civil rights lawyer, Stephen Lampley, police vet, Dr. Daniel Bober, Robin Ficker, renowned defense attorney out of Maryland, Chuck Roberts, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, and Atlanta felony prosecutor, Kenya Johnson. Stephen Lampley, police vet, former SVU detective, author of Outside Your Door. Stephen, I want you to take a listen to what the sheriff said. Listen. To arrest, it must be so clear that as a matter of law, stand your ground does not apply in any way to the facts and circumstances that you're presented with. That is not the situation here.

The facts are not so clear that this is absolutely outside the boundaries of stand your ground. So in order for me to arrest, it has to be as a matter of law outside the boundaries of stand your ground. All Draco has to do is wave the flag of stand your ground. He has no burden whatsoever. Then the state attorney has a heavy burden of disproving his entitlement to stand your ground. So when you put all that together is that at this stage of the proceedings, I'm following the law and doing what the legislature has said not to do and don't have this citizen who claims that he was acting in self-defense sitting in jail while people are figuring it out. And once they figure it out, the state attorney, I know and I'm very confident, will make what is the right decision under the law and then it will To Stephen Lampley, police vet and author of Outside Your Door,

I want to hear the cop's perspective on this. I don't like wailing on the police, but I want the right thing done. And I hear the sheriff explaining why he had not made an arrest yet, but I want to hear your point of view, Stephen. And I hear the sheriff explaining why he had not made an arrest yet. But I want to hear your point of view, Stephen. Well, Nancy, this situation is, there's a lot that happened in this situation. And it happened on both sides. Now, the sheriff, of course, I wasn't there. None of us were there.

The sheriff, I'm assuming, acted in what the information he had. And even with McCabe, I think it was the state attorney, it took them nine days to decide whether to try to get an indictment on the gentleman, Draco. So there's a lot that happened in this situation, a lot that the sheriff had to look at. And I'm not trying to second-guess him or put words in his mouth, but you had a situation where you've got this self-declared parking lot patrol person who has deemed that he's the guru of all things parking, trying to do whatever he needed to do to prove his point that she was parked in a handicapped parking spot when maybe she didn't need to be.

That was not his duty. That was not his job. He was wrong in that case. Marquis, of course, I understand, and I get the fact that he heard what was going on and come out and defended his family. He has a right, of course, to defend them. But he exerted the first physical contact. And, again, I did see him take a couple of steps forward in the video,

but then I did not see any actually overt act that led me personally to believe that there was any other physical threat coming from McLaughlin. However, I don't know what the police would call inciting words. There was no audio, and I don't know what transpired between the two, if there was any threats made where Draco felt maybe he was in imminent danger, even though there was no physical. There's a lot there, Nancy. There's a whole lot there.

I don't want to second-guess any party as police officer, former police officer. I try to stay in due tour of the whole situation. There was just so much in this case to look at, and I think that's actually why it took them the nine days to actually decide if they were going to indict or not. I want to analyze what's happening, Kenya Johnson, felony prosecutor. Kenya, I hear what Stephen's saying. I hear what the sheriff is saying. Here's my analysis. Again,

I don't want to boil it down so simply that it doesn't hit all the legal points. But again, when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. I've told you about him coming down on threatening to shoot Richard Kelly, who told that to Pinellas County sheriffs. Then you heard earlier our friend Ben Crump describing a December 2012 incident. A woman told Largo police a man driving a black Toyota truck, Draca, pointed a gun at her and the other people in her vehicle. She pointed the truck out the truck to the cops. The cop goes and speaks to Draca. He tells the officer the woman was driving too slow in a school zone.

I didn't even know that was possible. He denied pointing the gun, but he had the gun. And there are other police reports where he sits on the horn at people in the other car, claiming other people shoot birds at him and make rude hand gestures at him. But I didn't tell you this one. January 10, 2012, an 18-year-old Tyler Smith was driving with somebody else, a friend in the car, at a traffic light. The light turned yellow. Smith, the boy, the 18-year-old, did not drive through the yellow light, and he stopped his vehicle. Draco, in his truck, was behind him, sat on his horn, and started yelling, holding a black handgun out the driver's side window of his vehicle,

ordering the boy, Smith, to walk back to his truck. That would be a cold A-N-H-E-double-L before I get out of the car and walk back to a guy with a gun. He then followed the teen boy's car past it and then slammed on the brakes in front of him. Kenya, I mean, really. That history is certainly going to play a part at the trial to negate the Sandra Ground defense. But let's look at Sandra Ground. First of all, it's predicated on the fact of seriously or deadly bodily injury. So we are putting that standard, that analysis in the hands of citizens that may not understand what deadly

force is. You can't bring a gun to a fistfight. We live in a society that is teaching our children that we solve disputes using firearms. So what's going to happen now is that the jury is going to get a chance to hopefully have a chance to hear about this pattern of aggressive behavior. In addition, McLaughlin initiated the entire matter. So what happens, and the jury will see what happens when someone creates this situation out of their own volition. This wasn't by happenstance. He was aggressively pursuing this argument over this handicapped spot. And lastly, when the gun came out, everyone retreated. So Stand Your Ground also has to look at whether the fact that the danger had ended when the victim stepped back and everyone else around stepped back. Well, then was the threat of deadly force still there?

So was McLaughlin then authorized to use that deadly force when everyone is trying to get away or step back and run. So all those three things are going to play into this defense of stand your ground, and hopefully the jury will be able to see right through it. Robin Ficker, based on what Kenya's saying, once again, when I'm talking about the teen boy, once again, when cops confront him, Draco says it was the teen's fault, and he did not follow the teen's car nor did he show his gun but again he admitted he had one I mean same thing with

yelling at the Hispanic women the cop tells them to roll down the window and goes I didn't pull my gun and they're like we didn't say that you did methinks thou doth protest too much in the words of Shakespeare so what about that figure? Every time, same scenario, every time, same defense.

Well, he wasn't convicted of any crime in any one of those instances. I'm sure if he had been, he would no longer be licensed to carry a gun as he was still licensed in the McLaughlin situation. They would have taken the gun away from him. So these are a lot of unproven hindsight reviews that I give very little credibility and the jury

isn't going to find this guy guilty of playing fiddly. Three different people separated by time and space all come up with the same story on draca and now a guy is dead in a parking spot guys before i go any further we're taking your calls 90949 crime 9094927463 on the phone from florida is Joe. Joe, this is your neck of the woods. What's your tip, question, or theory? Yes, well, it's a comment first.

You're right when you say that so much craziness happens in the state of Florida, and particularly in Miami where I lived for many years. I mean, it's a crazy, crazy state. And the stand the ground law should be voted down because it is absolutely taken advantage of by anyone who wants to shoot someone and not pay a penalty. on a sidewalk arguing. One punches the other. The guy falls into the gutter, and immediately he pulls out a gun, and he shoots the guy who's still standing on the sidewalk. His life wasn't in danger. The whole thing had been over with. I don't understand that. Do you?

Well, you know, it goes back, Joe, to the theory of self-defense. You have an absolute right to defend yourself. But again, Joe, if you come up and slap me or push me, I do not have the right to pull out my Uzi and shoot you dead. Unless I feel that you are again advancing on me and I have fear that you're going to kill me. Now, that justifies deadly self-defense. And I've looked at this video over and over again. You see the victim coming out. He walks, not runs.

He walks up to the guy and you can see to the, to the left, his wife is now standing up. I guess that's his wife. He comes between his wife and the shooter and he pushes the shooter down and then he steps back. Then the guy pulls a gun and shoots him dead. Just like that. That's what happened, Joe. I mean, you've looked at the video. What do you think? I realize that there's no threat to the guy's life who's pulling the gun and shooting the other one because he was offended by what he said or did, getting punched into the sidewalk, into the gutter, is not enough excuse to start shooting at the guy who pushed him in the sidewalk. Little spats and little fights break out all the time. And if someone has to end up being dead because some guy... Oh, oh, wait a minute. I'm joe i just i just saw it again i just

saw him shoot the guy again i mean you know you'd think after all these years prosecuting and covering these cases i'd be immune to it i just saw it again and the guy i don't, I hate to repeat myself, but Chuck Roberts, the victim comes out of the store. You can see the shooter pointing his finger at the woman, yelling at her, yelling as she's standing there. You see the husband come out of the store. He walks up. He gets between them, and he pushes the guy back, and the guy falls down on his rear end. Then he takes out a gun and shoots the man dead. Chuck, I mean, am I missing something?

Not at all. And the complaint itself filed by District Attorney Bernie McCabe said that the findings of an autopsy were consistent with the video footage in which McLaughlin appeared to be turning away from Draco when he was shot. I don't know how an autopsy can determine that, but that's in the complaint. You can tell from the angle of the trajectory path. I mean, Dr. Bober, you're the forensic psychiatrist. It's very, a lot of times it's very easy to tell from the path the bullet takes. If it's angled, you can tell the guy's turning away at the time of the shooting. This is going to be downward to upward.

That's how that goes down. Exactly, and the wound path. Yeah, and the shooter, Jackie is pointing out to me, is still on the ground. So that's where we get the angular path. From an elevated position. So Chuck Roberts, go ahead. Well, the complaint also says that they used a 3D scanner on the crime scene video and showed that the distance between Draca and McLaughlin was about 12 feet. I'm not sure whether that's, you know, crucial in the investigation. But Draco faces 30 years in prison.

It is not clear at this point whether he has an attorney. Well, if he doesn't have an attorney, an attorney will have one appointed to him. To Stephen Lampley, Stephen is a police veteran, former SVU detective, author of Outside Your Door, stories and cases in his police career, including his arrest of the Claremont killer. That was no easy thing. Stephen Lampley, the more I look at this video, at first I was thinking, well, the victim pushed the guy. Is that going to be construed as self-defense? I look at it he comes the victim comes right between walks up he's not like running like a a mad dog he walks up out of the store you can see another patron running the store and say something then you see him come out he walks

between the two his wife and the the shooter, and he pushes him. He falls on his rear end, immediately pulls a gun and shoots him dead. I'm just telling you, Stephen, that just does not look like self-defense, justifying a mortal wound. Nancy, you're correct there. And I watched the video over and over and over and over. I see what you're saying. He's on the ground.

He doesn't know what's going to happen next. Although McLaughlin pushes him down. It was a pretty violent push. Pushes him down on the ground and does take like a little lean into it, but he backs up eventually. I did not, as nobody else has seen, I did not see any additional physical threat beyond that point. And then when he pulls the gun out, McLaughlin does back up and move.

So I did not see any additional physical threat at that time. And do I think that he was shot wrongly? Yeah, I do, based on that video. And ultimately, I believe that that's why he was indicted on manslaughter, because of that very fact. Well, I see the dad going in the store with his little five-year-old, following along behind him. Then I see, you know, Draco waits until the man is gone. Then he goes up and starts yelling at the woman, pointing at her, fussing at her. You see a patron run in, get the dad.

He comes out. Draco's getting closer and closer to the wife and Brittany Jacobs. And then you see him come between them and push him away from the wife. What about the theory of defense of another? Chuck Roberts, that is a viable theory under the law, not just defense of yourself, but the defense of a third party. If I see someone attacking my husband or my children, you darn right I'm going to get in there and start. Furs are going to fly, okay? So no one has even mentioned defense of a third person.

That's defense of the wife, Brittany. Exactly, yeah. I mean, these two laws are in conflict. I mean, in the past, defense attorneys had to explain why their client deserved immunity in a killing. But now, as of about a year ago, they rewrote the law. The state has to prove that someone who claims they were standing their ground are wrong. The burden is on the state. And you don't need to back away from a threat. You don't need to walk away. You can stand your ground.

Take a listen to Brittany, Brittany Jacobs, speaking to our friends at CBS this morning. He was just trying to protect me and his kids. He wanted me to, you know, move my car. But, you know, I have my right to park anywhere I want to park. What did he take from you? Man. right to park anywhere I want to park. What did he take from you? Man, my soul, you know, my partner, you know, we did everything together. You know, it's tough.

Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.