They left the shooting scene right after the shooting ? Where did they go ?
To the parking lot next door. Under observation of witnesses, who saw no gun dumped. Then quickly back to the gas station. Nowhere to dump a gun.
Here's a testimony summary. The friends are named. Dunn's lawyer focused on the "well, we can't be absolutely totally 100% positive there wasn't a gun!" defense, and it failed. It's unlikely that same defense would work any better a second time around, being it was so absurd.
"Loud Music" murder trial | Durango survivors testify | Michael Dunn
1. The LI article of Andrew Branca doesn't quite correlate with what you said here. You said
"To the parking lot next door. Under observation of witnesses, who saw no gun dumped." The LI article says 2 witnesses testified who were
"two witnesses who observed the SUV for the brief period it had pulled away from the gas station." So they were not witnesses of anything pertaining to the SUV AFTER that brief period, while it was in the parking lot (shopping plaza) adjacent to the gas station, quite some distance away, and would not have seen a gun being dumped at that location. How can anyone say
"Nowhere to dump a gun" I suppose it could have been dumped in some thick bushes, a dumpster, a parked car with a window carelessly left open, etc.
2 The LI article mentions that "interviews conducted at the police station by detectives were not recorded, despite the station having adequate capabilities to do so". It goes on to note that Dunn's lawyer >>
"seems he intends to argue that this allowed the statements of the Durango survivors to be altered and coordinated over time." Not so trivial a point.
3. LI article >>
"...when Corey asked Holmes where his notebook was from the night of the shooting, and Holmes casually indicated that the notebook was gone, destroyed. This seemed as if it might have some import, but Strolla never touched upon it in cross.
Offline, a Federal law enforcement officer contacted me to share that in his service notebooks were dated and destroyed by fire at pre-determined intervals, to ensure the confidentiality of their contents. Perhaps a similar policy is being followed by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office."
4. Although some witnesses were at the scene it is not established if they were either otherwise preoccupied or so shocked that that didn't see a gun if there was one there. They certainly wouldn't have been looking for one, and one often doesn't see what one is not looking for. Also, mitigating this is John Guy's admission that there were inconsistencies" among the witness accounts.
5. LI article >>
"Consistent with Strolla’s narrative that Davis’ weapon was “stashed” and never found, it is necessary that the crime scene have been less than fully secured. Naturally, a few patrol cars and some yellow tape do not an impermeable sphere make, so there was some opportunity for Strolla to point out areas where Shore wasn’t absolutely certain if this or that had been secured at one or another moment in time."
6. LI article >> Davis was in an aggressive mode against Dunn, shouting profanities at him, which Dunn did not do the same.
7. LI article >> After finding Davis shot the boys did not call 911, giving them time to stash a gun before they drove back to the gas station.
8. LI article >> Leland Brunson, one of the 4 SUV occupants, testified that >>
"that Davis was gesticulating with his right hand, in which he held a cell phone, but that he never made gun-like or similar motions with his hand." However, at bit of a distance and in low light, a cell phone could be mistaken for a gun.
9. LI article >>
"Brunson said Dunn was speaking in a normal, conversational tone of voice. He also agreed that Dunn had never tried to get out of his car. Brunson agreed that it was Davis who was yelling, getting more mad, and driving the escalation of the situation."
10. In contrast to the many MSM voices who have claimed that Davis was "unarmed", actually >>
"It was also revealed that Davis himself had, in fact, been armed, with a “Smith & Wesson tactical knife.”
11. LI article >> Regarding witness Melissa LeBlanc >>
"She agreed that she couldn’t testify to what she hadn’t seen."
12. LI article >> Regarding witness Christopher LeBlanc >>
"in his initial reports to police he had suggested that the occupants of the vehicle appeared as if they were trying to stash something inside the vehicle."
Reading all this I see no evidence on the prosecution's side that the SUV did not have gun (which could have been stashed inside or outside of the SUV). What also hasn't been noted is that a gun could have still been in the SUV when the boys returned back to the gas station and then dumped, before police arrived. And it could have been dumped anywhere. And if this happened the kids dumping a gun wouldn't do it where they saw people watching them. They'd get to a spot where they couldn't be observed, look around, and THEN dump that gun. Legal bottom line. Once Dunn claimed self-defense, and that he saw a gun, it is the prosecution's duty to prove there was no gun, not Dunn or Strolla's duty to prove there was one. I still don't see where the prosecution ever did that, leaving the jury no choice but to acquit.
Should be plenty of potential for a repeal of the guilty verdicts on appeal, based on the same defense of no proof of absence of a gun.
I can't help getting the feeling that the jury was either influenced by a heavy amount of anti-Dunn, MSM broadcasting (if not a campaign against him), and/or a fear of retaliation from the black community's lunatic fringe, who made themselves very vocal, audible, and visible, over the past 3 months.
