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Showing posts with label Marissa Alexander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marissa Alexander. Show all posts

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Florida's Stand Your Ground Law Only Protect Whites Who Pull The Trigger.


Marissa Alexander, the Florida mother of three facing 20 years in prison for firing what her family said was a warning shot at her abusive husband, is anything but a victim, said the state prosecutor who oversaw the case.
“She was angry” when she fired the shot, State Attorney Angela B. Corey told HuffPost. “She was not in fear.”
Alexander, 31, scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, was convicted by the same state attorney's office prosecuting the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot to death in February by a neighborhood watch volunteer. Both cases have stirred controversy surrounding Florida's Stand Your Ground gun law, which allows citizens wide discretion in using deadly force to defend themselves. Alexander invoked the law in her unsuccessful defense to aggravated assault charges filed against her in August 2010. Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is using it against the second-degree murder charge he faces in Martin's death.
Alexander’s family and a growing legion of her supporters have decried her prosecution by Corey’s office, saying that Alexander is an example of someone standing her ground. Her husband, Rico Gray, 36, admitted in court documents to beating, choking and punching women, including Alexander. "I got five baby-mamas and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one," Gray said in a deposition.
The couple's battle in 2010 left Alexander cornered in the couple’s Jacksonville home. She ran into the garage to escape and was trapped behind a jammed door, she said in court documents. She said she grabbed the gun she kept in the garage, returned to the house and, when Gray threatened to kill her, fired a single shot to ward him off.
Gray fled the home with his two sons and called the police. Alexander was arrested and eventually convicted of three counts of aggravated assault. A judge last weekrejected her appeal for a new trial. She faces sentencing under a Florida law that imposes a mandatory minimum 20-year prison term for certain gun crimes.

Corey said her office considered all the details of the case before moving forward with Alexander’s prosecution. She said the facts don’t support Alexander’s self-defense claim. Just before Alexander went into the garage and retrieved her pistol, she told Gray, “I got something for your ass,” Corey said.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Florida's Stand Your Ground Law Is For Whites Only


It took nearly a year’s worth of violent physical abuse before Marissa Alexanderdecided to stand her ground against her husband.
On Aug. 1, 2010, her husband cornered her in their Jacksonville, Fla., home. Alexander said she ran to the garage to escape, but the garage door was jammed, so Alexander grabbed a pistol. Her husband, Rico Gray, 36, saw the gun and threatened to kill her, Alexander would later say in court documents.
Fearing for her life, she raised the pistol above her head and squeezed the trigger, the crackle of gunfire pelting the kitchen ceiling.
While the shooting may have gotten Alexander out of one jam, it put her in another: She has been in a Florida jail since 2010 awaiting a mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The 31-year-old mother of three has said that she believes she had a legal right to protect herself that day under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which gives citizens expanded rights to use force when threatened with bodily harm. But moments after the shooting, Gray ran outside and called police alleging that Alexander shot at him and his two sons. Alexander was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Gray later changed his story about the shooting. During a court hearing to determine whether or not Alexander could be protected under the Stand Your Ground Law, Gray said he'd lied during his earlier deposition and that he "begged and pleaded for my life when she had the gun."
A judge rejected Alexander’s Stand Your Ground defense, saying that she could have escaped her attacker "through the front or back door," court records say. The State Attorney’s Office offered her a plea deal that would have sent her to prison for a few years, but she rejected it, hoping to convince a jury that she was defending herself.
Marissa01

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Stand Your Ground Law Only can Be Used By Whites Only


Marissa Alexander is a woman who claims that she had to stand her ground against her abusive husband.  According to Alexander, her husband had been beating her while she was pregnant, and she fired a warning shot to keep him away.   To protect herself, Alexander got a gun permit and filed a restraining order against her husband.  But the judge in this case refused to believe that Alexander was standing her ground.

Oh, by the way – Alexander didn’t kill anyone.  She just used the gun to scare her husband away.  Zimmerman wasn’t arrested for weeks after killing Trayvon Martin, but Alexander is facing 25 years in prison.


Here is her appeal in her own words:

On August 1 2010, my premature baby girl, born nine days earlier, was in the Baptist South N.I.C.U. fighting for her life and I would too be fighting for my life in my own home against an attack from my husband.


My name is Marissa Alexander, I am a mother of three children, but at the present time, I am not able to be with them due to the following circumstances.  I am currently sitting in the Pretrial Detention Facility in Jacksonville FL, Duval County awaiting a sentence for three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with no intent to harm.  Before my life changed drastically on that August afternoon, I was in the perilous position of leaving an abusive relationship with my husband who has history of violence and documented domestic abuse towards women.  Our history included one which required me to place an injunction for protection against violence and was active during the month of August 2010.


In an unprovoked jealous rage, my husband violently confronted me while using the restroom.  He assaulted me, shoving, strangling and holding me against my will, preventing me from fleeing all while I begged for him to leave.  After a minute or two of trying to escape, I was able to make it to the garage where my truck was parked, but in my haste to leave I realized my keys were missing.  I tried to open the garage but there was a mechanical failure. I was unable to leave, trapped in the dark with no way out.  For protection against further assault I retrieved my weapon; which is registered and I have a concealed weapon permit.  Trapped, no phone, I entered back into my home to either leave through another exit or obtain my cell phone.


He and my two stepsons were supposed to be exiting the house thru the front door, but he didn’t leave.  Instead he came into the kitchen that leads to the garage and realized I was unable to leave.
  
Instead of leaving thru the front door where his vehicle was parked outside of the garage, he came into the kitchen by himself.  I was terrified from the first encounter and feared he came to do as he had threatened.  The weapon was in my right hand down by my side and he yelled, “Bitch I will kill you!”, and charged toward me.  In fear and desperate attempt, I lifted my weapon up, turned away and discharged a single shot in the wall up in the ceiling.  As I stood my ground it prevented him from doing what he threatened and he ran out of the home.  Outside of the home, he contacted the police and falsely reported that I shot at him and his sons.  The police arrived and I was taken into custody.







Source http://blacklikemoi.com/2012/04/black-news-2/woman-stands-her-ground-faces-20-years-in-prison-no-one-was-hurt/