With parking-lot shooting, Florida 'stand your ground' law takes the stand

Dan Drake looked up in alarm on July 19 when he heard the gunshots from the direction of the Circle A Food Store, where his teenage daughter had headed by foot. He relaxed slightly when she came running back down the sidewalk. Someone just got shot up on the corner, she said.

Mr. Drake thought it was a gang shooting – not unheard of in this Clearwater, Fla., neighborhood known as Greenwood. He then heard that a black man he knew by sight, Markeis McGlockton, had been shot and killed by an older white man, Michael Drejka, over a parking space argument. Mr. McGlockton was killed after pushing Mr. Drejka, who had confronted McGlockton’s girlfriend about parking in a handicapped spot.

“Markeis acted like any man would, protecting his family, and for that he was killed,” says Drake, who is black. “I don’t care about race. If you have the loaded gun in your pocket, you’re looking for trouble.”