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‘Loud music’ shooter found guilty of murder in second trial

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Michael Dunn was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday, capping his second trial for shooting and killing Jordan Davis, an unarmed black teenager, in 2012.

A jury convicted him less than a week after the trial began. And this conviction came seven months after Dunn was convicted on several other counts, which carried with them the potential for decades in prison. However, the earlier trial ended with the jury deadlocked on the charge of first-degree murder.

Dunn shot Davis, 17, in the parking lot of a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station after an argument involving the music coming from a vehicle carrying Davis and three other teenagers. (That is why this became known as the “loud music trial.”)

After the argument, Dunn fired 10 times at the vehicle, continuing to fire at it as it pulled away. Dunn returned to his hotel and drove home to Brevard County the next day, and he was arrested several hours later.

Police said during the earlier trial that two other teenagers in the car narrowly avoided being shot. So in February, Dunn was found guilty of shooting into an occupied car as well as three counts of attempted second-degree murder.

But the earlier jury deadlocked on the first-degree murder charge because some jurors felt that Dunn had acted in self-defense, a juror said shortly after the verdict was announced.

State attorney Angela Corey vowed immediately after the verdict to retry Dunn on the first-degree murder charge.

During the second trial, prosecutors argued that Dunn fired with lethal intent. Dunn insisted that he thought his life was in danger. “I deliberately defended myself,” he said, according to Reuters. “There was nothing accidental about it.”