On November 23, 2012, Jordan Davis, a black American 17-year-old boy, was murdered at a Gate Petroleum gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, United States, by Michael David Dunn, a white 45-year-old software developer, following an argument over loud music played by Davis and his three friends, in what was believed to be a racially motivated shooting.
In a second trial, Dunn was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Davis and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole plus 105 years in prison.
[6] Tommie Stornes, Leland Brunson, Jordan Davis, and Tevin Thompson had been spending the day traveling to various malls when they decided to go to the Gate Petroleum gas station at the corner of Southside Blvd and Baymeadows Road, to buy gum and cigarettes.
Around 7:30 p.m., four teenage boys (Leland Brunson, Jordan Davis, Tommie Stornes, and Tevin Thompson) stopped at a Gate Petroleum gas station.
Dunn, driving a black Volkswagen Jetta sedan, and his fiancée Rhonda Rouer pulled into the right adjacent parking spot.
[13][14] As Stornes returned to the SUV, Davis's protests continued, and an independent witness overheard Dunn say, "No, you're not gonna talk to me that way."
Dunn, who had a concealed weapons permit,[8] took a handgun out of his glove compartment and started firing at Davis's door, hitting him in the legs, lungs, and aorta.
As the SUV backed up to evade his gunshots, Dunn opened his door and continued firing at the car in the shooter's stance as the boys ducked for cover.
[15] After the shooting, Stornes drove the SUV away to a nearby parking lot and stopped to find Davis "gasping for air".
[16] At 10:30 a.m. the following day, Dunn returned to his home in Satellite Beach, where he was arrested after an eyewitness reported his license plate number to police.
[19][20] Forensic scientists determined that, in the short distance that the boys traveled, a weapon could not have been stashed in a place that would not have been visible immediately to crime scene investigators.
"[29] Davis's mother, Lucy McBath, ran for Congress in Georgia's 6th congressional district in 2018, running on a platform that included reform of gun laws.
Davis's murder is one of many referenced by social justice activists (including many black parents) as a reminder that unarmed children who die at the hands of police or white men matter as human beings.
[50] ABC News, Australia says the case has become part of the national conversation about the dangers facing young black men in America today.
[52][53] During the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Davis's mother, Lucy McBath, talked about supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and said, "His death doesn't overshadow his life.
The film follows Rob Schenck, a pro-life Evangelical minister; Lucy McBath, the mother of teenager Jordan Davis; and attorney John Michael Phillips as they interact in the years after the shooting.