Florida teen dead after row that began with loud-music complaint, suspect jailed

A Florida man was denied bond Monday on a murder charge stemming from a weekend shooting that started with a complaint about loud music and ended with a teenager dead.

A statement by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office described a Friday-night confrontation in a gas station parking lot that escalated into at least eight shots being fired at a car carrying a group of teenagers.

Seventeen-year-old Jordan Davis, among the teens, was fatally wounded. Forty-five-year-old Michael Dunn of Brevard County, Florida, was arrested Saturday and charged in the fatal shooting.

According to the statement from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Dunn told authorities that he had asked the teens to turn down loud music from their vehicle adjacent to his, as he waited while his girlfriend, who was returning with him from a wedding, went inside the gas station to make a purchase.

Dunn told police he felt threatened by the response from the teens, the statement said.

Dunn’s attorney, Robin Lemonidis, told CNN Monday that Dunn told police that he reacted after having seen a gun barrel in the window of the teens’ car and after hearing a profanity-laced string of threats against him and his girlfriend while the teens motioned they were opening the door.

Lemonidis said that was when Dunn reached for his gun and opened fire on the vehicle. She added that, “When all the evidence has been flushed out, I believe that it will be extremely clear that Mr. Dunn acted as any responsible firearm owner would have under the same circumstances.”

Eight or nine shots were fired at the teens’ car, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office statement added.

There were no guns found inside the teens’ car, the statement said.

Lemonidis said her client and his girlfriend left the scene after the shooting, fearing that they had encountered gang members and that more would follow.

The couple went to a local hotel for the night, and saw the news the next morning that Davis had died. They returned to Dunn’s home in Brevard County, where local police arrested him Saturday on an out-of-county warrant.

Dunn was arraigned Monday afternoon, and Lemonidis said she entered a not-guilty plea on her client’s behalf.

Ron Davis, the victim’s father, told CNN affiliate WAWS that he wants to see justice, “Whether it be through the legal system or to God. God’s going to punish him for that, so me, I don’t want to do anything to him.”