A Detroit teen's late-night shooting death on a Dearborn Height porch last weekend is the focus of a MSNBC commentary aimed at tugging emotions.
Renisha McBride was "a young woman who could have been my daughter," says British-born broadcaster Martin Bashir of MSNBC, adapting President Obama's comment last July about Trayvon Martin's fatal encounter with a stranger in Florida.
"Renisha McBride is not a stranger," Martin Bashir says in an essay televised nationally Friday. (MSNBC photo).
McBride, 19, was shot in the face by a homeowner's .12-gauge shotgun after she awakened him around 3:40 a.m. Oct. 2, apparently seeking help after a car accident about two hours and 10 minutes hours earlier -- a time gap that's among details under investigation, according to the Free Press. The paper added Friday:
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement . . . saying that it is awaiting further investigation by Dearborn Heights police before deciding whether any criminal charges will be authorized.
Bashir, noting that he has two daughters, commented on the case Friday afternoon during his one-hour program, which airs weekdays:
In the darkness of the night, and with a stranger at the door, its not difficult to imagine how one might feel anxious – but it’s also not difficult to understand why so many people are wondering if Renisha McBride had been subjected to a dehumanizing form of racial profiling that denied her humanity in preference to assuming criminality.
It’s why many have concluded that walking while black or shopping while black or just being a stranger and being black is enough to bring your life to an end.
And so, in a nation that won’t do anything to stem the use of lethal weapons, we are left only with our hands on the trigger of our consciences, and we have to find a way of saying that Renisha McBride is not a stranger. She’s my daughter, she’s your sister – and who would kill one of their own?
Earlier coverage: Will Dearborn Heights Killing Become America's Next Trayvon Martin Case?, Nov. 8
