Momentum is gathering in Florida to roll back laws after the death of Markeis McGlockton during a parking lot dispute

For many in Florida, the story feels familiar; an unarmed black male gunned down by an overzealous white vigilante. The claim of self-defense and the lack of an arrest. A grieving family left pleading for justice.

But unlike in the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, which introduced much of the US to so-called “stand your ground” (SYG) laws, the fatal July shooting of 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton is slowly gathering political momentum that could roll backself-defense statutes some say are little more than a racially discriminatory license to kill.

“That is the prayer and that’s what we’re fighting for,” said veteran civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing McGlockton’s family. “If this law isn’t repealed there are going to be more people killed senselessly because people believe they have a right to shoot first and ask questions later.”

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McGlockton was shot by 47-year-old Michael Drejka in a Clearwater, Florida convenience store parking lot on 19 July after Drejka confronted McGlockton’s girlfriend, Britany Jacobs, over being parked in a handicapped space without a permit.

McGlockton was still in the store with his five-year-old son when Drejka approached the car where Jacobs was sitting, but ran out when he heard yelling. Video surveillance footage showed McGlockton approached Drejka, who was a few feet away from Jacobs, and shoved him to the ground. From the ground, Drejka was seen drawing a legally carried concealed weapon and firing once at McGlockton, who had begun backing away after pushing Drejka down.

McGlockton retreated back inside the convenience store, where his son was still waiting, and ultimately died from his wounds.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, parents of Trayvon Martin, at a protest in New York City on 21 March 2012. Photograph: Andrew Burton/Reuters

In the aftermath Bob Gualtieri, the Pineallas county sheriff, refused to arrest Drejka, citing the state’s permissive SYG self-defense laws. Gualtieri characterized the shooting as “within the bookends of ‘stand your ground’ and within the bookends of force being justified”. He added: “I’m not saying I agree with it, but I don’t make that call.”

For centuries, what is known as the “castle doctrine” has codified the right to protect one’s own home from intruders with deadly force without any duty to attempt retreat. SYG, first passed in Florida in 2005 and since adopted by more than 30 states, essentially extends that same self-defense standard into the public sphere. It holds that there is no duty to retreat in a public space either, and that a person may use deadly force to defend against a threat, or perceived threat, against one’s own life.

The law and Gualtieri’s interpretation of it have been increasingly under fire since he announced his decision. At a rally on Sunday, all five Democratic candidates for the state’s open November governorship race said that, if elected, they would repeal SYG legislation. The candidates shared the stage with the parents of both McGlockton and Martin at the St John Primitive Baptist Church.

“This is legalized murder,” said current Democratic frontrunner Jeff Greene on MSNBC last week. “This doesn’t need to be changed. This law needs to repeal,” Greene added, vowing repeal as a day one priority if elected.

Ron DeSantis, the Republican frontrunner in the race, did not endorse a rollback, but also broke with Gualtieri, saying he had analyzed the law improperly. “It doesn’t seem to me that the law is even applicable in the case of Markeis McGlockton,” DeSantis said in a statement Monday. He joins a number of conservative lawmakers and pundits to openly question the sheriff’s interpretation of the law, including Dennis Baxley, a Republican state senator who sponsored SYG legislation in 2005 when he was in the Florida House. He told Politico that Gualtieri is flatly wrong for suggesting that under the law, the perceived level of threat is “subjective”.

“‘Stand your ground’ uses a reasonable-person standard. It’s not that you were just afraid,” Baxley said. “It’s an objective standard.”

Critics argue that, even with a proper interpretation, SYG is flawed and dangerous. Unlike in a home invasion – where the initiating party is quite clear – the statutes give individuals the latitude to initiate a confrontation, and then respond with deadly force once it escalates. That’s what happened in the case of George Zimmerman, who followed the 16-year-old Martin back in 2012, defying the directions of the 911 dispatcher with whom he was on the phone.

Zimmerman and Martin eventually wound up in a physical altercation during which the self-appointed neighborhood watchman drew his gun and fatally wounded the teen. Zimmerman was questioned by police for five hours and then released until ultimately being charged with second degree murder months later by a state prosecutor.

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Zimmerman did not ultimately rely on SYG in his criminal defense, but the language of the law was used both to defend the police department’s decision not to arrest him, and was recited to the jury which ultimately found him not guilty in 2013.

Similarly in Clearwater, Drejka “was the one who was responsible for creating the incident in which he used self defense”, said Allison Anderman, a managing attorney with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Critics also point to research like a 2013 analysis from the Urban Institute which found that SYG laws seem to exacerbate racial bias in the criminal justice system. Over the period examined, shootings with a white gunman and a black victim were found justified about ten times more often than the inverse, and SYG states saw that proportion climb. The UN civil rights commission found similarly the following year.

“Had McGlockton been the one to pull out a gun, there is no way stand your ground would have been extended to him, a man of color. He would have been charged with murdering a white man,” wrote Crump in an op-ed published in USA Today. Crump also represented the Martin family in 2012.

“The disturbing reality is that stand your ground perpetuates the cycle of African American men taking bullets from self-appointed vigilantes,” Crump wrote.