LARGO — A jury found Michael Drejka guilty of manslaughter late Friday in the 2018 shooting death of Markeis McGlockton in a convenience store parking lot.

The conviction came after 6½ hours of deliberations by the jury of five men and one woman.

It was read aloud at 10:41 p.m. Drejka stared straight ahead, standing beside his lawyers. He could face up to 30 years in prison.

In the front row of the gallery, McGlockton’s girlfriend, Britany Jacobs threw up her hands and clapped. A woman broke into sobs. McGlockton’s father pressed his elbows into his knees as supporters squeezed his shoulder. His mother embraced family.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Joseph Bulone will sentence Drejka at a future hearing. The defendant had been free on bail. But after the verdict, the judge ordered that Drejka be taken into custody and held in the county jail until he learns his fate.

In the hallway, McGlockton’s family hugged prosecutors.

“We’ve had to listen to that defense team talk down your son quite a bit now. No more,” Pinellas-Pasco Assistant State Attorney Fred Schaub said. “Now we’re going to have a sentencing. Y’all have a right to talk. Speak for your son.”

Assistant State Attorney Scott Rosenwasser, left, hugs Michael McGlockton, right, soon after a jury handed down a guilty verdict in the 2018 shooting death of his son, Markeis McGlockton. The jury found defendant Michael Drejka guilty of manslaughter at 10:41 p.m. Friday night. On the far left is Pinellas-Pasco Assistant State Attorney Fred Schaub. [SCOTT KEELER | Times] [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

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The verdict concludes a week-long trial that wound through the argument, the shove and the shot on July 19, 2018, at the Circle A Food Store near Clearwater. Jurors heard from witnesses ranging from experts in toxicology and use-of-force to a man whom Drejka confronted five months earlier in the same parking lot. They also heard from McGlockton’s girlfriend, whom Drejka first approached the day of the shooting.

“I was scared,” Jacobs, 26, told jurors. “I didn’t know who this strange, suspicious man was.”

Drejka didn’t testify, but jurors heard his voice in an hour-long video of his interview with detectives hours after the shooting. Drejka said that, after the shove, he was in fear of further attack. His four-attorney team argued as much throughout the trial.

“He did what he thought he had to do, in the moment, in the split-second time, given that he was attacked,” Drejka attorney John Trevena said during his closing argument.

“You may not agree with the law. But you took an oath as a juror to uphold the law.”

The state emphasized that McGlockton moved back once Drejka pulled his gun, rendering the fear of further danger unreasonable.

“He took the life of another human being without any legal justification,” Schaub said during the state’s opening statement.

Monica Moore-Robinson, center, mother of the late Markeis McGlockton, listens as the man who shot and killed her son in 2018 was found guilty of manslaughter Friday night. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

During closing arguments, the prosecutor was animated, using the whole courtroom, walking from the witness stand to the jury box, pointing, throwing his hands up. He knocked his fists on the courtroom’s wood panels to emphasize certain points.

“This isn’t Markeis McGlockton,” he says, holding up a photo from the autopsy. “It’s a body on an autopsy table.”

“He was a human being in our world. And is the taking of his life worth that? … Think about it: What have we come to in this country?”

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The shooting has been fraught with controversy from the beginning, touching on polarizing issues including gun rights, self-defense and race.

Drejka is white. McGlockton was unarmed and black. The case drew comparisons to that of George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who won acquittal in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. That case spurred the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But unlike in the Zimmerman case, video was a key component in Drejka’s trial. Surveillance images from the Circle A Food Store at 1201 Sunset Point Road captured the entire shooting, giving jurors a unique opportunity to put themselves at the scene.

RELATED STORY: Why video makes this Florida stand your ground debate different

Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri’s decision not to immediately arrest Drejka put the case on a national stage and sparked renewed debate about Florida’s stand your ground law. Gualtieri said his agency was precluded from arresting Drejka because of it.

“I don’t get to, and we don’t get to, substitute our judgment for Drejka’s judgment,” Gualtieri said last year.

The incident started when McGlockton and his family stopped at the convenience store about 3:30 p.m. Jacobs parked in a handicap-reserved spot outside the convenience store and waited in the car with two of the couple’s children — who were 4 months and 3 at the time. McGlockton, 28, went into the store with their third child, Markeis Jr., who was 5.

Drejka pulled into the parking lot and approached Jacobs. He asked Jacobs why she had parked in the spot if she didn’t have a handicap-designated plate or placard. The two started arguing. It escalated to the point that others in the parking lot started paying attention.

One of the witnesses entered the store and told the clerk what was going on. McGlockton stepped back outside, walked up to Drejka and shoved him to the ground.

Drejka pulled out a .40-caliber Glock handgun and shot McGlockton once in the chest. McGlockton was taken to Morton Plant Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after.

A surveillance video recorded the shooting of Markeis McGlockton, left, by Michael Drejka, right, in 2019. Drejka was found guilty of manslaughter on Friday night. [ [Screengrab from video provided by Pinellas County Sheriff's Office] ]

After the sheriff’s announcement, protests broke out calling for an arrest. Two prominent civil rights attorneys signed on to represent McGlockton’s family members. Democratic candidates for governor came through Clearwater like a revolving door, calling for a change to the stand your ground law. The Rev. Al Sharpton stopped in town, too, demanding the sheriff give up his badge.

About three weeks after the shooting, the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office charged Drejka with manslaughter.

"Drejka steadies the firearm with both hands," a detective wrote in his arrest warrant. "McGlockton immediately backs up when confronted with the firearm.”

From there, the case moved through the courts quickly for the chronically bogged-down criminal justice system. Drejka appeared for several pretrial hearings to determine which evidence would be allowed at trial. McGlockton’s parents, Michael McGlockton and Monica Moore-Robinson, attended nearly every one, sitting steps away from their son’s shooter.

One of the key moments came in April when prosecutors Schaub and Scott Rosenwasser successfully argued to allow the jury to hear about a prior gun threat by Drejka.

The target of the threat, Richard Kelly, said in court this week that he had parked his tanker truck in the same parking space at the same convenience store. Kelly walked out of the store to find Drejka walking around his truck and taking photos. They started to argue.

Then, Drejka “said, ‘I should shoot you, kill you,’ ” Kelly told jurors.

Drejka later called Kelly’s boss, John Tyler, who also testified in court. Tyler told jurors that Drejka said that if he had a gun, he could have shot Kelly.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ ” Tyler told the jury. “ ‘I have a gun, and in my training, I was taught to remove myself from ” heated situations.

Defendant Michael Drejka left, walks into the courtroom on Friday after the jury submitted a question to the judge in his manslaughter trial. On the far right is Michael McGlockton, father of the late Markeis McGlockton who Drejka shot and killed in July 2018. Drejka was later found guilty of manslaughter. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

As the case advanced over the past year, sideshows unspooled outside the courtroom. Drejka’s first lawyer, Lysa Clifton, recently gave up her law license during an investigation into the way she approached Drejka to represent him. She was on the case for about two months before withdrawing, citing “irreconcilable differences.”

A few months later, Drejka attorney John Trevena made headlines when he filed court documents spelling out salacious allegations against a couple who, Trevena wrote, stole money from his law firm and got his wife addicted to drugs.

He later dropped the accusations, but his personal life continued to make headlines when he was arrested on a charge of domestic battery against his now-ex-wife. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the charge.

The leads sheriff’s detective on the case was also arrested. Deputies said he arrived drunk to a crime scene. He faces a driving under the influence charge that’s still working its way through the court system.

None of that information made it into the courtroom, deemed irrelevant or prejudicial by the judge.

After five hours of deliberations Friday, the jurors sent a note to the judge at about 9:30 p.m. asking for clarity on what defines reasonable doubt in the justified use of deadly force.

But the judge and attorneys agreed that they had given the jury all the direction they could in the week-long trial. They brought the six jurors back into the courtroom to explain that.

“I don’t think I’m really going to be able to expound on what the instructions are legally,” Bulone said. “They are what they are.”

Then he sent them back into the jury room at 10:05 p.m. They quickly arrived at a verdict after that.

When each side delivered their closing arguments, Drejka’s defense played up his perceived fear in the moments before he pulled the trigger.

The state reminded the jury of what was lost.

“You know what Markeis McGlockton is guilty of?” Rosenwasser asked. “He’s guilty of loving and trying to protect his family, and he died because of it.”

Pinellas-Pasco Assistant State Attorney Fred Schaub points at defendant Michael Drejka while delivering the state's closing argument on Friday. After more than six hours of deliberations, the jury found Drejka guilty of manslaughter. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

Defense attorney John Trevena addresses the jury while giving his closing argument on Friday in the manslaughter trial of his client, Michael Drejka. The jury later convicted Drejka of the 2018 fatal shooting of Markeis McGlockton. A video of the shooting at the Circle A Food Mart in Clearwater can be seen in the background. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]







