Residents call for charges to be brought in death of Renisha McBride, 19, who was unarmed when she was shot

Prosecutors in Michigan are coming under mounting pressure to issue charges against a homeowner who shot and killed an unarmed black woman on his porch, as she was seeking help after a car accident.

Renisha McBride, 19, was found dead in the early hours of Saturday morning, from a gunshot wound to the head. Her body lay on the porch of the house in Outer Drive, Dearborn Heights.

Anger is building in the largely African American area of Detroit in which the victim lived, with the family already having compared her death to that of Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed in Florida in February 2012 by a neighbourhood watch co-ordinator, George Zimmerman, who was later acquitted on manslaughter charges. Like Florida, Michigan has a stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force if they feel their life is in imminent danger or that they are faced with physical harm or sexual assault.

It is understood that the homeowner, who has been interviewed by detectives, is claiming self-defence, though it is not known whether he has invoked the stand-your-ground provision.

Relatives of the victim have told local media that Renisha was shot in the back of the head as she turned to leave the porch. Authorities have confirmed that she was shot in the head, though the suggestion that she was hit from behind is unconfirmed.

“I’m feeling this was racist,” said McBride’s aunt Bernita Spinks, who is acting as a spokesperson for the family. She told the local Fox TV station, WJBK: “You see this black African young lady, knocking for help. He didn’t even see what kind of help she was seeking.”

Spinks told the Detroit News: “There was no window broken. My niece didn’t bother anyone. She went looking for help and now she’s dead.”

Dmetria Burnett, McBride’s cousin, said: “You wanted her dead, that’s my opinion. You wanted her dead for you to just shoot somebody in the head and not think twice about it.”

According to relatives, McBride had been involved in a crash in her white Ford Taurus, about four blocks away from the house. Disoriented by the accident, she had been walking through the mainly white neighbourhood, knocking on doors and seeking help.

Prosecutors have said they are not at this stage pressing charges against the homeowner, who police have so far declined to identify but is believed to be in his fifties. In a statement, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office said it had returned a police request for a warrant of arrest against the man, asking for further investigation before any decision over potential charges is made.

The family are pointing to the fact that the homeowner did not call 911 as evidence of racial profiling against the teenager. To add to their sense of outrage, police initially indicated to family members that the victim’s body had been dumped on the porch, having been moved from a separate shooting location – a story that was later changed after it was revealed that McBride had been killed at the spot where her body lay.

Racial tension has been a running sore in Detroit and its suburbs for decades, the city having experienced massive “white flight” in the 1950s and 1960s. Detroit proper, where McBride lived with her mother in the north-west of the city, is 83% black, whereas the suburb of Dearborn Heights is 86% white.

McBride recently started working on the inspection line at a Ford car plant in nearby Dearborn. She was educated at Southfield high school.

“She was sweet. She didn’t get into trouble,” Spinks told the Detroit Free Press.