Jordan Davis: Killed Over Loud Music at a Jacksonville Gas Station — and the Case That Took Two Trials

Before he was a headline, Jordan Russell Davis was 17 years old, of Marietta, Georgia — a high school student out with three friends on a Friday night.

On the evening of November 23, 2012, around 7:30 p.m., Jordan and his friends pulled into the Gate station at Southside Boulevard and Baymeadows Road in Jacksonville. The driver, Tommie Stornes, went inside. Jordan stayed in the red Dodge Durango with Leland Brunson and Tevin Thompson, music playing loud.

That is where an ordinary stop became a killing.

Ten rounds over the volume

Michael David Dunn, then 45, a software developer, had pulled into the spot beside the Durango with his fiancée. He was in Jacksonville for his son’s wedding. He complained about the volume of the music and asked the teenagers to turn it down. Words were exchanged. Accounts differ on exactly what was said in those moments, and this piece will not pretend otherwise.

What is not in dispute is what Dunn did next. He took a 9 mm pistol from his glove box and fired ten rounds into the Durango. Jordan, sitting in the rear passenger seat, was struck three times and killed. His three friends survived.

Dunn’s account at trial was that he acted in self-defense — he testified that Davis had a shotgun, threatened to kill him, and opened the car door. No gun was ever found in the Durango, and no witness other than Dunn ever said they saw one. The other occupants testified that Davis did not get out of the vehicle. Nine of Dunn’s ten shots struck the car; the last three were fired after Dunn had gotten out of his own car, standing in a shooting stance, as the Durango drove away.

Dunn did not call 911. He drove back to his hotel that night and drove home the next morning. Prosecutors would later argue that his flight was inconsistent with a man who believed he had just defended his own life — and that argument would matter.

The first trial could not finish the job

In February 2014, a jury deliberated for more than 30 hours over four days. It convicted Dunn on three counts of attempted second-degree murder — one for each of Jordan’s surviving friends — and one count of firing into an occupied vehicle. But on the most serious charge, first-degree murder for Jordan’s death, the jury could not agree. The judge declared a mistrial on that count.

That is the part of this story that should sit with you. A man had been convicted of trying to kill three teenagers, and the question of whether he had murdered the fourth was left unanswered.

The State did not leave it there. Prosecutors retried Dunn on the murder charge alone. Jury selection began on September 22, 2014, and opening statements followed on September 25. On October 1, 2014, the second jury found Michael David Dunn guilty of first-degree murder.

The sentence, and what was said in court

On October 17, 2014, Circuit Judge Russell Healey imposed the sentence: life in prison without the possibility of parole for Jordan’s murder, plus three consecutive 30-year terms — 90 years — for the attempted murders, with a concurrent 15-year term for firing into an occupied vehicle. In plain terms, the sentence the case is known by: life without parole, plus 90 years.

At the sentencing hearing, Dunn apologized publicly for killing Jordan — the first time he had done so, according to reports of the hearing. Jordan’s mother, Lucy McBath, addressed the court. “I miss his big, wide, toothy smile,” she said. “For me, there will be no college graduation.”

The appeals ran out

Dunn appealed. On November 17, 2016, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed his convictions, holding that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s findings and that the jury was entitled to weigh the conflicting accounts — including the absence of any corroborating evidence that Davis had threatened Dunn or possessed a weapon. A request for rehearing was denied in January 2017. On June 22, 2020, the Florida Supreme Court declined to review Dunn’s appeal.

The conviction is final. Dunn has a cell for the rest of his life.

What Jordan’s name became

Jordan’s parents, Ron Davis and Lucy McBath, refused to let their son be reduced to a case name. McBath became a national spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, testified about gun violence and self-defense laws, and in 2018 was elected to Congress from Georgia’s Sixth District on a platform that included gun-law reform. The case was also the subject of the documentary 3½ Minutes, 10 Bullets, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015.

None of that gives Jordan back his future. It is simply what his family did with the grief — they made sure his name would mean something beyond the night he died.

Jordan Davis had a name, a family, and a future. He was 17 years old, sitting in a friend’s car at a gas station, listening to music too loud for a stranger’s taste. That stranger decided that was a reason to fire ten rounds into a car full of teenagers.

No legend. No legacy.

— Deadly Duval

This case is closed by conviction. If you have information about another Jacksonville case, contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477).