Content warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence. Reader discretion is advised.


'Legal Lynching': 'Stand Your Ground' laws reflect legacy of white supremacist vigilantism in Deep South

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by: Rhonda Sonnenberg

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The spot where Dominic Jerome "D.J." Broadus II died from four shots fired by his male paramour was about as secluded as could be.

Hidden at the end of a sandy, private road cut through the vast, ancient, scrub pine forest that surrounds Macclenny, Florida, it was the perfect place to do something that you didn't want anyone else to see.

There, Gardner Kent Fraser, who is white and from a prominent local family, met Broadus, a Black man, and tried to keep their relationship hidden. Their relationship broke many taboos in this conservative town 28 miles west of Jacksonville.

But the 115 phone calls and over 100 text messages that investigators uncovered between the two men many of them with sexually explicit photos showed that their eight-month relationship had grown increasingly tense and troubled. Fraser who also had a girlfriend at the time feared Broadus would expose their secret, especially after Broadus played a prank in which he threatened just that.

On Feb. 3, 2018, Fraser shot Broadus dead in a hidden spot behind his house. He claimed to investigators that Broadus who was unarmed attacked him and that he shot him in self-defense out of fear for his life. Under the state's Justifiable Use of Force statute, popularly known as "Stand Your Ground" (SYG) law, a killer who claims self-defense may be legally immune from homicide charges and not be required to prove that his lethal actions were truly self-defensive. The state attorney declined to prosecute Fraser.

But Broadus' family members, who have joined forces with state and local activists, say the killing was cold-blooded murder to cover up a socially unacceptable relationship, and that law enforcement has helped hide the truth in order to protect the Fraser family name.

The case highlights racial discrimination in the way SYG laws are implemented.

Broadus' parents have joined forces with Bob Schlehuber, founder of Peacebuilding Connections, an organization that brings diverse people together in pursuit of nonviolent goals and objectives. Schlehuber, along with the Broadus family and a range of community organizations, has launched a Justice4DJBroadus publicity campaign of protests, marches, community meetings and social media. The campaign also plans bus tours to Macclenny from Tallahassee and Jacksonville to raise awareness of the case.

The tours will preview an upcoming civil trial in the wrongful death lawsuit Broadus' father has filed against Fraser and his family's company.

Legacy of Jim Crow

Krista Dolan, senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Criminal Justice Reform Project, said SYG laws are consistent with the country's racist criminal justice system and the legacy of Jim Crow.

"The discriminatory impact of 'Stand Your Ground' laws on Black victims exacerbates a legal system that is already wrought with racial inequity: Nonwhite people are stopped, racially profiled, searched and arrested by police at higher rates than white people and more likely to be sentenced to greater terms than white people," Dolan said.

While there is no current, granular data to show how many Black men and boys have been killed in Florida by white people who have claimed self-defense, the Tampa Bay Times in 2013 published its analysis of 200 cases. It concluded that the law was not applied equally by race and that when the victim was not white, the killer was more likely to escape punishment. It found that "in nearly a third of the cases ... defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim and still went free," and "73% of those who killed a Black person faced no penalty compared to 59% of those who killed a white person."


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