The reason I say that is because, oddly enough, the Jacksonville Florida chapter of the NAACP has now thrown its full weight behind a woman who will be sentenced this coming Monday in a shooting for which she has claimed self-defense against an abusive husband under the state’s Stand Your Ground law. The woman, Marissa Danielle Alexander, 31, was charged with three counts of aggravated assault back in August 2010 after she fired a single shot into the ceiling of her home during a dispute that somehow turned physical. A judge denied her immunity in a Stand Your Ground hearing. And with a jury finding her guilty, she now faces a mandatory term of 20 years in prison. “This is a clear case of domestic violence against Marissa,” NAACP branch President Isaiah Rumlin said on Friday. “After looking into it and studying the case, this is a clear case of Stand Your Ground as it relates to what she had to do on the date that she did it."
Now while the facts of this case may differ considerably from the case down in Sanford, Florida, it does reveal a certain level of hypocrisy here in that the NACCP is rather selective when it comes to its position on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Apparently their position depends entire on the race of the individual, or individuals, involved. Anyway, back to the basics of this case. Apparently Alexander’s husband, Rico Gray, 36, was arrested in 2006 and again in 2009 on misdemeanor charges of domestic battery. Charges were later dropped in one case and he was given probation in the other. Ms. Alexander had an injunction for protection against domestic violence filed against Gray following his 2009 arrest. But authorities, based on the accounts provided by her husband and two stepsons, have said it was Alexander who began the violence by “hitting on” Gray. In her arrest report, all three said that she pointed the gun in their direction before firing the shot.
Less than five months later, Alexander was arrested, again, on a domestic battery charge involving her husband. Alexander has continued to maintain that it was Gray who was the aggressor, becoming enraged when she told him she was leaving him. Writing on a blog posted by her first husband on a website set up in support of her, “He assaulted me, shoving, straggling and holding me against my will, preventing me from fleeing all while I begged him to leave.” In the post, Alexander wrote the attack began while she was using the restroom at their house. She said she had made it to the garage but could not leave when she realized she did not have her keys and the garage door was not working. She said she then grabbed her gun, for which she said she has a concealed weapons permit, with her fear heightened by her husband’s history of abusing women, including her. She said she went back inside and again met her husband in the kitchen where he then threatened her life.
“I was terrified from the first encounter and feared he came to do as he threatened,” she wrote. That’s when she said Gray “charged” at her. “In fear and a desperate attempt, I lifted my weapon up, turned away and discharged a single shot in the wall up the ceiling.” Alexander wrote that the law states that she had no duty to retreat. But a jury disagreed, and found her guilty as charged on March 16. Attorneys for both sides declined to comment on any of the specifics of the case before sentencing that is still yet to come. State Attorney Angela Corey, however, said the jury heard the whole story and the public will, too, at the sentencing. Then, she said, she will be willing to shed more light on a matter she said she has been “very involved with from the beginning.” Lincoln Alexander has also been involved from the beginning. He is Alexander’s first husband of eight years. Oddly enough it was 2010 when the two were divorced.
Alexander who has said he has continued to maintain a friendship with his ex-wife also claims to have witnessed the signs of alleged abuse. He described Alexander’s accounts of the multiple beatings she took from Gray, including one that left her with a black eye when she was eight months pregnant. According to Alexander, his ex-wife was also hospitalized by police at the hands of her husband the night of her domestic battery arrest. Alexander said he never had any domestic issues in his marriage with her. Marissa Alexander filed for divorce from her husband Tuesday, according to court records. The NAACP has now sent a letter to Circuit Judge James Daniel, asking him to hold off the sentencing and order a new trial. So again, it would appear that the NAACP has a tendency to be rather selective in how it chooses its position regarding these Stand Your Ground laws. It seems to think that it can it have both ways. But, like it or not, that’s not quite how the game is played.
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