Retrial to proceed for Florida man who shot teens over loud music

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO Fla. (Reuters) – Despite prior widespread media coverage, a retrial can go ahead later this month for a white, middle-aged man charged with killing an unarmed black teenager during a dispute about loud rap music, a north Florida judge ruled on Thursday. The defense wanted a change of venue after a Jacksonville jury previously deadlocked on a charge of first-degree murder for Michael Dunn, 47, who claimed to be acting in self-defense in the shooting death. Dunn, a software engineer, fired 10 rounds at an SUV carrying four teens listening to music in a Jacksonville gas station parking lot in November 2012, killing 17-year-old Jordan Davis. The jury convicted Dunn in February on three lesser counts of attempted murder for firing at the three other black teens in the vehicle, which was parked next to Dunn’s. The trial received international attention over its racial overtones and Dunn’s claims of self-defense, drawing comparisons to the trial of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of murder in Florida last year in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, another unarmed, black 17-year-old.