A Teenager's Death and an Attorney's Legacy

-- By AshleyWilson - 26 Apr 2022

The Morning of November 3, 2013

In the freezing early morning hours of November 3, 2013, Renisha McBride, a Black teenager, crashed her car in the City of Detroit. Hours later, bleeding and possibly experiencing head trauma, Renisha walked less than a mile from the crash site into neighboring Dearborn Heights, Michigan. At 4:30AM, the unarmed teenager “pounded” on the door of the home of Theodore Wafer, a white middle-aged man. Without calling the police or even turning on a light, he shot her through the locked screen door of his home with a pre-loaded shotgun, killing her.

Like in many cases where white people have killed Black people claiming self defense, Wafer was [[https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2013/11/08/protesters-civil-rights-groups-seek-justice-after-detroit-area-man-kills-woman-on-his-porch/[not immediately investigated or charged] in Renisha's death. Michigan is a "stand your ground" state, which would have given Wafer no duty to retreat and allowed for the immediate use of deadly force in a confrontation. When Wafer was asked why he felt he needed to use deadly force against an unarmed teenager who was not breeching his home but was on his porch, Wafer argued he was afraid the person on the porch was someone "from Detroit" attempting to break into his home. How could that explanation have been enough to justify the murder to the cops and the community initially? The answer lays partially in the relationship between Dearborn Heights and the City of Detroit, which has been twisted by institutionalized and incentivized racism orchestrated by Dearborn Mayor Orville Hubbard for over 40 years.

35 Years of Terror

First elected in 1942, former Assistant Attorney General of Michigan Orville Hubbard was the mayor of Dearborn, home to Ford Motor Company, for over 35 years. Often called the “Dictator of Dearborn”, Orville won 16 elections with over 70% of the vote. Orville, an outspoken, unapologetic, and unabashed segregationist, considered these margins a mandate to make good on the promise of keeping Dearborn inhospitable to Black people. To do this, he relied heavily on the weaponization of the Dearborn Police Department against Black people, and particularly those from bordering Detroit.

The use of the Dearborn Police as both a symbol of and a violent weapon for white supremacy was well known. Dearborn’s official slogan is “The Hometown of Henry Ford”, a figure shrouded in his own past of antisemitism and racism to be sure. But under Orville’s reign, the slogan plastered on Dearborn Police Department cars and equipment shifted to “Keep Dearborn Clean”. This was understood by all to mean “Keep Dearborn White”, and when questioned about this, Orville did everything but confirm the meaning.

Orville also sanctioned white violence by community members, In 1965, a mob of white supremacist residents descended on a home that they believed had been sold to a Black family. The Dearborn Police were called, but Orville ordered the police not to get involved. As 400 residents destroyed the property, Orville proved his willingness to leave Black people without protection, and at the mercy of both the police and Dearborn residents. This particular discretion did not go unnoticed – he was indicted by the LBJ Administration for civil rights violations. His defense, funded by white supremacy groups, won his acquittal.

Orville’s most shocking act remains his response to the 1967 Detroit Rebellion. Orville used the chaos of that devastating week as a theater of deadly sport. As unrest grew, and in full view of the US Army and Michigan State Police, Orville lined armed Dearborn Police officers along the Detroit-Dearborn border and ordered his police officers to shoot any rioters on sight. Orville said of the (mostly Black) rioters, "When you have mad dogs running loose…you've got to bring them under control by brute force.” This event is far from forgotten in the mind of present-day Detroiters, and few conversations about the Uprising omit Orville’s name.

A Tale of Two Cities?

Modern-day Dearborn and Dearborn Heights are two separate cities, but to see them as unconnected is a misunderstanding of Southeast Michigan history and geography. Until 1962, Dearborn Heights was considered a (disputed) part of the larger Dearborn Township, which had shifting borders for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1962, Dearborn Heights incorporated into its own municipality after an annexation attempt by neighboring Inkster, Michigan. Until its incorporation, Orville was the mayor of the land that is now Dearborn Heights for over 20 years.

But even after its incorporation, Orville’s reign lasted another 16 years, and continued to have its effect on the neighboring Heights. Geographically, Dearborn Heights is shaped like a dumbbell, and most of its length is bordered by Dearborn, save for the northeast and southeast tips of the city that reach out and touch Detroit. The geography and shape of the towns makes it impossible to know where Dearborn Heights ends and Dearborn begins, creating a dangerous situation for Black people who had an interest in buying homes or building community in Dearborn Heights.

A Lasting Stain

Though the towns are now legally separate entities, and Orville is dead, the sister cities still share a common culture. Some Dearborn Heights students attend Dearborn Public Schools, and the local newspaper is dedicated to coverage of both towns. Another shared characteristic is a lack of Black residents.

It is well documented that Detroit has the highest proportion of Black residents of any big city in the United States, with an estimated 77% of residents identifying as Black in 2021. Dearborn Heights, on the other hand, has a white population of 85%, with the proportion of residents who identify as Black below 9%. Of other similarly situated towns on that touch Detroit’s East and Southeast edges, Dearborn Heights and Dearborn (with just 3% of the residents estimated to be Black) have the highest proportion of white residents and the least number of Black residents.

Though neither the defense nor the prosecution mentioned demographics, or raised race in the courtroom proceedings at all, the murder of Renisha McBride cannot be studied or taught in a vacuum. Wafer, the murderer, was not immediately arrested or charged. On the morning Renisha died in 2013, Dearborn Police cars were still emblazoned with “Keep Dearborn Clean”. And less than a mile from Wafer’s home, Orville Hubbard’s statute waived jovially to the visitors of the Dearborn Historical Museum.

This is a very skilful draft. I agree that the material will bear screenplay treatment, and I think this draft shows very well how.

But that strength is an odd sort of weakness when it comes to backing up your conclusion that the depth of social background you provide is how the case should be taught, rather than as an item in the taxonomy of "castle" defenses.

By editing what you have to increase linearity and reducing cinematic quality (you never need three adjectives in a row, I think: your material is strong enough that it doesn't need intensification; only Hollywood always intensifies everything) you can open room. There are larger interpretive propositions to which your material is strong enough to bear witness, when properly consolidated.

Throughout the US in the last 15 years we have seen various forms of "stand your ground," "police the neighborhood," and "defend your castle" controversies with all-too-familiar racial overtones. You are discussing one case that crystallizes all those themes at a critical historical juncture in the process of getting to the bad place we are in now. You can give the reader a powerful, novel way of thinking if you make full use of your context's context, as it were.