Jury Seated; Opening Arguments Wednesday For Drejka Trial

CLEARWATER, FL — A jury of five men and one woman was seated Tuesday for the high-profile trial of 49-year-old Michael Drejka, accused of manslaughter in the shooting death of Markeis McGlockton, 28, outside a Clearwater convenience store July 19, 2018.

Opening arguments will begin today.

Last year, Drejka, who is white, got into a shouting match with Drejka's girlfriend who parking in a handicapped space while McGlockton, who is black, went into the convenience store with the couple's young son.

When McGlockton learned about the disturbance, he came out of the convenience store and pushed Drejka to the ground. Drejka, who had a valid concealed weapon permit, pulled out a gun and shot McGlockton in the chest.

The shooting sparked a series of Black Lives Matter rallies and a visit from national civil rights leader Al Sharpton after Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri declined to arrest Drejka when he claimed the shooting was in self-defense. The Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney's Office subsequently charged Drejka with manslaughter.

Jury selection began Monday with a pool of 90 prospective jurors who were questioned about their exposure to pretrial publicity. Ultimately, six jurors and four alternates were chosen. None of the jurors are black.

That fact resulted in an outcry from the black community. The attorney for McGlockton's family, Michele Raynor-Goolsby, issued the following statement:

“During the pendency of this case, the defense repeatedly tapped into racist tropes and narratives about Black men and Black families to paint their client, Michael Drejka, the one who committed the most violent of crimes, as the victim in this case. And that is not only unjust, but immoral. I am confident in the prosecutors' ability to accurately communicate the true facts of this case to the jury. They have already demonstrated this by appropriately charging the defendant with manslaughter. I believe the jury has an opportunity here to not repeat the mistakes others have made in cases where officers and vigilantes walked free after killing unarmed Black people. They can choose to see that the only victim, in this case, is the man who lost his life and that the one who deserves to be criminalized and punished is the man who felt emboldened enough to take the law into his own hands to commit murder."

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