Cars, Teens, Loud Music—Looking Back on the Ride That Killed Jordan Davis

For teens, some friendships are entirely anchored by one possession: a car.

A car means a ride to the mall to visit that pretty girl who works at Urban Outfitters. A car means cranking the music up too loud, the way you can’t at home without your parents telling you to turn it down. The car is free of any of those clichéd parental remonstrations to sit up straight or watch your mouth. Windows down, radio loud, every mundane errand is an opportunity to see and be seen for the American teen.

A car is the key to a young person’s first taste of adulthood.

Those are all the things that a car meant to 17-year-old Jordan Davis—riding around town, visiting his girlfriend at the mall, laughing with a couple other friends on a freewheeling ride. The Florida teen got a taste of adulthood on Black Friday in 2012. He was shot and killed before he could savor it.

Davis was gunned down by Michael Dunn, a middle-aged software developer, during a parking lot dispute in a Jacksonville, Florida, suburb and made national headlines as the "loud music" case.

Davis' friend Tommie Stornes was behind the wheel of the SUV where Davis drew his last breath in the backseat after a confrontation over loud music led to gunfire. Now 22, Stornes recalls pulling into a gas station to buy gum.

"I pulled up, and I remember there was no one parked next to me, and I remember talking for a little bit before I went in," Stornes said in a recent interview with TakePart. "The music was on when we got back to the car."

The music became a contentious part of Dunn's murder trial. On the stand during his murder trial, Dunn said he had called the loud music “rap crap” that night, but his fiancée testified that he called it “thug music.” Dunn told the boys to turn it down. The boys defied him.

Stornes remembers coming back to the car, unaware of the tension with Dunn, who had pulled in alongside Stornes' vehicle in the parking lot. Stornes remembers "dancing to the music a little bit" before he saw Dunn pull a gun.

"My first reaction was 'I need to get out of here,' and my second thought was 'Why is this even happening?' " Stornes said.

The first thought wrought action. The second may never find an answer. Dunn had drawn a gun from his glove compartment and opened fire, emptying 10 rounds into the SUV the teens were in.

"I just mashed my gas, and I looked up just enough to see the front of my car," said Stornes. He stopped 150 feet away and called out to his friends to ask if everyone was OK.

"Only person that didn’t respond was Jordan."

Jordan Davis died in that backseat. After nearly two years in court, Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life without parole. The deadly interaction essentially ended two lives in minutes and is detailed in the documentary 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets. (Full disclosure: TakePart’s parent company, Participant Media, partnered with The Filmmaker Fund/Motto Pictures and produced the documentary in association with Lakehouse Films and Actual Films.)

Stornes recalls that befriending Jordan was an easy thing to do.

“[Jordan] welcomed you in. He joked with you. He laughed with you. He was outgoing,” Stornes said.

Stornes still lives in Jacksonville, and he still drives by the convenience store where his buddy was gunned down. They’d only known each other for a few months before that fateful ride.

“I think about it any time I go past the area,” Stornes said, a trip that can happen a couple times a day. “I haven’t put it away. It’s something that I came to deal with.”