MacDill airman charged with murder tells a judge he feared for his life when he fired his weapon
TAMPA - MacDill airman, Jarred White, says he was in fear for his life when he shot and killed a man during a bar fight over a year ago.
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White, who is facing second-degree murder, is now asking for immunity under Florida stand-your-ground law.
The law protects citizens from prosecution if they feel their life is in imminent danger and use deadly force to protect themselves.
During a hearing, White took the stand and explained his actions. He said on the night of July 8, 2022, he was at MacDinton‘s Irish pub in South Tampa with a female supervisor.
He says a patron was smoking nearby and he was annoyed by it. So he went up to the smoker and slapped the cigarette out of his hand. He admits now that it was a mistake. That action, he says, led to a confrontation between White, the patron, and his friends. The fight turned physical outside, when he says the woman he was with got into a scuffle with one of the men, "I stuck out my arm to make contact with the man. Trying to stop him from whatever he was doing to her. I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want anything to escalate," explained White.
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But things did escalate when White says suddenly, he was grabbed from behind and slammed to the ground by the alleged victim, Justin Burks. He says Burks was on top of him trying to grab for his gun. That’s when he says he got hold of his weapon and fired it, killing Burks.
"I had no choice but to shoot him. He was going to take my gun. He had his hand on it. I had never been so scared in my entire life," explained White.
But Prosecutor Justin Diaz says White was the aggressor that night. He pointed out White started the whole thing by slapping a cigarette out of a patron's hand earlier, "you have zero authority to take this matter into your own hands, yet you choose to go up to where this guy is. put your hands on him because you decided you were going to be judge, jury, and executioner on this issue," challenged Diaz.
Tampa Judge Barbara Twine-Thomas said she would hand down her ruling in the next couple of weeks.