White Fla. Man Claimed Self-Defense in Killing Black Partner, Gets 1 Year for Tampering with Evidence

Three years ago on February 3, a white Florida man shot and killed a Black man revealed to be his sexual partner, but was not charged for the crime and instead received a one-year sentence for evidence tampering in the case,reports Pink News. Gardner Kent Fraser "admitted to shooting and killing Dominic Jerome 'DJ' Broadus Jr on 3 February, 2018 outside his home in Baker County, Florida. But because he claimed that he shot Broadus in self-defense, he did not face any charges related to the killing."

This week Fraser, the son of a former deputy, "received a one-year jail sentence for his no-contest plea to tampering with evidence in the 2018 shooting death," reports The Florida Times-Union.

Fraser "deleted text messages from his own phone, possibly to hide the nature of his relationship with Brodus Jr. But the FDLE still recovered 115 phone calls and 35 text messages between the men from Fraser's phone, and a lot of them were sexual in nature, reports LGBTQ Nation.

"Fraser, 32, said he was being attacked and it was self-defense, according to his attorney. Although a suspect early in the case, Fraser wasn't charged until 15 months later."

But investigators believed Fraser "shot his Black lover to death, but he was sentenced to one year of jail time in connection to the shooting and didn't even face any charges stemming from the killing," adds LGBTQ Nation.

"In order for the defendant to hide his feminine, bisexual nature, he executed my son and my grandson's father," said Dominic Broadus Sr., the father of the victim in court earlier this week, adding "he fatally shot my son in the back of the head twice and tried to destroy any evidence of their relationship by deleting all text from his phone and destroying/hiding my son's phone, then calling three people before reporting the shooting to the proper authorities."

And, LGBTQ Nation adds that "Broadus's family believes that this is an instance where white supremacy and family connections undermined justice. Fraser's family has deep ties to the Ku Klux Klan."

Details were redacted from an initial report on the crime by Baker County, but "family members and supporters have said Fraser shot Broadus, then threw away his cellphone before calling 911 on his own phone," writes the Florida Times-Union.

Broadus was shot four times in the face and the neck. Police said there was no sign of a struggle, and it appears that a rectangular-shaped object was removed from the victim's hand "consistent with a phone or some other object being in his hand at some point of time," said Assistant State Attorney Mark Caliel at the hearing.

"Intensive searching never turned up the cellphone, although records of text messages recovered by the FDLE showed the two men had a relationship dating back to July 2017. Then a 2018 search of Fraser's cellphone by investigators found that the two men appeared to have had an "intimate" relationship, but any evidence of it was deleted off it before he gave it to police, Caliel said.

A statement at the hearing by Broadus's 13-year son was read by the boy's grandfather when he was overcome with emotion.

"Why had this man murdered my dad?" Caiden's statement said. "I still haven't found any answers, but I hope I will be able to find one soon. This man ruined a lot of things for me. ... It is unfair and unreasonable that he is only being charged with tampering with evidence."

BET reports that on a Jan. 26 interview on The Clay Cane Show on SiriusXM Urban View, Dominic Broadus Sr. reacted to the one-year sentence by saying, "They're trying to feed us crumbs. We're all disappointed because we know what the real charge should be, if not manslaugher then murder in the first degree."

"Not happy with everything they've done," Broadus Sr. said in a statement. "Not happy with the laws of the state of Florida. Like I said, the evidence is there... clearly shows this was murder, and probably even call it premeditated."

"The intent was to silence him, first physically and then, by any means necessary," said Del Swain, the victim's mother. "And destroy the evidence that would let the world know exactly what it transpired. The attempt to cover the secret that DJ and his cell phone held did not work."