A 23-year-old Flint man has been convicted of shooting his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend through the front door of her Flint Township home, leaving her paralyzed, after an argument that started in an online video game chat spiraled into gunfire. A Genesee County jury found Mario Devon White Jr. guilty of discharging a firearm in or at a building causing serious impairment of a body function, felony firearm, and domestic violence, while acquitting him of assault with intent to commit murder and an accompanying felony firearm count tied to that more serious charge.
According to CBS News, the confrontation began while the victim was at home and a male friend was playing a video game and talking with her in an online group chat. White heard the victim speaking in the background, joined the chat and began making physical threats toward her, prompting the friend to tell White he would have to go through him first. The dispute did not stay online for long.
From Online Threats to Gunfire at the Door
Prosecutors said White arrived at the victim's home shortly after the chat exchange and got into a fistfight outside with the male friend who had intervened. When the teen opened her front door, she saw White standing outside with a gun. She warned the others inside the house and slammed the door shut, but White opened fire anyway, according to prosecutors.
At least four shots struck the house and two went through the front door itself, per prosecutors. One of those rounds struck the 17-year-old, leaving her paralyzed. She spent several months in the hospital afterward, prosecutors said, a detail that underscores the severity of injuries the jury weighed in reaching its split verdict.
Prosecutor: 'Words, Not Gunfire'
Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, as CBS News reported, commented on the case's origins. He said an argument in an online chat ended with a 17-year-old paralyzed inside her home, and that disagreements should end with words, not gunfire.
The jury's decision to acquit White of assault with intent to commit murder while convicting him on the discharge and bodily-impairment counts suggests jurors accepted that White intentionally fired into the home but were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he specifically intended to kill his ex-girlfriend. White is set to be sentenced on November 9.
What Michigan Law Says White Faces
White faces up to 20 years in prison for the discharge conviction. Separately, the felony firearm conviction carries consequences of its own: under MCL 750.227b, a felony firearm conviction brings a mandatory two-year prison sentence that must be served consecutively to, and before, any sentence for the underlying felony, according to the Safe & Just Michigan organization.
White's domestic violence conviction involved his former girlfriend, though they were no longer dating.
A Pattern Reflected in County-Level Data
The case lands in a county where intimate partner violence shows up more often than the state average. State health survey data compiled by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services shows 21% of adult residents in Genesee County report past household exposure to intimate partner violence, compared with an 18% statewide average.
White remains convicted on three counts stemming from the shooting and is scheduled to learn his sentence next month.
