Trayvon Martin's murderer George Zimmerman is still a free man

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yolland said:
I truly don't get why so many people are up at arms about the specifics of how Zimmerman self-identifies racially, or how the police or whoever else identify him.
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I think it has more to do with people being sick of the media going to lengths to sensationalize stories by massaging the facts.
 
Jive Turkey said:
I think it has more to do with people being sick of the media going to lengths to sensationalize stories by massaging the facts.
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This times a thousand.

When was the last time you heard somebody called a white Hispanic? Do they call Obama a white African American? He's just as white as Zimmerman...

Of course not... because that's stupid.

The media is only saying it ti further sensationalise the case. Its the same reason why they keep referring to the middle income apartment complex as a pristine gated community. It sounds more affluent.

The media just sickens me.
 
That's exactly what the realtors for the complex call it, a "gated community"; you can Google it. In Florida it's common to use that term to describe similarly middle-income communities.

Not everyone considers Hispanic a racial category. It's a more ambiguous term than "black" or "white." US understandings of "race" don't always map well onto the way Central and South Americans identify themselves.

I don't see either of these media labels as "sensational" but, whatev, it's a sideshow ultimately.
 
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Headache in a Suitcase said:
i think it has to do with an unstable individual, who may or may not be racist, who a) shouldn't have a gun, and b) shouldn't be on any sort of neighborhood watch.
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Agreed. But it's not 100% about the guns. Even though I'm firmly opposed, it still stands that any sane person who'd have a gun(Irony?) wouldn't have chased this guy and shot him. I reckon if Zimmerman didn't have a gun, he'd probably have carried a knife. So either way, it's a lunatic with a weapon that should've not been given any sort of authority.

bono_212 said:
What court of law? He hasn't been arrested for anything. That's the whole point.
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True. Good point. I was just thinking ahead I guess. Or is he still not arrested, even after the international outrage over it? :huh:
 
don't know if anyone has looked at Drudge, but it's almost as if he's instigating racial conflict by blaming the victim.

it's disgusting.
 
You mean the "Kill Zimmerman Twitter/FB" stuff?

I blame Obama. If he'd only said "No comment" when asked about the case, then NO ONE would see this shooting and the lack of an arrest as having ANY racial component whatsoever.

Probably half those accounts are pure trolling with nothing else behind them.
 
Irvine511 said:
don't know if anyone has looked at Drudge, but it's almost as if he's instigating racial conflict by blaming the victim.

it's disgusting.
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not sure why i said "almost as if."

this is what Drudge is doing. but not, of course, because Obama's president or anything.

these are his leading headlines:

George Zimmerman's father speaks for first time...
Says Trayvon threatened to kill his son...
'You're going to die tonight'...
ABCNEWS: Police video shows no blood...
Large gash on back of head?
POLICE REPORT: Bleeding from nose, head...
Network names 13-year-old witness...
'Plzz shoot da #mf dat lied 2 u!'
@KILLZIMMERMAN TWITTER feed...
Now Roseanne Barr tweets home address of parents!
Spike 'Settles' After Screw Up...



PARENTS OF MURDERED WHITE STUDENTS SLAM OBAMA FOR SILENCE
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PARENTS OF MURDERED WHITE STUDENTS SLAM OBAMA FOR SILENCE
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Well, now they know how the families of non-white people feel when their relative goes missing and Nancy Grace doesn't start foaming at the mouth over them.
 
That account of what Trayvon supposedly said to Zimmerman sounds like a bad movie.

"Homie?" "You got me?" Seriously. Someone needs to bone up on their street slang.

It's interesting to think about what the responses might have been had the races been reversed. If it was a 17 year old white kid and overzealous black neighborhood watch guy (think Philip for those Survivor fans out there). Or if both had been black, or both white.

I can't help feeling that the whole incident either wouldn't have happened at all in the above scenarios or wouldn't have received the same media and public scrutiny. This particular pairing definitely struck a national nerve.
 
Trayvon's mother said in People Magazine that she doesn't see this as a black/white issue, but a right/wrong issue.

George Zimmerman's brother was on Piers Morgan last night and said that George has a broken nose and that to him his nose looks swollen in the video. I have never had a broken nose but I've seen them happen and there's usually lots of blood. I know that things can be done to stop the blood flow but there should be lots of blood on the clothes he was wearing and on his person, blood that was dried maybe by that time? If the police let him wear those clothes home (which they shouldn't have) then all that evidence is lost. His brother also claims that he has injuries that take "weeks" to show up that wouldn't be evident at the time.

I don't get someone who has had their head bashed into a sidewalk whose head looks like that hours later, even if they've been treated by a medic. Especially since he appears to be to have a buzz cut type haircut. His brother says the video is "grainy", that's not my definition of grainy. You could still see injuries and a bashed head if they were there, I think. Even if he'd already been treated by medics there's be evidence of that treatment, if the injuries were consistent with his version of events.
 
test...



ETA--hmm, ok, this page wasn't loading for me using the forum default pagination (at the 30 posts per page setting I could see it fine), but now that I've posted, the thread seems okay under all settings to me.

Um, can everyone read this? :shifty:
 
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Yes, I see it. :)

Yesterday when I caught the bus home, there was a woman standing at the bus stop with a sign around her neck that said "Justice for Trayvon Martin."

As I passed, I caught her eye and just nodded at her in agreement. She said "thank you" with apparent appreciation, so I wonder if few people had bothered to acknowledge her.

(That has nothing to do with anything, but I just felt like sharing.)
 
New York Daily News, Mar. 29
George Zimmerman was fired from his job as an under-the-table security guard for “being too aggressive,” a former co-worker told the Daily News. Zimmerman, at the center of a firestorm for shooting an unarmed black teenager a month ago, worked for two different agencies providing security to illegal house parties between 2001 and 2005, the former co-worker said.

“Usually he was just a cool guy. He liked to drink and hang with the women like the rest of us,” he said. “But it was like Jekyll and Hyde. When the dude snapped, he snapped.” The source said Zimmerman, who made between $50 and $100 a night, was let go in 2005. “He had a temper and he became a liability,” the man said. “One time this woman was acting a little out of control. She was drunk. George lost his cool and totally overreacted,” he said. “It was weird, because he was such a cool guy, but he got all nuts. He picked her up and threw her. It was pure rage. She twisted her ankle. Everyone was flipping out.”

The year 2005 was a bad one for Zimmerman: he was arrested for fighting with a cop trying to arrest his friend for underage drinking, and he and his ex-fiancée took out protective orders against each other.

The former co-worker, who is no longer in touch with Zimmerman, said he was shocked to hear what happened Feb. 26 in a gated community in Sanford, FL. “He definitely loved being in charge. He loved the power. Still, I could never see him killing someone. Never,” he said.
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corianderstem said:
Yes, I see it. :)

Yesterday when I caught the bus home, there was a woman standing at the bus stop with a sign around her neck that said "Justice for Trayvon Martin."

As I passed, I caught her eye and just nodded at her in agreement. She said "thank you" with apparent appreciation, so I wonder if few people had bothered to acknowledge her.

(That has nothing to do with anything, but I just felt like sharing.)
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Cool :up:. She's got my support, too.

The former co-worker, who is no longer in touch with Zimmerman, said he was shocked to hear what happened Feb. 26 in a gated community in Sanford, FL. “He definitely loved being in charge. He loved the power. Still, I could never see him killing someone. Never,” he said.
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Really? 'Cause after reading this...

“It was weird, because he was such a cool guy, but he got all nuts. He picked her up and threw her. It was pure rage. She twisted her ankle. Everyone was flipping out.”
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...I wouldn't put it past him. How did this not come off as a massive warning sign?
 
Yeah, whoever thought that if someone who "snaps" had a gun, he might actually shoot someone? Go figure.
 
Tampa Bay Times, Mar. 31
The men responsible for Florida's controversial "stand your ground'' law are certain about one thing: Because of his actions before he pulled the trigger and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman is not protected from criminal prosecution. Because Zimmerman exited his vehicle, because he followed Martin, because his actions put him a situation where he felt it necessary to shoot a boy dead, he should be booked, jailed and forced to face a jury of his peers. Said Durell Peaden, the former Republican senator from Crestview who sponsored the bill: "The guy lost his defense right then. When he said, 'I'm following him,' he lost his defense."
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But the lawmakers are wrong.

Since its passage in 2005, the "stand your ground'' law has protected people who have pursued another, initiated a confrontation and then used deadly force to defend themselves. Citing the law, judges have granted immunity to killers who put themselves in danger, so long as their pursuit was not criminal, so long as the person using force had a right to be there, and so long as he could convince the judge he was in fear of great danger or death. The Tampa Bay Times has identified 140 cases across the state in which "stand your ground'' has been invoked, and many involve defendants whose lives were clearly in jeopardy. But at least a dozen share similarities with what we know about the Trayvon Martin case, and they show the law has not always worked as its sponsors say they intended.
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“Mr. Zimmerman's unnecessary pursuit and confrontation of Trayvon Martin elevated the prospect of a violent episode and does not seem to be an act of self-defense as defined by the castle doctrine," wrote state Rep. Dennis Baxley, the Ocala Republican who co-authored the law, in a column March 21 for FOXNews.com. "There is no protection in the 'stand your ground' law for anyone who pursues and confronts people."

Lawyers say the bill's supporters are either uninformed or politically motivated. "That's not what the law says," said Steven Romine, a Tampa Bay lawyer who has invoked "stand your ground'' successfully. "They might think that in their own heads, but it's just not true. If you're doing something legal, no matter what the act is, and you're attacked, it's in that moment that you have a right to stand your ground."

Prosecutors, who are generally critical of the law, agree. "The real issue is what happens around the 60 seconds prior to the shooting," said Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, which brought the charges against Greyston Garcia. "Everything else has emotional content, but from a legal perspective, it all comes down to the 60 seconds before the incident."

One of Romine's cases is a prime example. In 2008, his client, Charles Podany, noticed a truck speeding past his house in Thonotosassa, where his children play in the front yard. Podany fetched his handgun and rode his bicycle down the street to the house where the truck was parked to get a license plate number. He found himself in a confrontation with Casey Landes, 24, who had been a passenger in the truck. Landes, legally drunk, attacked the smaller Podany and wound up on top of him. Podany drew his weapon and fired twice. The second bullet entered Landes' left cheek and struck the back of his skull, killing him instantly. Podany was charged with manslaughter. But before trial, a judge ruled that despite initiating the confrontation by arming himself and riding his bicycle to the speeder's house, Podany was in a place he had a legal right to be and he was carrying a weapon he had a legal right to carry. He found that Podany feared for his life and had the right to defend himself with deadly force.

"There is not an exception to the law that says if you're doing something stupid, or risky, or not in your best interest, that 'stand your ground' doesn't apply," Romine said.

In May, Carlos Catalan-Flores, 26, a security guard at a Tampa strip club called Flash Dancers, confronted men who were drinking beer in the parking lot. One of the men threw a beer bottle at Catalan-Flores' head and prepared to throw another. Rather than taking cover inside the club, or using his baton or pepper spray to protect himself, Catalan-Flores drew his weapon and began firing. Several of the six shots hit the man who threw the beer. A judge ruled that Catalan-Flores was justified, even though he initiated the confrontation. Being hit by a beer bottle constitutes a forcible felony, so he had the right to shoot, to protect himself.
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The court has even ruled that the statute can protect someone who shoots a retreating person. In overturning a ruling against Jimmy Hair, who shot a man who was retreating from a fight, a judge in Tallahassee wrote that the statute "makes no exception from the immunity when the victim is in retreat at the time the defensive force is employed."

Prosecutors argue that these types of cases should be brought before a jury. "Jurors understand self-defense," said Griffith, the spokesman in Miami. "That's really where it should be."

Nine days after Trayvon Martin was shot dead in Sanford, Brandon Baker, 30, and his twin brother were driving separate cars toward the apartment they shared in Palm Harbor. Seth Browning, a 23-year-old security guard who later told deputies he was concerned with Baker's erratic driving, pulled in close behind Baker to get his license tag number. Baker turned off East Lake Road, then onto an access road and came to a stop, according to Pinellas sheriff's investigators. Browning followed and stopped behind Baker's Chevy truck. Baker climbed out of his truck and walked to Browning's window. His brother, Chris, watching from behind, said Baker was trying to figure out why Browning was tailgating him. Browning sprayed Baker with pepper spray, then shot him in the chest. He told deputies that Baker had punched him and he was in fear for his life. Browning called police as Chris Baker tried to revive his brother.

His father, Kevin Lindsay, rushed to the scene and watched as Browning was questioned at length. Then he learned the man who killed his son was released. Baker's parents had never heard of the "stand your ground" law. Waiting for some type of action has exhausted them. They long for justice in what appears to them to be a clearly unjustifiable killing.
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But if history serves, the pursuit may not matter. The case will hinge on what happened in the moments before Browning pulled the trigger, and whether he feared for his life. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gaultieri said this week that the case is still under investigation. Baker's parents, like Martin's, are appalled that the law might protect the man who killed their son, and shocked that men who backed the law are saying they didn't know it could.

"Even if they had the best of intentions, they need to change this law," Alex Lindsay said. "They will never fully understand the repercussions of it."
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I love how all the people in those stories who are owning guns and just blasting away at people with them are going, "I feared for my life." They threw bottles at you or punched you. You, on the other hand, had a fucking gun! You're kind of at an advantage here, in terms of weapons.

And if you're willing to confront someone "scary", clearly you're not as afraid as you claim.
 
Moonlit_Angel said:
And if you're willing to confront someone "scary", clearly you're not as afraid as you claim.
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I think they don't have a lack of fear, but a constant fear which borders on paranoia. Think about it -- is it really reasonable to be so afraid in a gated community that you need to carry a gun? The vast majority of people in the US go through their entire lives without ever being in a situation where they actually need to carry a gun...or any weapon. I strongly believe it's an irrational fear, not a lack of it, which drives most people to carry guns.
 
I didn't bookmark it unfortunately, but a couple weeks back I read an interesting article summarizing research on how being given a gun affects subjects' perceptions of various situations. The gist of it was that people are actually more likely to perceive threats once armed. (These were ordinary people, not trained police or military.) Counterintuitive rationally perhaps, but to me it made a lot of sense emotionally.

I think racism remains by far the most probable explanation for why Zimmerman was so quick to perceive Martin as a thief on the prowl, one of those "f*ing assholes/f*ing [?]s" who "always gets away" and likely carries a weapon ("he's reaching for his waistband...he's got something in his hands..."). I don't think racism explains his impulsive recklessness in jumping from his car and chasing his "suspect." But it's not like these traits are mutually exclusive.

Clearly one of the most desirable potential outcomes from all this would be some serious revisions to Florida's Stand Your Ground law, and the only reason there's any discussion of that currently going on in FL's legislature at all is because of the pressures national protests and media scrutiny have brought to bear on the state.
 
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corianderstem said:
What the actual fuck.
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Yeah. ... ... Um...

...

Yeah.

I have no idea how that could ever stand up in court. "Your honor, I was afraid he would kill me if he left me alone!"

And yet it does and has.

... Yeah.
 
Diemen said:
Yeah. ... ... Um...

...

Yeah.

I have no idea how that could ever stand up in court. "Your honor, I was afraid he would kill me if he left me alone!"

And yet it does and has.

... Yeah.
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He was totally going to run to get his 'homies' so yeah, definitely couldn't let him run officer!
 
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