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

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society? not decent folk or retirees

some people better learn how to behave and stay in their own neighborhoods
 
The Florida law in question is seriously disturbing.

What a cute kid, such a shame. :(
 
Trayvon Martin was an unarmed 17 year old kid walking through a gated community to get to his girlfriend's house and was shot to death by a man acting as a neighborhood watch. The man called 911 before he shot and said the kid looked suspicious. He looked suspicious because he was a black kid wearing a hoodie (it was raining) and there had apparently been robberies in the previous month.

911 told him not to follow, but he did and allegedly there was a confrontation. The 17 year old was much smaller and unarmed but the shooter said he felt threatened so he shot. In Florida there is a law called "Stand Your Ground" which allows people to use deadly force if they feel threatened.

The police have yet to arrest the shooter. As you can imagine it's created a bit of a firestorm here.

Here is an overview: Trayvon Martin Case: Timeline of Events - ABC News
 
It sounds to me like if you shoot someone dead in Florida you can just say "self-defence! He threatened me!" and get off free?

Just about. Hell, apparently, you can have a gun duel and the winner gets off scott free.

If I were Trayvon and someone was following me with a gun, I'd probably fight back too. That's the sick part. Because this unarmed kid felt threatened by an armed man much bigger than he, Zimmerman can now claim self defense and get away with murder. It's completely fucked up.
 
I've seen it reported that Zimmerman is a Hispanic man, not a white man, so this is not exactly a case of "crazy white guy with guns hates all minorities" sort of situation.
 
Ohhhh, yeah, those sorts of laws are always handled SO well. Never ever problematic at all.

Yeah. This story is disturbing on so many levels. I heard the 911 call from Zimmerman on some show-there was a bit where he made a comment about the kid that was bleeped, what he said there, I'm curious to know.

I also heard he'd been known to make...what was it, 50 calls, or something, to the police within the year prior, all of which turned out to be false. So it sounds like this guy's got a bit, to put it mildly, of a complex about him as it is. I've no doubt there was some racial factor in here, but I also get the feeling this guy would've been this reckless with anyone who "looked suspicious" for any reason, racial or otherwise.

I feel horrible for Trayvon's family.
 
I heard the 911 call from Zimmerman on some show-there was a bit where he made a comment about the kid that was bleeped, what he said there, I'm curious to know.

During the 911 call, he says: "These assholes...they always get away."

And then later in the call, slightly under his breath, he says: "Fucking coons."

Pretty incriminating to me. Seems like he was a confused and angry racist with a gun, and Trayvon Martin was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 

When I read this:
Martin is unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene. He has no weapons on him, only a pack of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea. Zimmerman tells police he killed Martin in self defense. Taking him at his word, police do not arrest him, nor administer a drug or alcohol test. They also did not run a background check.

It's almost like the cops just said "Oh, okay, thanks. You can go now."


What an insane law.
 
I also heard he'd been known to make...what was it, 50 calls, or something, to the police within the year prior, all of which turned out to be false. So it sounds like this guy's got a bit, to put it mildly, of a complex about him as it is.
ooh, so basically it's like he's made his neighbourhood his own country and he's claimed dominion or something. i'd love to know if something happened to make him this paranoid or if he just watched the news too much and bought into the sensationalism too much. omg all they talk about is robberies and murders! i'm not safe! i need to buy a gun and patrol my neighbourhood 24/7!

i'm not a fan of these types of laws as it is since, gosh, it isn't the 1700s anymore. i guess if you feel the need to have a gun to protect yourself just in case then fine, and if someone breaks into your home and is armed and threatening to shoot you and your family then fine. but it shouldn't be determined before the body's even left the scene that yep, self defence, you're not going to be charged. but even that is someone breaking into your house. i'd love to know how a teenager on a sidewalk with a bag of skittles posed any kind of threat. was he afraid he was going to open the bag and start throwing them at him or something?
 
Trayvon Martin was an unarmed 17 year old kid walking through a gated community to get to his girlfriend's house and was shot to death by a man acting as a neighborhood watch. The man called 911 before he shot and said the kid looked suspicious. He looked suspicious because he was a black kid wearing a hoodie (it was raining) and there had apparently been robberies in the previous month.

911 told him not to follow, but he did and allegedly there was a confrontation. The 17 year old was much smaller and unarmed but the shooter said he felt threatened so he shot. In Florida there is a law called "Stand Your Ground" which allows people to use deadly force if they feel threatened.

The police have yet to arrest the shooter. As you can imagine it's created a bit of a firestorm here.

Here is an overview: Trayvon Martin Case: Timeline of Events - ABC News

Wow, that's all kinds of fucked up. Thanks for the clarification; I wish this had been the first post in the thread.

It sounds to me like if you shoot someone dead in Florida you can just say "self-defence! He threatened me!" and get off free?

It sounds like an even broader version of Queensland's "gay panic" defence.
 
During the 911 call, he says: "These assholes...they always get away."

And then later in the call, slightly under his breath, he says: "Fucking coons."

Pretty incriminating to me. Seems like he was a confused and angry racist with a gun, and Trayvon Martin was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That's what I thought. I had a feeling a racial slur had been thrown in there somewhere, I just didn't know what one it would've been-my money would've been on the "n" word, but "coons"? Wow.

Your last sentence pretty much sums it up, I think.

ooh, so basically it's like he's made his neighbourhood his own country and he's claimed dominion or something. i'd love to know if something happened to make him this paranoid or if he just watched the news too much and bought into the sensationalism too much. omg all they talk about is robberies and murders! i'm not safe! i need to buy a gun and patrol my neighbourhood 24/7!

Something like that, yeah-I keep hearing about him being associated with a "neighborhood watch", but I don't know if it was an actual organized neighborhood watch or he, like you said, just sort of appointed himself the neighborhood watchdog.

It would be interesting to delve further into his background and find out about possible specific mental problems or any sorts of fears that seemed to be piling up or whatever.

i'm not a fan of these types of laws as it is since, gosh, it isn't the 1700s anymore. i guess if you feel the need to have a gun to protect yourself just in case then fine, and if someone breaks into your home and is armed and threatening to shoot you and your family then fine. but it shouldn't be determined before the body's even left the scene that yep, self defence, you're not going to be charged. but even that is someone breaking into your house. i'd love to know how a teenager on a sidewalk with a bag of skittles posed any kind of threat. was he afraid he was going to open the bag and start throwing them at him or something?

Exactly. I said this when this story originally was mentioned in that "absolutely disgusted" stories thread-if I'm keeping an eye on the neighborhood and I see a person wandering around the streets that appears suspicious to me, I would call the police and report any activities I saw while staying a safe distance away, either hiding in my car or in my house or something of that sort. Heck, I'd alert neighbors via phone or text or something to let them know to stay indoors if I felt the threat were legitimate enough.

If I find someone that scary, I sure as hell am not going to advertise my whereabouts and go up to them and start confronting them right then and there. I don't think he knew the kid had the candy on him at the time-I don't know what he thought the kid had on him or would've done. But if he was that scared of him, he should've just called the police, reported what he saw/heard, and let THEM handle the situation.

Or, he could've just not jumped to warped conclusions to begin with. Last I was aware of, merely walking down the street isn't a crime. Especially if it's your own neighborhood.

Which, come to think of it, also begs a question-how long did both Zimmerman and the Martins live in the same neighborhood? Zimmerman had lived there at least a year, since, like I said, he'd been making calls in that neighborhood for that length of time. If they both had lived in that neighborhood for a long enough time, they may not have been buddies who hang out on weekends and have barbecues, but I would think they would've at least passed each other every now and again to the point where Zimmerman would've been able to recognize the kid as someone who lived in the neighborhood instead of presuming him to be some weird stranger who was planning to do harm to people.
 
wow, his family lived in that neighbourhood too? that is ridiculous. some watchman he is then to not actually familiarise himself with his neighbours or at least notice "hey, i see this person every day. now i could assume they rob someone every day, but i bet the more likely scenario is they live around here." the biggest problem in situations like this is people like zimmerman don't act, they just react. this all could've been avoided if he'd just called out to him and asked what he was doing if he was really that afraid. and i mean calmly and rationally, i know there was a confrontation but i imagine it went down more like he ran towards him and started screaming to stay out of his neighbourhood. of course martin wasn't going to be calm and rational at that point, your mind enters the fight or flight stage.
 
Yeah, it was a gated community. Which makes it even weirder, 'cause they were all fenced in together, so to speak, these neighbors, they lived about as close to each other as you can get.

And like you said, someone comes up being all accusing towards me, I'm probably not going to respond in the nicest tone. Or I'll be scared. Or something. The kid was completely unarmed. He was wearing a hoodie, which probably made the guy think he was a "thug". Never mind the fact that many, many people wear hoodies all the time, of course, and while it is Florida, it was also February, so it was probably cool/cold (for Floridians) at that time, and a hoodie would be a logical thing to wear in that weather.

(I love, too, that the guy would have a problem with the kid being armed, but him owning a gun? Yeah, that's totally okay. He's still here and the kid's not, so who exactly was the bigger threat again?)
 
From what I've read, Trayvon didn't live there all the time -- he was visiting his father who lived there. Still, given it was where his father lived, he was most likely there fairly often. And even if it was the first time he's ever been there, just walking through a neighbourhood shouldn't be automatically suspicious.

It seems Zimmerman was a wannabe cop, who didn't make the cut. Click here to link to an article on that.
 
From what I've read, Trayvon didn't live there all the time -- he was visiting his father who lived there. Still, given it was where his father lived, he was most likely there fairly often. And even if it was the first time he's ever been there, just walking through a neighbourhood shouldn't be automatically suspicious.

That's right, I remember hearing that, too, good point.

That article says he's been in that area for 10 years, so yeah, I would think, especially given how, um, dedicated, we'll say, the article indicates he was to observing things that went on in that community over the years, he would've at least seen Treyvon show up a few times here and there as at least an occasional resident of the area.
 
I figured it wasn't but I was confused as to what you were trying to say...
I think it would be pretty ignorant for us to ignore the fact that when people hear about a racially motivated killing of a black man in the news, people think "old white guy." I was simply pointing out that it was not the case, not to make any point other than to inform.

It would be idiotic to say any race does not have racist members, which was never my intention.
 
And like you said, someone comes up being all accusing towards me, I'm probably not going to respond in the nicest tone. Or I'll be scared. Or something. The kid was completely unarmed. He was wearing a hoodie, which probably made the guy think he was a "thug". Never mind the fact that many, many people wear hoodies all the time, of course, and while it is Florida, it was also February, so it was probably cool/cold (for Floridians) at that time, and a hoodie would be a logical thing to wear in that weather.
exactly. like i said, at that point, it's fight or flight, and neither one would have a good outcome i'd imagine. flight would've been the one where he might not have been shot, but there's still no guarantee he wouldn't have been shot as he ran away anyway or something.

and my god, even i wear hoodies when it rains. i'm not really an umbrella person. by the time i've got the freaking thing open, i'm already at my destination. i also have a great disdain for them thanks to rude people who use them. but anyway yeah, everyone wears hoodies now. my dad wears one, and he'll be 63 this year. i definitely agree with you he probably thought the guy was a thug, but come on.

That article says he's been in that area for 10 years, so yeah, I would think, especially given how, um, dedicated, we'll say, the article indicates he was to observing things that went on in that community over the years, he would've at least seen Treyvon show up a few times here and there as at least an occasional resident of the area.
and yeah, if he's so diligent you'd think he'd also be involved in some sort of welcoming committee or at least keep tabs on comings/goings in the neighbourhood. hey look, 1734's moving out, so they won't be around anymore so i don't need to think anything's up there. looks like 1813 is a single parent, so the kid will only be there on some weekends and holidays. we only know part of the story of zimmerman, but it's starting to become clearer as to why he acted the way he did, or at least why he didn't get to become a cop as indra pointed out.
 
This article contains the 911 tapes--Zimmerman's call (first one) plus calls from six clearly terrified residents reporting screams and gunshots. The purported racial slur (on Zimmerman's call) is at about 2:20; that one's controversial, some audio experts hear "fucking punks" not "fucking coons" :

Trayvon Martin Case: 911 Audio Released Of Teen Shot By Neighborhood Watch Captain (AUDIO)

All the calls are disturbing, particularly the third one--that caller must've had her windows open, and in the background you can hear, quite unmistakably, the sound of a young man screaming in terror followed by a gunshot and then silence.

The police chief needs to be removed from his job immediately; not only did the department fail completely to follow up on the evidence that Zimmerman initiated the confrontation, but also his idea of "damage control" is public statements like this:
“We are taking a beating over this. This is all very unsettling. I’m sure if George Zimmerman had the opportunity to relive Sunday, February 26, he’d probably do things differently. I’m sure Trayvon would, too.”

“If the roles were reversed, our investigation would be exactly the same. Our investigation is color blind and based on the facts and circumstances, not color. I know I can say that until I am blue in the face, but as a white man in a uniform, I know it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”

The Atlantic's legal analyst has a good article about the likely considerations facing the grand jury when they convene next month: Trayvon Martin's Killer Was Looking for Trouble and Found It - Andrew Cohen - The Atlantic
 
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Those 911 calls are chilling. Particularly the one where you can hear Trayvon screaming for help for at least a full minute (and that's only after the 911 call had been answered). Makes it really, really hard for me to believe Zimmerman was "defending himself" if the quite obviously terrified victim is screaming for help for that long.
 
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