It's sad that in 2012 we still have incidences of racism, racial profiling and an appearance of a lack of value for the life of a black teenager, both by Zimmerman and the Sanford Police department. What jumps out at me is a question: if Zimmerman had been black and Martin white, with all of the facts being the same, would Martin be in jail? I think he would.
Some people have a problem with the so-called race card being played. In my opinion, this is because the issue of race is very difficult for people, the media, politicians and academia to discuss adequately. This country still has a problem with racial issues and the race card should be played if it is a factor in issues pertaining to our life. We can't be afraid to tackle sensitive subject matters such as these because it has the potential to destroy our society.
Zimmerman reminds me of some security guards who can't qualify as sworn police officers, either due to lack of experience, education or prior law enforcement contacts. Zimmerman was arrested in 2005 on suspicion of battery against a law enforcement officer. Although the charge was eventually dropped, it probably killed his chance of becoming an official police officer. Law enforcement officers would call these people wannabes, who look for any way to show they are or can be just as proficient in law enforcement as an actual police officer.
Zimmerman's actions, in my opinion, are those of an individual with an ax to grind; he was going to prove he was as good at police work as any police officer. It didn't matter that the dispatcher told him to not follow Martin and he said, "Okay." He obviously left his vehicle and confronted Martin. He wouldn't have felt that he feared for his life if he had just listened to the dispatcher, stopped his surveillance and stayed in his SUV. His comment of "these guys always get away" shows a predisposed negative attitude towards Martin, bordering on racism. Was his attitude... ‘this guy is not going to get away from me’? As a neighborhood watch guard, Zimmerman is prohibited from carrying a gun. Their instructions are to watch and report to the police, not to be a policeman and make an arrest!
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Steve
Would like to hear the other side of the story as it makes no sense that someone would shoot a kid without cause. Has to be a reason Zimmerman thought he needed to fire his gun.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
Steve -
If you took the time to do a little research, you'd find out why.
1. Zimmerman called the police to report Martin’s “suspicious” behavior, which he described as “just walking around looking about.” Zimmerman was in his car when he saw Martin walking on the street. He called the police and said: “There’s a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around looking about… These a**holes always get away” [Orlando Sentinel]
2. Zimmerman pursued Martin against the explicit instructions of the police dispatcher:
Dispatcher: “Are you following him?”
Zimmerman: “Yeah”
Dispatcher: “OK, we don’t need you to do that.”
[Orlando Sentinel]
3. Prior to the release of the 911 tapes, Zimmerman’s father released a statement claiming “[a]t no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin.” [Sun Sentinel]
4. Zimmerman was carrying a a 9 millimeter handgun. Martin was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. [ABC News]
5. Martin weighed 140 pounds. Zimmerman weighs 250 pounds. [Orlando Sentinel; WDBO]
6. Martin’s English teacher described him as “as an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.” [Orlando Sentinel]
7. Martin had no criminal record. [New York Times]
8. Zimmerman “was charged in July 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer. The charges appear to have been dropped.” [Huffington Post]
9. Zimmerman called the police 46 times since Jan. 1, 2011. [Miami Herald]
10. According to neighbors, Zimmerman was “fixated on crime and focused on young, black males.” [Miami Herald]
11. Zimmerman “had been the subject of complaints by neighbors in his gated community for aggressive tactics” [Huffington Post]
12. A police officer “corrected” a key witness. “The officer told the witness, a long-time teacher, it was Zimmerman who cried for help, said the witness. ABC News has spoken to the teacher and she confirmed that the officer corrected her when she said she heard the teenager shout for help.” [ABC News]
13. Three witnesses say they heard a boy cry for help before a shot was fired. “Three witnesses contacted by The Miami Herald say they saw or heard the moments before and after the Miami Gardens teenager’s killing. All three said they heard the last howl for help from a despondent boy.” [Miami Herald]
14. The officer in charge of the crime scene also received criticism in 2010 when he initially failed to arrest a lieutenant’s son who was videotaped attacking a homeless black man. [New York Times]
15. The police did not test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. A law enforcement expert told ABC that Zimmerman sounds intoxicated on the 911 tapes. Drug and alcohol testing is “standard procedure in most homicide investigations.” [ABC News]
16. In a cell phone call moments before his death, Martin told a teenage girl that he was “hounded by a strange man on a cellphone who ran after him, cornered him and confronted him.” “‘He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man,’ Martin’s friend said. ‘I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run.’ Eventually he would run, said the girl, thinking that he’d managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin. ‘Trayvon said, ‘What, are you following me for,’ and the man said, ‘What are you doing here.’” [ABC News]
17. Zimmerman told the police “he had stepped out of his truck to check the name of the street he was on when Trayvon attacked him from behind as he walked back to his truck.” “He said he feared for his life and fired the semiautomatic handgun he was licensed to carry because he feared for his life.” [Miami Herald]
18. Zimmerman was not a member of a registered Neighborhood Watch group. Zimmerman also violated basic Neighborhood Watch guidelines by carrying a weapon. [ABC News]
3 - Igor
This is easy: Zimmerman is a trigger-happy racist. He stalked a kid, with no justification, started a fight then killed the kid with his pistol. The police did their part to cover up by not arresting Zimmerman, not taking his weapon, not giving a drug or alcohol test (although the 911 dispatcher said he sounded drunk), accepted his excuse, coerced a witness, and generally transgressed normal procedure, even stating that there was no reason to doubt his self-defense argument against a small unarmed kid. Then they lied about Zimmermans police record and refused to notify the boys family for two days.
This case stinks. Zimmerman and the crooked cops should all be jailed NOW before they can contaminate more evidence and coerce more witnesses.
4 - Jordan Richardson
Has to be a reason Zimmerman thought he needed to fire his gun.
Yeah, because senseless violence never happens...
5 - El Bicho
"if Zimmerman had been black and Martin white, with all of the facts being the same, would Martin be in jail? I think he would."
If the races were switched and all the facts were the same, wouldn't Martin still be dead?
6 - Clavos
Nice catch, EB.
7 - Igor
Zimmerman is a vigilante, roaming the streets looking for a black person to kill. He belonged to NO Neighborhood Watch organization, and calling him a "Captain of a Neighborhood Watch" was a self-invented status. He had NO certification of any kind, and was already in trouble with the police.
Zimmerman was an identifiable crazy racist.
What's worse is the way the police acted afterwards, which is at least equally felonious. They contributed to the crime after the fact, just like the getaway driver after a bank robbery.
The "stand your ground" law was designed so that a homeowner could protect himself and his family against an invading criminal. (Unless, of course, that invader is a bank with properly forged foreclosure papers!)
8 - Glenn Contrarian
El B -
If the races were switched and all the facts were the same, wouldn't Martin still be dead?
Yes - but would a black Zimmermann have been allowed to walk free? That, sir, is the question.
9 - Dr Dreadful
would a black Zimmermann have been allowed to walk free? That, sir, is the question.
Sadly, it is.
There was a funny but pointed skit on Comedy Central's Key and Peele last night, in which Obama is teaching Malia to drive. She runs a stop sign and they get pulled over. The cop realizes who's in the car, apologizes and tells them to carry on. Obama says, "No, officer, Malia needs to learn consequences. Please handle this as you would if I weren't the president."
Cut to a shot of Obama being slammed face down on the hood and handcuffed. "Not exactly what I had in mind," he says.
10 - Clavos
The "stand your ground" law was designed so that a homeowner could protect himself and his family against an invading criminal.
Actually, no. The notorious "stand your ground" law allows Floridians to stand their ground on the street or anywhere else, and merely on the basis of feeling threatened.
11 - Igor
Oh. So, if next month, say, a Big Bad Buck named, say, Shaquile Smith, walking down a Florida street at night were to encounter, say, Zimmerman, get into a quarrel with him, feel threated, draw his 18 mm pistol and plug Zimmerman in the chest, it would be OK?
Why, this is wonderful! Anyone of us, apparently, can shoot whoever they "feel threatened" by, in our sole discretion, and the law will simply stand aside.
12 - Clavos
Anyone of us, apparently, can shoot whoever they "feel threatened" by, in our sole discretion, and the law will simply stand aside.
At least in Florida you can. It's already happened -- several times.
13 - Dr Dreadful
The big problem as I see it with the Florida law is that it removes the common-sense option from the police and the courts.
Clearly there have been, in the past, cases where common sense has taken a hike in the opposite direction, and homicide prosecutions have been brought against people who were legitimately defending themselves or their property. Consequently, the Florida law was intended to protect the right to self-defense.
Equally clearly, it's written so broadly that all a person has to do after shooting someone in Florida is to claim self-defense and there's a good chance they'll get away with it.
As I understand it, the "Stand Your Ground" law gave police - in the absence of anyone else who'd actually witnessed the shooting - no option but to take Zimmerman at his word, even though it's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain cell that he was bullshitting.
What's particularly ridiculous is that if it had been a police officer who'd done the shooting, however justified he felt he was, he'd have been - at the very least - suspended on full pay pending an investigation. The state can't even investigate Zimmerman.
14 - Clavos
Good analysis of the Florida version of the law, Doc. Some Floridians even term it the "shoot first and ask questions later" law.
One thing I'd add to your #13 is that there already appears to be enough anger on the part of the citizenry that the Martin/Zimmerman case may well bring about a tightening of the language in the law.
15 - Cannonshop
This is what happens when things get out of hand and the people no longer trust the courts to administer justice-you get triggerhappy asshats like Zimmerman, and you get laws like Florida's law-which was the result of a backlash against another trend.
We now have a bad law, innocent people getting killed, and a murderer walking free, and the cause of this, is a legal culture so twisted that the average citizen (at least, in Florida) doesn't trust the courts, or the police, or the prosecutors whom are supposed to be "the People's Lawyers" in situations involving self-defense.
16 - Zingzing
If cannon and clavos represent the right on this, good. Zimmerman needs to be prosecuted.
17 - Cannonshop
#16 Simple, Zing: Murder is Murder, even if it goes uncharged it's still murder. In this case, there will be no justice, because of a law written in reaction to the behaviour of Courts and Politicians in stripping and chipping at the REASONABLE standard of Self-Defense to the point it created an unfortunate backlash.
an INEVITABLE backlash, by the way. When you hear news items about Burglars suing because they were hurt on someone's property while committing their crimes, or states where the Prosecutor will absolutely GODSMACK you for fighting back against a criminal attacker, with rising crime rates and police that kill homeowners (Pima County), Police that will kill bystanders (Ruby Ridge), the Citizens are alone and abandoned, so they pushed a law that went a bit too far the other way, and now, an innocent has been killed by an opportunistic criminal douchebag.
and the Douchebag is going to get away with it.
This is what HAPPENS when you spend so much time on "Identity Politics" and politicizing the Judicial system that SIMPLE justice is broken and forgotten under the juggernaut of "Social Justice".
Law like Florida's doesn't evolve out of vacuum like some Creationist's fantasy of life on earth, it's the result of trends, and reactions TO trends, that weaken respect for the Law, and respect OF the people involved therein.
18 - Igor
#15-Cannonshop:predictably comes forward with a "blame the victim" excuse for outright murder.
This is what happens when things get out of hand and the people no longer trust the courts to administer justice...
...you get laws like Florida's law-which was the result of a backlash against another trend.
And what trend is that? The trend of black high-school students walking home at night?
...the cause of this, is a legal culture so twisted that the average citizen (at least, in Florida) doesn't trust the courts, or the police, or the prosecutors whom are supposed to be "the People's Lawyers" in situations involving self-defense.
What nonsense!
There is NO "...legal culture so twisted ..." that we have to set murderous vigilantes loose!
19 - Igor
Even the authors of the "Stand your ground" law say that Zimmerman is an unjustified killer: Miami Herald.
TRAYVON MARTIN SHOOTING
Stand Your Ground authors: Trayvon Martin’s shooter should likely be charged, avoid immunity
As black lawmakers call for hearings to review and possibly repeal the Stand-Your-Ground law, the authors of the legislation say it’s being misconstrued and shouldn’t protect the accused shooter of Trayvon Martin.
The authors of Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law say the killer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin probably should be arrested and doesn’t deserve immunity under the statute.
The comments from the Republican lawmakers came the same day state Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, urged the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators to call for the law to be repealed, amended or subject to legislative hearings. Trayvon’s mother lives in Braynon’s district.
But the lawmakers who crafted the legislation in 2005, former Sen. Durell Peaden and current state Rep. Dennis Baxley, said the law doesn’t need to be changed. They believe it has been misapplied in the shooting death of Trayvon by a Sanford crime-watch captain, George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman has not been charged because, police said, it appears he acted in self-defense. The Seminole County state attorney’s office decided Tuesday to take the case before a grand jury.
“They got the goods on him. They need to prosecute whoever shot the kid,” said Peaden, a Crestview Republican who sponsored the deadly force law in 2005. “He has no protection under my law.”
Peaden and Baxley, R-Ocala, say their law is a self-defense act. It says law-abiding people have no duty to retreat from an attacker and can meet “force with force.” Nowhere does it say that a person has a right to confront another.
The 911 tapes strongly suggest Zimmerman overstepped his bounds, they say, when the Sanford neighborhood crime-watch captain said he was following Trayvon and appeared to ignore a police request to stay away.
“The guy lost his defense right then,” said Peaden. “When he said ‘I’m following him,’ he lost his defense.”
...
And remember, Zimmerman had NO official law enforcement status. He was a "Captain" only in his own diseased mind!
20 - Cannonshop
#18 So...the victim wasn't Trayvon Martin, a seventeen year old unarmed kid, but a bunch of lawyers, politicians and cops, Igor?
God damn your priorities are out of whack.
The victim was a kid. The reason the killer's going to walk, is what you're calling "Blaming the victim"-which is not blaming a victim, it's making an observation that laws of the sort that are going to see Zimmerman out there until he kills someone else come from somewhere, and it's not "K Street".
Those laws come about, Igor, because people (Justifiably or not) often don't trust the Legal System to provide justice, so much as persecution. This is a bad thing, Igor, it means there will be MORE Trayvon Martins, and more Zimmermann's out there,
It's interesting and typical that a collectivist such as yourself refuses to acknowledge the share of the blame borne by his cause. The LEFT created the conditions that made the Florida law appear reasonable, Igor.
The Poltical Left isn't the Victim here, Igor, Trayvon Martin is.
21 - Dan
"What jumps out at me is a question: if Zimmerman had been black and Martin white, with all of the facts being the same, would Martin be in jail? I think he would."---Donald Tucker
I guess the thing that "jumps out at me" is the obvious fact that Zimmerman is not white but clearly Latino/Mestizo.
A few other facts not readily available from anti-white biased media accounts:
Trayvon was a 6'2" football player, he no longer resembled the outdated, baby faced, grade school photograph that accompanies most news accounts.
Trayvon, although described as a "model student" in many media accounts, was serving a 5 day school suspension. A lawyer for Trayvons family has blocked access to further school records.
George Zimmerman was in good standing with the local homeowners' association. They had reported to the Miami Herald that Zimmerman had actually caught one thief and aided in the legal apprehension of other criminals.
Zimmermans story is corroborated by an eyewitness who says that George Zimmerman was on the ground and Trayvon was on top of him punching him.
The witness says that Zimmerman was screaming and yelling for help.
The police arrived to find Zimmerman bleeding from his face and the back of his head. He also had grass stains on his back.
When police played the 911 tape for Martins father, the father said that the voice screaming was not the voice of his son.
There is quite a bit of crime in this neighborhood. It is only 49% white. It is common for neighborhood watch volunteers to "confront" suspicious people.
I think it is probable that Zimmerman was within his right to confront Martin, but Martin made a grave mistake in violently attacking Zimmerman.
22 - roger nowosielski
"The LEFT created the conditions that made the Florida law appear reasonable, Igor."
Low blow, my man. It may have been a catalyst, but surely nothing can make "the Florida law appear reasonable," let alone justifiable. Let's own up to the fact there are still many rednecks out there, with or without excuse. And it's systemic, the fabric which makes this country, part of the Anglo-Saxon psyche.
23 - roger nowosielski
I don't know, Dan. Yours is surely a different narrative than the one which has been circulating of late. What about the ninety pounds weight advantage? That's almost like double in size, I certainly wouldn't be put down on the ground by a midget and scream for help. And I'm certain neither would you.
Hope you can substantiate your story.
24 - Dr Dreadful
Dan's attitude (no surprise he shows up on this thread) neatly answers Donald's hypothetical - just not the way Dan thinks it does.
I particularly like how Dan is almost zealously eager to accept the theory of George Zimmerman "standing his ground" and acting in self-defense.
Yet Trayvon Martin, who according to his girlfriend was freaked out by some weird-looking guy who was following him in his car, simply - in Dan's mind - launched an unprovoked attack on George. According to Dan, the Florida law didn't apply to Trayvon. He wasn't allowed to "stand his ground". And he couldn't possibly also have been acting in self-defense.
Because weird-looking guys stalking you never feel threatening, do they?
25 - roger nowosielski
Isn't it the case that Zimmerman has been a missing person of late?
According to the latest, he'd just packed his bags and left. And no one, not even the Florida Police Dept., is the wiser.