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[GOSD]

So Zimmerman goes after the kid for no reason, the kid tries to defend himself against someone who is going after him, gets killed by the person who was told specifically not to go after him, but the racists and bigots ITT still want to say that Zimmerman wasn't at fault.

ITT?

[GOSD]

Nice job, Spike Lee..

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/spike-lee-zimmerman-tweet-567891

[Cat-Scratch]

That's what she said!



(Also, the joke is "They all look alike.")

YUP!. But I was thinking of framing it as...

Pssst! Jude has crossed so many streets to avoid black people, that he can no longer discriminate them other then to... well discriminate them.

[Cat-Scratch]

Well Cat, what can I say, the physical evidence and most eyewitness testimony says that Zimmerman didn't confront the kid, the kid confronted, and then attacked Zimmerman. And the eyewitness testimony that says otherwise is either suspect for bias, (the girlfriend, who also didn't actually see anything), or for ambiguity, (those folks who claim to have heard something and then provided their own interpretation, both of which were contradicted by others who also heard the whole thing. And the entire thing is clouded by the immediate and ferocious reaction of the press and sundry demagogues, not to mention the efforts of the family of the victim.

The "law" as a whole does stand for Martin. That particular law doesn't apply to him, except as it pertains to and excuse for Zimmerman's shooting him

As far as Zimmerman's motives, who can tell what another person's motives are for anything? That's one problem I have with hate crime laws, (and I have others). I could reasonably suggest that he simply was doing what he likely had done before, looking out for suspicious characters. In this case, he saw someone he didn't recognize, and did something stupid, followed him. It's hardly the first time someone thought with their balls instead of their brain, or simply made a mistake.

So Martin yanked Zimmerman out of Zimmerman's car?

So if Zimmerman is proven to have been calling Martin a "Coon" in the 911 calls and has a history of making racial slurs about blacks...
Plus, where are the stories of Zimmerman following and "questioning" other kids? White, Hispanic...

[Cat-Scratch]

First of all, I'd suggest that any law dealing with self defense is going to be vague to some degree, since that is always subjective, and is always to some degree subject to further review by the justice system.

Secondly, not living here, I can see you don't know the history of these laws. The fact is, self defense laws in the US are a hodgepodge of differing tests and assumptions. But for quite a long time, they entirely favored the criminal. We had cases of homeowners being sent to prison for shooting armed intruders in the middle of the night into their homes. Cases of carjacking victims being sent to prison for shooting their jackers, who were also armed.

These cases had in common laws favoring the criminal, (self defense was either not allowed, or allowed only under very specific conditions with very specific responses), and prosecutors hoping to make a name for themselves by showing that they wouldn't tolerate "this sort of thing", though evidently they had no problem with the original criminal's intended crime.

We also of course had cases of civil law where a home burglar would sue the homeowner because he tripped over something in the person's home while trying to rob it. Successfully sued, I might add.

The final point I have is that everyone speculating one way or another on the law does so it seems without having actually read the thing, relying on someone else saying it was bad or good. Even if you do read the law, determining it's relative effects can be tricky.

For example, the main arguments against this law seem to be that more people have been shot under it. Well duh, if people know they can defend themselves, they are. Then the argument branches out by saying that some of those people shot must have been shot wrongly---without citing anything at all. Just their own opinion presented as fact. Here is a solid fact---overall violent crime has dropped since the introduction of that law. Whether there is a correlation or not is something I can't say.

It's the same thing we saw every time a jurisdiction introduced a "Shall issue" CCW, (concealed carry law). You had one side proclaiming that as soon as the law took effect, it would be the "Wild West", with shootouts everywhere, and blood in the streets. These people included many police chiefs BTW. You know what? It never happened, not in a single place that they were introduced. You know what did? Violent crime stats plummeted.

So it seems that based on available evidence, empowering ordinary people to defend themselves isn't necessarily a bad thing, except for criminals, police who lose power, and criminal advocates. Was Martin a bad shooting? Don't know, it doesn't seem so right now, but an investigation will help determine that. If it isn't undermined by the sort of intimidation tactics we see being brought to bear now.

That's why there are judges and over time, the law is amended to dis-include situations that are found not to fall under the law. In this case, the police made no charges thus no judge was involved.

I also have to say. Honestly, America does seem to be the "wild west" to me. The gun culture makes it appear that way to me.

[Cat-Scratch]

Nice job, Spike Lee..

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/spike-lee-zimmerman-tweet-567891

Not surprising. Hell, Michael Moore will be on this soon enough... unless he hates black people.

[Psivage]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/2 ... 84301.html


Guess the cops wanted to arrest him.

[achilles]

So Martin yanked Zimmerman out of Zimmerman's car?

So if Zimmerman is proven to have been calling Martin a "Coon" in the 911 calls and has a history of making racial slurs about blacks...
Plus, where are the stories of Zimmerman following and "questioning" other kids? White, Hispanic...

Er, no Cat. As the story goes, the one best confirmed by physical evidence and witness statements, Zimmerman was leaving, going back to his car after losing sight of Martin. After which he was confronted by Martin, who asked him if he had a problem. To which Zimmerman replied he didn't, and got out his cell phone. Then Martin attacked Zimmerman, saying, "Well, you do now", as he punched Zimmerman in the face, knocking him to the ground, and then got on top of Zimmerman, repeatedly slamming his head into the sidewalk. At which point, either intentionally, or accidentally, Zimmerman's gun went off and shot Martin dead.

The audio tapes are inconclusive as to what was said, even after some enhancement. It seems to me that people simply seized on that because they wanted to. They wanted to make it a racial issue. Zimmerman has, AFAIK, no history of making racist statements.

Honestly Cat, you're trying to make a case that isn't proven to be there yet, and against which there's substantial evidence.

I could for example tell you the tale of something that happened just yesterday where I live. Three black guys, (dressed in hoodies BTW), robbed a jewelery store in a mall and fled. So did all the employees and bystanders except one, a Korean employee of the mall who gave chase. They murdered him for his trouble. Now, if you're not from this area, you might not know that there's a history of racial tension between blacks and Koreans, whom blacks accuse of...well, I'm not sure what they accuse them of mostly.

It goes back to the fact that most of the small grocery stores in Los Angeles in places like South Central were/are owned by Korean shop owners. The blacks don't like this, but won't or can't scrape up the capital and whatever else to run their own stores. And the big chains don't go there because it's too dangerous and not profitable enough.

Back in the last riots, black attacked Korean grocery stores and looted them. Some of them. Others had the shop owners on the roofs with shotguns and weren't robbed. Since then, there have been disputed shootings in Korean owned groceries of black kids accused of sundry crimes by the shop owners. I don't recall any of them being prosecuted, charges mostly being dropped for various reasons, (the rap sheets of the victims, evidence that they actually were doing what the shop owners said, or simple lack of evidence), but the result is that in this area, blacks and Koreans have a history.

What this is all working up to is that I or anyone else could easily work the latest murder into a racial thing, simply by going out there and repeating that it was. Add in maybe a few assumptions, or even false statements, and you've got a racial crisis.

Or course, it was obviously a simple robbery, (the victim BTW was a cop in Korea, which is probably why he gave chase), but that would make no difference if you wanted to play this into a racial thing.

Personally, I think the Martin thing was simply a tragedy created by a series of wrong decisions on the part of both people. I can understand as a detached observer each of those decisions, and how each of them came to make them, but in practice, it got the results we know. Add in grief and malicious intent by others afterward, and a press looking for something juicy like a racial shooting of a black by a white, (never mind that he isn't white, and that the press simply lied about a lot of the details), and you have the whole mess today.

I think people really need to take a step back in these situations and wait for all the evidence to come out before pointing the racial murder finger. If Zimmerman's guilty of all of that, then so be it; he'll get his day in court. If not, more than one person's life has been ruined unjustly, in addition to the tragic death of Martin.

[Cat-Scratch]

Er, no Cat. As the story goes, the one best confirmed by physical evidence and witness statements, Zimmerman was leaving, going back to his car after losing sight of Martin. After which he was confronted by Martin, who asked him if he had a problem. To which Zimmerman replied he didn't, and got out his cell phone. Then Martin attacked Zimmerman, saying, "Well, you do now", as he punched Zimmerman in the face, knocking him to the ground, and then got on top of Zimmerman, repeatedly slamming his head into the sidewalk. At which point, either intentionally, or accidentally, Zimmerman's gun went off and shot Martin dead.

The audio tapes are inconclusive as to what was said, even after some enhancement. It seems to me that people simply seized on that because they wanted to. They wanted to make it a racial issue. Zimmerman has, AFAIK, no history of making racist statements.

Honestly Cat, you're trying to make a case that isn't proven to be there yet, and against which there's substantial evidence.

I could for example tell you the tale of something that happened just yesterday where I live. Three black guys, (dressed in hoodies BTW), robbed a jewelery store in a mall and fled. So did all the employees and bystanders except one, a Korean employee of the mall who gave chase. They murdered him for his trouble. Now, if you're not from this area, you might not know that there's a history of racial tension between blacks and Koreans, whom blacks accuse of...well, I'm not sure what they accuse them of mostly.

It goes back to the fact that most of the small grocery stores in Los Angeles in places like South Central were/are owned by Korean shop owners. The blacks don't like this, but won't or can't scrape up the capital and whatever else to run their own stores. And the big chains don't go there because it's too dangerous and not profitable enough.

Back in the last riots, black attacked Korean grocery stores and looted them. Some of them. Others had the shop owners on the roofs with shotguns and weren't robbed. Since then, there have been disputed shootings in Korean owned groceries of black kids accused of sundry crimes by the shop owners. I don't recall any of them being prosecuted, charges mostly being dropped for various reasons, (the rap sheets of the victims, evidence that they actually were doing what the shop owners said, or simple lack of evidence), but the result is that in this area, blacks and Koreans have a history.

What this is all working up to is that I or anyone else could easily work the latest murder into a racial thing, simply by going out there and repeating that it was. Add in maybe a few assumptions, or even false statements, and you've got a racial crisis.

Or course, it was obviously a simple robbery, (the victim BTW was a cop in Korea, which is probably why he gave chase), but that would make no difference if you wanted to play this into a racial thing.

Personally, I think the Martin thing was simply a tragedy created by a series of wrong decisions on the part of both people. I can understand as a detached observer each of those decisions, and how each of them came to make them, but in practice, it got the results we know. Add in grief and malicious intent by others afterward, and a press looking for something juicy like a racial shooting of a black by a white, (never mind that he isn't white, and that the press simply lied about a lot of the details), and you have the whole mess today.

I think people really need to take a step back in these situations and wait for all the evidence to come out before pointing the racial murder finger. If Zimmerman's guilty of all of that, then so be it; he'll get his day in court. If not, more than one person's life has been ruined unjustly, in addition to the tragic death of Martin.

But where is that information coming from? Not your anecdote of blacks and koreans... but of Zimmerman and Martin? The sources I've been hearing and reading do not describe it that way. So.. are they lying or are the sources you're pointing to?

[achilles]

But where is that information coming from? Not your anecdote of blacks and koreans... but of Zimmerman and Martin? The sources I've been hearing and reading do not describe it that way. So.. are they lying or are the sources you're pointing to?

News reports the police confirm as accurate, largely. Which is about the only official word we have on the subject at this time. As for what those are based on, physical evidence and witness statements. The later I will note are contradictory when taken in their entirety. I simply think it would be best to wait and see which ones are correct before taking actions that can't be undone, though even if he's ultimately proven to be telling the truth, it's probably too late for Zimmerman.

[habitual]

Well now you've got a federal investigator and a signed affadavit from the original homicide detective saying Zimmerman should've been arrested for manslaughter.

Thinks don't look that great for the shooter.

Hab

[Cat-Scratch]

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/trayvon-marti ... 3Ou59mvl6I

Trayvon Martin Video Shows No Blood or Bruises on George Zimmerman

This video provider is not approved for embedding. Please contact the site administrator and request that it be added to the list.

A police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who says he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.

The surveillance video, which was obtained exclusively by ABC News, shows Zimmerman arriving in a police cruiser. As he exits the car, his hands are cuffed behind his back. Zimmerman is frisked and then led down a series of hallways, still cuffed.

Zimmerman, 28, is wearing a red and black fleece and his face and head are cleanly shaven. He appears well built, hardly the portly young man depicted in a 2005 mug shot that until a two days ago was the single image the media had of Zimmerman.

Police Video Surveillance of George Zimmerman

The initial police report noted that Zimmerman was bleeding from the back of the head and nose, and after medical attention it was decided that he was in good enough condition to travel in a police cruiser to the Sanford, Fla., police station for questioning.

His lawyer later insisted that Zimmerman's nose had been broken in his scuffle with 17-year-old Martin.

In the video an officer is seen pausing to look at the back of Zimmerman's head, but no abrasions or blood can be seen in the video and he did not check into the emergency room following the police questioning.

Zimmerman was not arrested although ABC News has learned that the lead homicide investigator filed an affidavit urging Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter. The prosecutor, however, told the officer to not file the charge because there was not enough evidence for conviction.

Zimmerman said he was heading back to his car when Martin attacked him. His lawyer, Craig Sonner, said his client felt "one of them was going to die that night," when he pulled the trigger.

Martin's girlfriend, who was on the phone with him in his final moments, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she has not been interviewed by police, despite Martin telling her he was being followed.

The 16-year-old girl, who is only being identified as DeeDee, recounted the final moments of her conversation with Martin before the line went dead.

"When he saw the man behind him again he said this man is going to do something to him. And then he said this man is still behind him and I said run," she said.

Phone records obtained by ABC News show that the girl called Martin at 7:12 p.m., five minutes before police arrived, and remained on the phone with Martin until moments before he was shot.

DeeDee said Martin turned around and asked Zimmerman why he was following him.

"The man said what are you doing around here?" DeeDee recalled Zimmerman saying.

She said she heard someone pushed into the grass before the call was dropped.

Zimmerman, who had called 911, was asked by the dispatcher if he was following the teen. When Zimmerman replied that he was, the dispatcher said, "We don't need you to do that."

Martin's death has sparked protests across the country and prompted President Obama to say that if he had a son, he would look like Martin.

Over the past few days, leaks have emerged suggesting Martin was dogged by discipline problems.

Martin had been slapped with a 10 day school suspension after a bag with suspected marijuana was found in his backpack, Benjamin Crump, the family's attorney, said.

Last year the teen was suspended for spraying graffiti on school grounds. The Miami Herald reported that the school guard who stopped him searched his backpack and found 12 items of women's jewelry and a flathead screw driver that the guard believed to be a "burglary implement." But Martin was never charged or specifically disciplined for the incident.

Crump alleged that the Sanford police had leaked damaging information about Martin in order to muddy the case, calling it a "conspiracy." Crump called the school disciplinary problems "irrelevant" to the case that "an unarmed 17 year kid was killed."

[habitual]

I just saw this video, he literally didn't have a mark on him, no bandages as well.

Whomever signed off on the police report has some explaining to do.

Hab

[dairydead]

I just saw this video, he literally didn't have a mark on him, no bandages as well.

Whomever signed off on the police report has some explaining to do.

Hab

If the scuffle was as short as its made out to be, its very likely the cuts werent that bad and taken care of fairly easily. I've (unfortunately) been in a few fights and had both parties walk away with, at worst, a bloody nose. Just because Zimmerman didn't get beaten to a pulp doesn't mean he wasn't attacked.

[e_galston]

If the scuffle was as short as its made out to be, its very likely the cuts werent that bad and taken care of fairly easily. I've (unfortunately) been in a few fights and had both parties walk away with, at worst, a bloody nose. Just because Zimmerman didn't get beaten to a pulp doesn't mean he wasn't attacked.

but they are saying that Martin broke Zimmermans nose... one would see the marks from that i would think after it happens right?