In the aftermath of the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, I have not been surprised by reactions. The media influence on the case has been destructive, false and sadly, long lasting. Many false assertions have been repeated by the media so often they’ve become part of The Narrative of the case that will never die. Allahpundit put it well:
Even progressive pundits who often employ reason, and who should know better, fall for the emotion-laden narrative, Kristen Powers for example:
Notice that Ms. Powers, a young woman with access to all of the information about this case, gets it entirely wrong. Zimmerman did not get into a fight with Martin, he was attacked by Martin and employed self-defense only at the last moment while he was being brutally beaten. I’ll address self-defense issues in the near future, but it would be hard to get the basic facts of this case–and the reason for the verdict–more fundamentally wrong.
Some, like this tweeter, are ridiculously misinformed:
Telegram?!
Just as his thoughtless comments fanned the flames of racial division at the beginning of the case, President Obama has weighed in yet again:
The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America. I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities. We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.
“The tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis?” Such as in Chicago where the overwhelming majority of those killed are young black men killed by other young black men, Mr. President? And like Ms. Powers, Mr. Obama gets the facts backwards. George Zimmerman is alive because he was able to protect himself against criminal assault with a firearm, just as two million or more Americans do every year. Honor Trayvon Martin? Even a cursory examination of his life, behavior and aspirations reveals a young man who was anything but honorable. Preventing future tragedies of this kind will require the abolishment of virtually every social program Mr. Obama champions, but of course, it’s so much easier to blame inanimate objects and to praise criminals.
A young man from Chicago whose sensibilities matched those of Martin spoke up:
One Chicago-area 15-year-old wrote on Twitter Friday: ‘If Zimmerman free imam shoot everybody in Zion causing a mass homicide, and ill get away wit it just like Zimmerman (sic); read the tweet from @Mark12394995.
And of course, one of the great moral pillars of our time, the Rev. Al Sharpton, did his best to call for calm and dignity:
Well, I think that this is an atrocity’ said Sharpton. ‘I think that it is probably one of the worst situations that I’ve seen. What this jury has done is establish a precedent that when you are young and fit a certain profile, you can be committing no crime, just bringing some Skittles and iced tea home to your brother, and be killed and someone can claim self-defense having been exposed with all kinds of lies, all kinds of inconsistencies. … Even at trial when he is exposed over and over again as a liar, he is acquitted. This is a sad day in the country. I think that we clearly must move on to the next step in terms of the federal government and in terms of the civil courts. Clearly, we want people to be disciplined, strategic. But this is a slap in the face to those that believe in justice in this country.
The NAACP, a once useful and proud force for true civil rights, demonstrated just how far that organization has fallen:
Today, justice failed Trayvon Martin and his family,’ said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the NAACP in a statement. ‘We call immediately for the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the civil rights violations committed against Trayvon Martin. This case has re-energized the movement to end racial profiling in the United States.’
‘We are outraged and heartbroken over today’s verdict,’ said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, in another statement. ‘We stand with Trayvon’s family and we are called to act. We will pursue civil rights charges with the Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the removal of Stand Your Ground laws in every state, and we will not rest until racial profiling in all its forms is outlawed.
The majority leader of the United States Senate also demonstrated the manifest deterioration of the “greatest deliberative body in the world”:
On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asked for the Justice Department to prosecute George Zimmerman, who was acquitted Saturday night in the killing of Trayvon Martin. ‘I think the Justice Department is going to take a look at this,’ Reid told NBC’s Meet the Press. ‘This isn’t over with and I think that’s good. That’s our system, it’s gotten better, not worse.’
Reid did acknowledge the verdict, stating, ‘I am a trial lawyer and have [brought] over 100 cases to a jury. I don’t always agree with what the jury does but that’s the system and I support the system.
Ah! So Senator Reid supports the justice system, which is why he calling for the federal justice system to override the decision of the Florida state justice system.
An AP reporter demonstrated the professionalism we’ve all come to expect from the legacy media:
After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges on Saturday evening, an Associated Press reporter, Cristina Silva, tweeted this out from her verified Twitter account: ‘So we can all kill teenagers now? Just checking.”
So we can all kill teenagers now? Just checking
— Cristina Silva (@cristymsilva) July 14, 2013
Update: Paul Colford of AP Media Relations has contacted Breitbart News to say: ‘Ms. Silva was a temporary AP staffer who hasn’t worked for AP lately. Thanks.’
Silva has since deleted her Twitter account, which was verified and noted she was with the Associated Press. Her last byline for the Associated Press was less than a week ago on July 9, 2013. In addition, as can be seen in her archives, she has written regularly for the Associated Press dating back to 2010, with at least eight bylines since May of 2013.
Furthermore, as can be seen on her verified profile at Muck Rack, Silva lists herself as: ‘Reporter, Associated Press.
Ooops! But she’s not alone. Paul Campos at Salon.com didn’t hold anything back:
How do you suppose the big scary black man’s claim of ‘self-defense’ would have gone over with a jury made up almost entirely of white women? But of course this is America, which means that the scary figure in this story is the skinny unarmed teenager, because in America pretty much any black male over the age of 12 in this sort of situation is going to be presumed to be the ‘aggressor,’ the ‘thug’ – in short, ‘the real criminal,’ until he’s proved innocent, which he won’t be, even if he’s now a dead, still unarmed teenager. And his killer is a grown man who provokes a fight with an otherwise harmless kid, starts losing it, and then shoots the kid dead…
Nothing above requires the conclusion that the jury’s verdict was wrong as a matter of law. Florida’s laws, in their majestic equality, extend to people of all races the right to engage in vigilante killing that eliminates the sole witness to that killing. To point this out is neither a defense of those laws, nor a claim that they will in fact be applied equally. In other words, to blame this jury in this situation is to miss the point.
“Vigilante killing.” George Zimmerman is one “vigilante” who received one of the most expensive trials in Florida history, a trial in which the judge gave the prosecution every legal advantage, and not a few illegal advantages, and they still couldn’t convict him.
Legal Insurrection provides additional insight into the thinking of the prosecution:
The State prosecutors, including the until recently rarely-seen Angela Corey, are currently providing interviews to the press, essentially re-arguing their catastrophically failed courtroom arguments. From this commentator’s perspective, they are simply in complete denial and/or in full-blown CYA mode, no matter how often they say they respect the decision of the jury.
It is also remarkable how frequently both Angela Corey and Bernie de la Rionda are explicitly re-affirming their support of the Second Amendment and self-defense–perhaps they sense the ‘seething rage, ill-will, spite, and hatred”’they may well have engendered among the community of law-abiding gun-owners and CWL owners in Florida.
Attorney Jeralyn Merritt at Talk Left ads:
Angela Corey is holding a press conference. She has her patient, reasonable tone, speaking slowly and with a smile.
Unbelievable: ‘We believe we brought out the truth about Trayvon Martin.” Translation: We respect the jury’s verdict but we still think our version, not the jury’s version, was correct.”
Right. And that’s the way to express respect for the jury’s verdict. Corey seems to forget that the verdict is the final word of the criminal justice system.
“If the jury agreed the state brought out the truth about Trayvon Martin and his actions the night of the shooting, it would have returned a different verdict.
Now she’s criticizing people with law degrees who opined against the state’s case, without reading all the police reports and witness statements. How about those of us with law degrees that paid hundreds of dollars to her office for a copy of the police reports, witness statements, photographs, audio and video recordings and more? And read every filed pleading, watched every hearing and the entire trial? Are we to be criticized too?
Bernie de la Rionda was gracious.
Richard Mantei looks like he hasn’t slept in three days. (Corey looks like she just left the beauty salon.)
She’s explaining why she thought the charges were justified. Will she explain why she didn’t allow the case to go to the grand jury? No. She just says the second degree murder statute covers an act or series of acts, and they think it was his series of acts that amounted to second degree murder.
The first hard question: Why did you go forward if you knew you couldn’t determine what happened that night? She tosses it to Bernie.
Corey: This case was never about race or the right to bear arms. We all strongly believe in the constitutional right to bear arms. But Zimmerman profiled Trayvon as a criminal. And if race was a factor in his decision to profile, we brought that out.
Bernie: He’s tried 80 murder cases and this is only the second one he has lost. He’s tried 15 self-defense cases.
I wonder why I’m having a hard time giving Corey and di la Rionda credit for sincerity about the Second Amendment? Could it be their tactic of falsely demonizing not only the proper way to carry firearms practiced by tens of millions of Americans, or perhaps their demonization of the most effective and proper defensive ammunition? Perhaps I’m just overly sensitive. And I’m so glad to hear about di la Rionda’s win/loss record, because this trial was all about him and his record, wasn’t it? What a pathetic little martinet.
Merritt also provided this on O’Mara and West:
Donald West
O’Mara and West at press conference. O’Mara begins by reading a letter he wrote to the Seminole County Sheriff before the verdict thanking him and the department for their excellent security and ensuring the process was peaceful.
Don West: The state’s actions were disgraceful.
West on the opening joke: It was a needed disconnect from the act the state put on in it’s opening argument.”
It appears this was a planned tactic, as I suspected. Interesting.
“O’Mara answer to a question about whether it was a fair fight. He needs to apologize to every public defender in the state for his comment that the state was treating the defense like brand new public defenders. They outfunded us, they made it extraordinarily difficult with discovery.
Question: What was the best moment: When the jury said not guilty.
What about future civil proceedings: We will seek and we will get immunity in any future civil proceeding.
Answer to question about race: If George Zimmerman were black, he would never have been charged with a crime in this case. This became a focus for a civil rights event, and use GZ to create a civil rights violation. Those people who decided to make him the scapegoat would not have done so had he been black.
As one might expect, a professional football player weighed in with dignity and gravity:
After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges on Saturday evening, New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz sent a threatening tweet that has since been deleted from his account.
He tweeted, ‘Thoroughly confused. Zimmerman doesn’t last a year before the hood catches up to him.
Mr. Cruz later thought better of his comments:
My tweet last night was my initial interpretation of the reaction I was reading on twitter,’ Cruz wrote. ‘I immediately realized my tweet was a mistake and I apologize, that’s why I deleted it. I believe conversation not confrontation leads to change and progress. I never have and never will advocate violence under any circumstances and I pray that we all encourage and educate each other…
I can only imagine how the potential loss of a multi-million dollar athletic contract can have a sobering influence on racial blatherings.
The Miami Herald actually had at least one rational story:
After five weeks of trial and 56 witnesses, few legal observers believed prosecutors came close to proving Sanford neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman committed second-degree murder when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin in February 2012.
So for many legal analysts, it was no surprise that jurors rejected even a lesser ‘compromise’ verdict of manslaughter, acquitting Zimmerman outright of all criminal charges and deciding he acted in a reasonable way to protect his own life.
The acquittal was a stinging blow for prosecutors and their decision to file the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman, who was not initially arrested by Sanford police after claiming self-defense. And it was a resounding embrace of the defense’s strategy during closing arguments not just to establish that prosecutors hadn’t proven Zimmerman guilty, but also to show he was ‘absolutely’ innocent.
‘Justifiable use of force is one of the most difficult areas of the law,’ State Attorney Angela Corey acknowledged Saturday after Zimmerman’s acquittal. ‘Make no mistake, Trayvon Martin had every right to be on the premises as did George Zimmerman … that’s what makes this case unique.
No Ms. Corey, what makes this case unique is your pressing it with no evidence, to say nothing of your serial malfeasance in the pursuit of the case. Is there any sign Ms. Corey might be ready to admit even the slightest error? Consider this from Fox News:
Angela Corey
State Attorney Angela Corey said after the verdict that she believed second-degree murder was the appropriate charge because Zimmerman’s mindset ‘fit the bill of second-degree murder.’ ’We charged what we believed we could prove,’ Corey said.
Ah! So Angela Corey is not only incompetent, she’s delusional?
An interesting–but hardly surprising–fact:
Many readers might be surprised to learn that 17-year-olds are almost 50 percent more likely to commit murders than 28-year-olds such as Zimmerman.
Consider this from the Washington Post, by Jonathan Capehart:
This case is not about race; this is about right and wrong,’ he [prosecutor John Guy] told the all-white jury of women. ‘What if it was Trayvon Martin who shot and killed George Zimmerman? What would your verdict be?,’ Guy asked. ‘That’s how you know it’s not about race.’
Whether we want to admit it or not, we know the answer to Guy’s question. If the verdict would be guilty for Trayvon if he were the accused murderer then it must be the same for Zimmerman. Now, we wait to see if the jury agrees.
It’s hard to decipher precisely what Guy meant, which was a matter no doubt familiar to the jury, but I suspect he’s trying to say that if the roles were reversed, Martin would be convicted because he’s black. Not so. Role reversal wasn’t the issue in this case; a complete lack of credible evidence was. The jury agreed with that.
Thus far, rioting and similar social activities have been relatively restrained, but not eliminated. Fox News reports:
In Oakland, police said about 100 people protested, with some among the crowd breaking windows and starting fires in the streets. As the protest eventually fizzled, the office of police information added that it had no word of any arrests as of 2 a.m. local time.
However, some Oakland marchers reportedly vandalized a police squad car, and police were — at one point – forced to form a line to block the protesters’ path.
The Oakland Tribune reported some downtown office windows had been shattered, and footage from a television helicopter portrayed people starting fires in the street and spray painting anti-police graffiti. Protesters, there, also reportedly burned an American, and California state flag and spray painted Alameda County’s Davidson courthouse.
I was disgusted to see Benjamin Crump, post-verdict–elevating Trayvon Martin to the status of a civil rights martyr, comparing him to Emmitt Till and Medgar Evers. Rich Lowry at National Review was equally unimpressed:
George Zimmerman is not a symbol of white America, or — to borrow the stilted phrase The New York Times used to refer to him in its reports — white-Hispanic America. The case is not about race relations. Incredibly enough, even the attorney for Trayvon Martin’s family now says, ‘We don’t believe the focus was really race.’
To the extent that the trial has any larger meaning, it is a tale of the left’s desperation to indict contemporary America as a land of rank racism, different in degree, perhaps, but not in kind from 1950s Mississippi. That’s where Emmett Till, to whom Trayvon Martin has often been compared, was brutally murdered for whistling at a white woman.
Mentioning Martin in the same breath as Till is an offense against history and common sense…
Justice, in the sense of a deliberate, lawful judgment consistent with the facts, was never the driving passion of the Zimmerman-haters. They wanted a racial morality play. If Trayvon Martin had been shot by another black person, no one would have cared. Al Sharpton wouldn’t have made him a cause. Lawrence O’Donnell wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. No one outside his immediate family and friends would have ever known his name.
Trayvon Martin’s shooting was an ideologically useful tragedy, and so the vultures did their worst.
The vultures are far from finished. More to come, soon.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
Outstanding analysis, as usual. Thanks for such a well written synopsis but reading this made my blood boil.
It’s simple… the elephant in the room that no one wanted to acknowledge is that if Trayvon had simply remained in the shadows until Zimmerman left, Trayvon would be alive today. He chose another path.
Excellent article! Thanks so much for all the time, and effort, and research that you bring to each and every one of your writings. I greatly appreciate you!
Why so serious? :) The Zimmerman Telegram bit was a joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
awesome catch. a little too distant of a reference for most of us to get. thanks for clearing that up.
Kevin, I figured it was a joke, too, but was unaware of the wiki article. LOL
Reblogged this on Justice For All and commented:
Mike McDaniel who has followed the Zimmerman case from the beginning has written an excellent recap of the post-verdict in the case. As always his insights on the case make it a must read for anyone that has followed the case. Once again, thanks again for all your efforts and putting the case and the proceeding in the right context.
Mike, the problem is that these same media people are spreading their lying message in other countries. I have caught Rene Stutzman out because an article of hers was published in the Sydney Daily Telegraph.
The article itself is full of slander because it repeats the lies about George being a vigilante (in big letters) and it sounded like it was an attempt to fan the flames of racial dissent. On top of that it had a picture of Trayvon Martin as a 12 year old, thus it was creating a totally false picture of the whole story.
In writing this article about the jury verdict, Stutzman has carried on the BGI narrative in a way that I consider reprehensible.
Reblogged this on A world at war.
Very well written, as always, and I appreciate what you said. I have tried to say this in different ways on twitter but you made much more sense of it than I did.
I see this sort of thing a lot, in communications from the U.S.A. It is essentially announcing that the people in that country literally do not know what honour is, and have substituted something else for it. By that I do not mean to knock them but to point out that we are not speaking the same language – even where British English and (say) Spanish are on the same page, as in the Spanish play El Médico de su Honra of a few centuries ago.
There is absolutely nothing about Trayvon Martin’s history to suggest that he was anything but honourable; he may or may not have been, but the record before us is silent on the point. He may or may not have been guilty of other forms of bad conduct or thinking, but those have nothing whatsoever to do with honour (which goes to show the limits of the concept of “honour”, but that’s another story).
Honour essentially – which means, having to do with what makes it what it is – only has to do with keeping one’s word. Killing prisoners who have surrendered is dishonourable, while killing people who are coming out with their hands up is not – if they have been told to stop and don’t (surrender cannot be unilateral, even though the completing elements can be provided unilaterally once the other side have accepted the conditions for it, as with people who have been rendered hors de combat; that applies to many claims of killing people who “have” surrendered – since their surrender was never accepted, it was only an offer of surrender). That also means that when (say) the Nazis committed genocide, that was indeed an atrocity – but it was not perfidious, i.e. a breach of an agreed obligation. Obligations can be incurred explicitly or implicitly, but the crucial point is that only you can incur an obligation that falls on you. Seeking to elevate genocide to that status, rather than treating it as a different kind of offence, detracts from what the concept of honour is for, a sort of lifting with your back instead of your knees.
Trayvon Martin was clearly a bad guy, but we know nothing of whether he was honourable or not, e.g. he never told Zimmerman he was free to go and then hit him while he was not looking. His known faults are of a quite different sort.
P.M. Thanks for the English lesson. However, according to the Oxford Dictionary, honour is not limited to telling the truth.
“2. The quality of knowing and doing what is morally right:
I must as a matter of honour avoid any taint of dishonesty.
dated a woman’s chastity or her reputation for being chaste:
she died defending her honour”
As for “honourable”, Oxford says
“adjective
1. bringing or deserving honour:
this is the only honourable course
a decent and honourable man
There is plenty of evidence that Trayvon was anything but honourable. But, if you want to limit the meaning to truthfulness, then the following statement would be applicable. “Trayvon demonstrated his lack of honour by not killing Zimmerman after telling Zimmerman, ‘you gonna die tonight, mother fucker.'”
I’m not sure why you exerted so much effort to limit the usual definition and connation of a well understood term. I think your view is overly restrictive, but we still get to the same place. “Even a cursory examination of his life, behavior and aspirations reveals a young man who was anything but honorable.”
Ally, Thanks for taking the time to set the record straight.
“We believe we brought out the truth about Trayvon Martin.” Translation: We respect the jury’s verdict but we still think our version, not the jury’s version, was correct.”
Would it not be more accurate to say: “We concealed as much as we could of the truth about Trayvon Martin”?
Speaking of Aftermath….
Here’s Robert….
Robert Zimmerman Jr: ‘What Makes People Angry Enough To Attack The Way Trayvon Did?’
How about…
Someone follows you in the dark.
On encounter, you ask them what is going on.
They don’t give a response that is any way helpful.
Their hand goes for their waistband. (This is what Zimmerman says he did and demonstrates in Walk-Through and interviews. His hand goes for his right hip when he talks of reaching for his phone. )
So:
HANNITY: Yes. You said he started from almost the beginning in that 911 call, you said he came towards you, and he seemed to reach for something in his waistband. Did you think that was a gun?
ZIMMERMAN: I thought he was just trying to intimidate me.
HANNITY: To make you think that there is a gun?
ZIMMERMAN: A weapon.
HANNITY: Of some kind?
ZIMMERMAN: Possibly.
Hmmmmm.
Perhaps the threat of a gun from a stranger who had followed you in the dark might not be quite sufficient to make you angry enough to attack them, but…
I put it to you that you would at the very least feel somewhat irritated.
Sling,
It is over. But maybe you can take comfort in knowing that unlike TM’s response to GZ, George did not violently respond to TM’s putting his hand in his waist band. You can feel irritated. I guess you now agree, TM attacked GZ for no good reason, except he was irritated.
Also, can we stop alleging that GZ pursued TM. I know that you said followed, but most people mean pursued when using that word in this case. I listened to pretty much the entire trial. There was no evidence introduced that GZ followed TM after being told “we don’t need you to do that.” And there was no evidence that GZ ever pursued TM.
Thanks.
Allyn,
Yes. It is over.
I am not surprised by the verdict. I was always horrified at the antics of Corey and BDLR. That’s the kind of bull excrement you get when the people with direct day-to-day control over the machine are elected as opposed to being professionals being monitored by the elected.
“There was no evidence introduced that GZ followed TM after being told “we don’t need you to do that.”
Physics shows that GZ was still in Twin Trees on “Are you following him – Yeah – We don’t need you to do that.”
The NEN recording shows that he didn’t even break stride. Perhaps his mind switched from ‘following’ to ‘not following’ as he continued onwards.
However. He was not following in the first place even though he said he was in the NEN. He only got out of the truck to find an address, he said later. He didn’t need to follow as he had already told the dispatcher that Martin was running down towards the back entrance – which is how they always get away. He didn’t even need to get out of the truck to be able to tell the dispatcher that. He saw it from the truck.
Well, Ok. Martin was not running. He was sort of moving quickly (Hannity Show)
While there might not be direct evidence of any following, there certainly is evidence of recklessness ( aka doing what “no reasonable or prudent person would do under the same circumstances” )
1) He went in blind into the dark “in the same direction as” ( aka ‘on the heels of’) someone that he claims had just circled his truck in a threatening manner with hand in waistband.
That’s reckless. Although maybe the ‘circling the truck’ bit was not actually threatening – as he didn’t mention it to the dispatcher despite being pressed at the same time to tell him if the guy did anything. Perhaps the circling was no more remarkable than MOM walking around the courtroom holding a glass of water.
2) He stayed in that dark area even thought he said in the NEN that he was aware that the the guy ( the threatening, circling one) could well be close enough in the dark to overhear his address.
That recklessness does not prove that he was following/pursuing though. It was just plain dangerous is all.
But then, there are those missing minutes after the NEN ended. Zimmerman has always claimed that he did not loiter – that he headed for his truck straight away.
In the trial, MOM knew that something would need to be said just in case the prosecution had the wit to illustrate the meaning of that significant time-gap that was not explained by anything that Zimmerman had ever said.
MOM offered a theory – a “what if”.
He suggested that Zimmerman might have been “looking around” for that time.He didn’t offer any theories as to what it was that Zimmerman might have been looking around for.
Apart from the question of what Zimmerman might have been looking for, there is the problem that Zimmerman has always asserted that no such looking around time ever happened.
Then we come to the undeniable fact that the call between Martin and Jeantal only disconnected after the confrontation began. This is precisely what Jeantal consistently says she overheard.
Martin’s earbuds were found rolled up in his pocket. This means that he was using the phone hand-held at the time. Curious.
And either way, what Martin sees as the two get near to each other is Zimmerman’s hand going for his waistband. Hannity (at least) clearly would interpret this as going for a gun.
Either way, it might have been helpful if Zimmerman had indicated that he was Neigborhood Watch. By his own story, he answered a challenge by saying “No. I don’t have a problem.” In the circumstances, that was inflammatory. Add to that the going for his waistband.
.
The only charge should have been manslaughter. A competent prosecutor would have gotten a guilty verdict.
Thanks.
Sling, there is no evidence that GZ ever left the North end of the dogwalk (the cut-through from TTL to RVC) prior to the physical confrontation.
You wrote “Martin’s earbuds were found rolled up in his pocket. This means that he was using the phone hand-held at the time. Curious.” – not true… photos at the scene show the earbuds beside TM head the wire threaded through his hooded sweatshirt.
Per Rachel Jeantels recorded statement to Crump Georges reply to TM confrontational question was “What are you talking about?” George was not hunting TM, George was surprised by the sudden appearance of the person he had just reported to NEN operator “he ran”.
Self defense is not a crime.
I stand corrected on the buds. I was going from a report on the items collected. Probably the EMTs rolled them up when attending to Martin.
That does not change the fact that the call was still open when the fight began. Somehow, Jeantal was awarre that this was the case.
Whether Zimmerman’s response to a challenge/question was “What are you talking about” , “What are you doing around here” or “No. I don’t have a problem” does not really matter.
What matters is that he had, even by his own story an opportunity to explain that he was Neighborhood Watch and thereby help defuse a situation.
He didn’t do that. All of the versions of his response could only have inflamed the situation.
Could Zimmerman claim to be surprised on seeing the person that he had recently reported to the dispatcher as “He ran”?
1) The last statement that we have from Zimmerman on this was on the Hannity Show. Zimmerman stated that Martin did not run. He said that he sort of skipped or moved quickly. Hannity queried this news about not running and Zimmerman confirmed.
Zimmerman added that he considered that Martin was “not in fear”.
The expection that the person *must* be gone is not reasonable.
This is particularly so as that person had apparently circled his truck in a very threatening manner before going around the corner “not in fear” and “not running”.
2) Over 2 minutes earlier, at 3:35 in the NEN call, Zimmerman had spoken his address out loud and then realised that the person could be close by in the dark. “Oh cr*p. I don’t want to give that all out. I don’t know where this kid is.”
i.e. Zimmerman unquestionably is aware that this person that he asserted as dangerous and threatening could be only feet away from him in the darkness.
In these circumstances, and particularly in the light of what he said on Hannity, seeing the person close by can therfore not be said to be much of a surprise.
In any case “I’m with Neighborhood Watch” would have been the the only sane thing to say in the circumstances – even if the other person did not say anything.
So self defence is not a crime.
Martin apparently put a question to Zimmerman.
It might have been “You got a problem Homie?”. It might have been “Why you following me?”
The response was not an explanation of why Zimmerman had tracked him in the truck, starting down near Taffe’s place and then in Twin Trees and now on foot in the dark central pathway area. An explanation was the only way to defuse a situation.
Any of the responses reported by either Zimmerman or Jeantal have exactly the same meaning in the circumstances.
They mean – ‘ Wut? Nothing is going on here. I just happen to be out for a stroll in the dark. My goodness gracious why do you even think to ask?’
In other words, Zimmerman is being all cute here.
Then his hand goes to his waistband.
Again:
HANNITY: Yes. You said he started from almost the beginning in that 911 call, you said he came towards you, and he seemed to reach for something in his waistband. Did you think that was a gun?
ZIMMERMAN: I thought he was just trying to intimidate me.
HANNITY: To make you think that there is a gun?
ZIMMERMAN: A weapon.
HANNITY: Of some kind?
ZIMMERMAN: Possibly.
That’s what Hannity thinks a hand going for a waistband in a tense situation means. Zimmerman appears to think the same way.
So back to Martin seeing Zimmerman going for his waistband – having tracked him in the truck and now appearing on foot in the dark pathway area – and not explaining what was going on.
This sounds to me like a situation where Martin would consider self defence was called for. Hannity and Zimmerman would clearly support him in that opinion.
So,Sling. Like I said. Other than criminal unhelpfulness, no evidence. Oh, and the felonious “shoulda known better than to follow the child who anyone should have known was dangerous” claim. by the way, Zim neversaid he lookeddangerous, just that he thought he was trying to intimidate. And since nobody knows when the altercation occurred, I’m not sure that we know when the phone disconnected in relation to the altercation. Just wanted to make sure I got that right.
Allyn,
You might not have picked up that (absent some dramatic evidence that we were all unaware of) I always considered M2 to have been ridiculous and overcharged.
I did not detect any racial/hate in Zimmerman’s actions.
My opinion was Manslaughter.
In this case I have pointed to Zimmerman doing what “no reasonable or prudent person would do under the same circumstances”.
I have pointed to how when the two encountered, even Zimmerman’s own account of what he said and did can only have looked to Martin as a serious threat.
The defence is not SYG and “no duty to retreat”.
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We do actually have very good timings on the phone calls and the altercation.
Will you accept the timestamps from MOM’s 10-foot-wide timeline?
I had wondered before the trial how he would deal with the times. He did put in the correct time. He had to. Unfortunately it forced him to admit the 2.5 minute gap after the NEN, but he glossed over that be suggesting that Zimmerman might have been looking around for some unspecified something.
Anyway, according to MOM’s timeline
The NEN ended at 7:13:40
The Martin/Jeantel call dropped at 7:15:43
Lauer’s 911 call *was picked up* at 7:16:11
The Event Report for the 911 call shows that the system detected the incoming call at 17:16:00 and that the dispatcher picked it up at 7:16:11
Work it back.
Laur had completed dialling and he call started ringing at 7:16:00
Before that a number of things had to happen.
She had to notice the noise – mute her TV – listen – decide that a 911 was apropriate – get to the phone – dial.
There was a delay in there – a problem with phones. She thinks maybe 30 seconds. This sounds reasonable – particularly considering the delay.
The fight was noticed by her about 7:15:30. It might have started a bit earlier.
It seems clear that Jeantel could have heard the leadup and beginning.
“Sling, there is no evidence that GZ ever left the North end of the dogwalk (the cut-through from TTL to RVC) prior to the physical confrontation.”
– indeed. I bet you can find lots of house numbers from that location.
Of course you are right RuleofOrder; on the Eastern end is 2861 RVC, on the Western end is 1211 TTL. If the arriving police called George as he requested they would have gotten one of those address’s entered through the correct gate and arrived in a timely fashion, quite possibly preventing the entire event. If.
Let’s be logical rather than point-scoring here.
Zimmerman says that he got out of the truck purely to get an address. You can hear him moving immediately on “He’s running”, so the decision to get an address just happened to coincide with seeing Martin turn down the central path towards the Back Entrance.
As he is getting out, the dispatcher asks “He’s running? Which way…?”
Zimmerman tells him. The dispatcher notes that in the Event Report so that responding cops get that info automatically and can head straight for the Back Entrance and possibly head off the suspect who by Zimmerman’s description is fleeing there to “always get away”.
The dispatcher never asks again about the suspect. He’s no longer interested. The cops take over now – at the Back Entrance.
Zimmerman is now walking East to RVC according to his story. No sign of the suspect – well, it is pitch dark there apart from John Good’s relatively dim porch light. “He ran”. The conversation turns to whether Zimmerman still wants to meet the cops when they arrive. Zimmerman attempts to give directions to his truck (again).
The dispatcher grows impatient and asks what address he is parked outside of – Does Zimmerman live in the neighborhood? – What’s his address?
See? The address being sought is not about where the suspect might be now or even where he had been. It’s entirely about an address for a meeting with the cops to talk to Zimmerman – even if that is in Zimmerman’s house.
Zimmerman does not know the name of Twin Trees. That is clear from his attempts to describe where his truck is.
The obvious place to meet the cops is the clubhouse/mailboxes. Zimmerman agrees to meet at the mailboxes.
This is rather strange from two angles:
1) He had got out of the truck to get an address – but found no street name to tell him the numbers right beside him are in Twin Trees. So he had decided *before* he set off down the path and past the T-junction to go to RVC for a house number.
2) According to his walk-through, he was standing on RVC – with clear view of house numbers – at the time he agreed to meet at the mailboxes. He could have given the address to the dispatcher there and then.
He suddenly breaks in at the last moment to change from a meet at the mailboxes to one of the cops ringing him to find out where he is at.
Where’s he intending to be?
At that spot on RVC? If so, why not give the address? He’s already standing there.
At where his truck is parked? No. He has twice failed to give directions to it.
At the clubhouse/mailboxes? No. He’s just changed from an agreement to meet there.
So where is he going to be?
At the end of the trial, MOM accepts that there are missing minutes in Zimmerman’s descriptions of what he was doing in the minutes following the NEN.
He offered a theory that Zimmerman might perhaps have been “looking around”.
Well, he certainly can’t have been walking for his truck immediately , as:
a) He had just changed from an agreement to meet the cops there (the mailboxes just beyond his truck in TT)
b) A walk to the spot where he says he was attacked would only take him 20 seconds, another 20 to his truck, with the mailboxes just beyond.
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“If the arriving police called George as he requested they would have gotten one of those address’s entered through the correct gate and arrived in a timely fashion, quite possibly preventing the entire event. If.”
By the time the police got near, Zimmerman would have been too preoccupied to answer the phone.
The only address that Zimmerman could have given them was the RVC one. He didn’t know the name of TT. There were only two possible places that Zimmerman could give to meet the cops – At a house number on RVC or at the mailboxes/clubhouse.
In the end, he left RVC but clearly did not walk immediately for his truck as he said.
In the absence of any statement from Zimmerman explaining the time gap, the best that MOM could do was offer a theory that Zimmerman might have been “looking around” for those minutes.
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As an aside We’ll not doubt get to talking about the jury process on the verdict soon(ish). Mike seems to be dreaming up a new post going by his comment to me (below somewhere) I found it interesting that in her interview afterwards, Juror B37 thinks that Zimmerman should not have gotten out of the truck and that he went too far. She does not seem to be one of the 3 that initially considered manslaughter.
Sling – It’s a shame you’re so stubborn because you seem smart enough to make intelligent contributions to the discussion, if you were so inclined. It is very clear that you came to a conclusion and have ever since worked very, very hard to find even the most minute inference, based on the often irrelevant minutiae, that may, when looked at through biased eyes, support your pre-formed conclusion.
Yes, I know you claim you didn’t do that but I think it’s more than obvious to most who actually take the time to read your lengthy musings.
This is why your posts are often met with derision and mockery, when answered at all. For example, you suggested earbuds rolled up in a pocket. We’ve all read you take a non-fact like that and then pile inference upon inference based on that non-fact. When your mistake is pointed out, to your credit, you generally quickly accede. However, you don’t recalculate once the basis of your presumed (because there is no evidence to support) fraction-of-a-second analysis is corrected. You leave all of those inferences based on false information as if the fact is unimportant, even though without it, whatever point you tried to make collapses.
These habits make reading your posts a waste of time which is why most here gave up trying to discuss the case with you.
Even now you’re using the same failed methods to prove nonexistent points, despite the verdict having been rendered days ago. Yes, it’s a shame you’re so stubborn.
“; on the Eastern end is 2861 RVC, on the Western end is 1211 TTL. ” — Zimmerman fails to mention both. My point, which you would rather not recognize, but its very harmful to your contention, is that if he never left the location you specify, he was never getting a house number to meet police at.
I did not read all of your points because you got it wrong on at least two occasions so I feel you really do not know all the facts of this case and I’m not going to waste my time correcting all your misinformation. But I will comment on two of your erroneous points.
George has said in his interviews that he did “follow” to see which direction TM was going as he had been asked by NEN operator and then when suggested he not do that his only mission from that point was to get the address the NEN operator had continually asked him to provide.
When he said he “skipped” away that was at one point, then he confirmed to the NEN a little later that he ran once he could no longer see him in the darkness. From reading others’ comments at the CTH blog, they provided YouTube videos on “skipping” and suggested that this is what GZ was referring to. I cannot remember the correct term, but it was more of a shuffle type, dance type, taunt type thing he was doing at GZ and then he probably trotted off. And when GZ got to the top of the “T” he was no longer in sight and that is when he confirmed that he “ran.” Just like when he said he “looks” black when asked his race by the NEN operator, GZ offers “he’s black” once TM comes up to his vehicle.
Dawndoe,
“so I feel you really do not know all the facts of this case”
I think that if you want to correct me, it would be wise to get knowledge of facts.
I will use some of my time to point you at source resources that you clearly have not reviewed.
Zimmerman wrote in his written statement “The dispatcher told me not to follow”.
The initial story from both Robert Z and lawyers was that Zimmerman was NOT following. He was simply “going in the same direction”.
The argument was advanced that one could not be defined as following if one could not see the person.
“Following” was the new f-word.
Be careful! If you emphasize Zimmerman saying one thing one time and something different another time, you may be in danger of getting people confused between Zimmerman, DeeDee and John Good.
Zimmerman saw the direction in which Martin was going while still sitting in his truck.
At this stage Zimmerman is still by his truck in Twin Trees. He does not need to go anywhere to be able to tell the dispatcher “which direction TM was going as he had been asked by NEN operator”.
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“his only mission from that point was to get the address the NEN operator had continually asked him to provide.”
Clearly you have not listened to the NEN.
At the time Zimmerman got out of the truck, the dispatcher had NEVER asked for any address. The only location mentioned was the clubhouse.
Zimmerman had – without being asked -started to give directions to his truck. That was interrupted by “Sh*t. He’s running”
It is only AFTER Zimmerman has got out and got into the central pathway area that the question of an address comes up. The sole reason for an address is for a meetup with the incoming cops. The dispatcher would even settle for Zimmerman’s home address. It’s purely for a meeting. Is has nothing whatsoever to do where Martin had been or might be. Listen to the NEN
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“When he said he “skipped” away that was at one point, then he confirmed to the NEN a little later that he ”
You clearly have not listened to the NEN. He says “He’s running” when he sees (from his truck) Martin disappearing down towards the back entrance. Later, when he is up in the pathway area, he says “He ran”.
“Skipped” only happens in the Hannity Interview, in which he surprises Hannity by insisting that Martin had NOT run. “Skipping” is the new “running”.
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“From reading others’ comments at the CTH blog, they provided YouTube videos on “skipping” and suggested that this is what GZ was referring to. I cannot remember the correct term, but it was more of a shuffle type, dance type, taunt type thing he was doing at GZ and then he probably trotted off.”
Oh dear oh dear!”
Really. Instead of reading comments on the CTH blog, try reviewing original material. Also view the video of the Hannity Interview.
Start with the NEN for this one.
Hear the dispatcher say “Just let me know if he does anything, ok?”
The dispatcher is saying this because Zimmerman is describing Martin coming at him with hand in waistband and something in his hand.
Your CTH commenters suggest that Martin then does “a shuffle type, dance type, taunt type thing”.
“Just let me know if he does anything, ok?”
I imagine that the dispatcher, having been told that a suspicious person who is walking up to check Zimmerman out with his hand in his waisband and something in his hand is going to so something else, like for instance “a shuffle type, dance type, taunt type thing”.
What do you hear on the NEN?
You hear Zimmerman sounding calm and talking about a*holes getting away and starting to give directions to his truck.
He does not describe circling/shuffling/taunting. Not even a simple circling – nevermind a shuffling/taunting one.
A number of seconds pass before he reports Martin “running”. The number of seconds correspond to the number of seconds that a person at a *walking* pace would take to get from the truck position and up to the T before turning right to go “down towards the back entrance”.
Check out the Walk-Through video. In this, he doesn’t mention circling either.
“Just let me know if he does anything, ok?”
Listen to the NEN. The question is purely in the context of Zimmerman saying that Martin is approaching him with a hand in his waistband.
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Please.
Before you set out to lecture me on facts, review the original material.
I would suggest to you that commenters on CTH should not be your first port of call on this. They might be just a tiny bit biased. Your “shuffle” commenters are definitely divorced from reality.
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Also, it’s a waste time talking to me about a racist angle.
I have never seen this as a racially-motivated incident.
Just to add to that, I have never seen any element of premeditation in it.
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I apologize in advance if this comment comes across as a tad testy.
However, if you listen to the NEN, view the Walk-Through and the Hannity Interview – you might understand my irritation.
I have listened to original recordings, seen GZ’s re-enactment, watched the Hannity interview, read GZ’s statement, police reports, etc. Some of them I’ve viewed, listened to and read multiple times loooong before I discovered the CTH. The skipping info I got from CTH is totally plausible.
Huh?! I was in no way inserting race. I was making a point as to how GZ says he’s running (later clarified as skipping away), then later confirms he ran, just like when he says he “looks” black and then confirms he “is” black. Just that he is re-affirming something. I was not inserting race into the equation. Good grief!
During the NEN call GZ may not have said that TM circled his vehicle but that doesn’t mean that TM didn’t circle it or do something like that, but he definitely says he came up to the vehicle and you can hear the concern/fear rise in GZ’s voice when he says, “Just send an officer” and the NEN guy says with a little rise in his voice that “an officer is on the way” (all paraphrased) and I can hear where GZ seems to be turning his head as though TM had circled or semi circled his vehicle and he was keeping his eye on him as he did it. GZ’s fear dissipated when TM was no longer at his vehicle.
As to the address issue I will just re-post my comment. I never implied that GZ’s sole purpose for exiting the vehicle was to get an address. I said it then became his mission. And I’m sure he was still keeping an eye out for TM.
I said, “then when suggested he not do that his only mission from that point was to get the address the NEN operator had continually asked him to provide.”
My point was that he did not continue to follow TM down the “T” he continued across the top of the “T”.
I would venture to say that GZ felt relatively safe since he could not see TM and I suspect he thought he was long gone, but just in case, he was going to be cautious and not give out his phone number.
I do apologize for my tone and for not completely reading your post because I “may” have misunderstood your point. I do not feel GZ was as reckless as you seem to think he was. In other words, GZ was not reckless in the sense that he committed manslaughter. He was only reckless to the point of his own safety, not TM’s. Had TM been truly afraid of GZ then he would have stayed home once he made it there safely and doubled back to attack GZ. GZ never believed he would encounter TM.
Respond if you wish, but I will not return to this thread.
Trying to keep this one short because I’m in a good mood…
The term “skipping” did not arise until the Hannity Interview – about 6 months after the events.
It is the term that Zimmerman used to describe the pace at which Martin suddenly disappeared “down towards the back entrance” and prompted Zimmerman to say “Sh*t. He’s running”. The delay beween Zimmerman’s ‘high-piched’ and “running” clearly indicate a normal walking pace for Martin from truck to T.
Yes. You definitly hear the concern in Zimmerman’s voice. He is so concerned that he speaks over the end of the dispatcher’s “Just let me know if he does anything, ok?” Because he has been interrupted – because Zimmerman is not letting him know what the guy is doing – because he can hear Zimmerman freaking, the dispatcher moves to calm Zimmerman “Yeah we’ve got someone on the way, ” and repeats “just let me know if this guy does anything else.”
Some people take the two requests from the dispatcher and misrepresent them to maen two completely separate commands to keep an eye on Martin – even if that involves following. In reality it is one instance of trying to get Zimmerman to tell him about the approach that the suspicious person is making to Zimmerman.
Listen to teh NEN and pay attention to the timings. There isn’t time for a full circling of the truck between Zimmerman fairly calm. “Yup, he’s coming to check me out, he’s got something in his hands, I don’t know what his deal is” and Zimmerman calming down after his freaking out.
It is very difficult to accept that Zimmerman would not report such a circling.
However,
If a CTH-type shuffle/dance/taunt thing did take place then this was indeed a threat to take note of. THis would be especially so, because when Martin disappeared he was NOT running. Zimmerman is insistent on this in Hannity. Also Zimmerman on Hannity says that Martin was “not in fear”.
If your CTH commenters are right, and Zimmerman is telling the truth about the pace and lack of fear on Hannity, then it would be absolute insanity to get out of the trucj and walk blind at that dark corner around which this extremely threatening person has sort of skipped and not in fear. Totally reckless to do that!.
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“I said, “then when suggested he not do that his only mission from that point was to get the address the NEN operator had continually asked him to provide.”
Yes you did say that, and if you had listened to the NEN, you would know that the dispatcher had not even asked him for an addreass even once at that stage, nevermind “continually”.
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“but just in case, he was going to be cautious and not give out his phone number.”
You very clearly have not listened to teh NEN.
Zimmerman speaks out his address. You hear him do it if you listen to teh NEN
THEN…
“Oh cr*p. I don’t want to give that all out. I don’t know where this kid is”
Having walked blind after the CTH’s skipping/dancing/taunting thug, he only then comes to his senses and we hear (in the NEN) his realisation that the CTH’s skipping/dancing/taunting thug might be close enough to hear him.
In the truck, he rolled up the window and freaked at Martin’s approach. Now that he’s out in the open, and regrets having spoken his address out loud, he hangs around. He’s completely defenceless from this CTH skipping/dancing/taunting thug who might well have a weapon in his waistband and who might be close enoug in the dark to hear him. Completely defenceless!! He had completely forgotten that he was carrying a gun.
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“He was only reckless to the point of his own safety,”
Now you are getting the idea.
Had he not been reckless, none of this would have happened.
The events were a direct result of his recklessness.
He had options.
“he would have stayed home once he made it there safely”
You know he made it there how?
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Well, OK.
Hand’s up. I admit it. It wasn’t VERY short, but it could have been a lot longer :)
“He was only reckless to the point of his own safety,”
You are getting dangerously close to “disregard for life” (of someone else) – particularly if he was aware of having a gun.
Sling,
I can’t believe I am replying to this, but here goes.
““He was only reckless to the point of his own safety,”
Now you are getting the idea.
Had he not been reckless, none of this would have happened.
The events were a direct result of his recklessness.
He had options.”
He had options rather than putting himself in a situation where he might have to defend himself. I agree. But that is not a crime. That is probably why the jury instructions limited the considerations as to only the fight. Nothing else matters. Repeat: Nothing else matters.
Sling,
You make a big deal about George’s reply. TM had 4 minutes to think about his situation. I dont think it would have mattered one bit what Zim’s reply had been. Should George have just been straightforward and said, “yes, I’m concerned that you are on drugs or something, that you are acting suspicious because you appeared to be wondering aimlessly, in the rain, looking in the windows of residents.” POW! Or perhaps, “yes I do have a problem. I’m with neighborhood …” POW!
Or, “yes I was trying to see where you went so I could tell the police when they arrive.” POW!
During that 4 minutes, rather than run, skip, walk, stroll or crawl home, TM decided to prepare for battle. He took his skittles and watermelon cocktail out of the sack and put them in his pockets in order to free his hands in case that creepy ass cracker goes for a gun, he would be ready.
In the words of MOM, “really? Really?”
Allyn,
…… Alternatively, what a real street thug would do:
Take the skittles out of the bag to keep them safe.
Safe?
Yup. When he swings that heavy drink can in the bag to knock the creepy guy out, the skittles won’t get crushed.
He waits in the dark right outside Lauer’s heavily-screened porch until creepy guy appears. POW! with the can in the bag. It’s like “rock in a sock”.
When did that stuff come out of the bag? It’s a big bag. Zimmerman would have noticed it as Martin passed “within a car length” and supposedly circling. He did report “something in his hand”, but this does not seem a reasonable description of something as obvious as a 7-11 bag.
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“in case that creepy ass cracker goes for a gun”..
A gun? Whoa! Definitely use the “rock in a sock” and wait at the corner and get him from behind as he passes.
Whatever the ambush point, DO NOT, but absolutely DO NOT give him even the slightest warning. If you want to discuss problems, you definitely wait until he is downed and then you say “Homie, you have a problem”.
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Alternatively, Martin slows down after he gets off the street and away from the truck that’s been tailing him. He can now concentrate totally on the conversation with the girl.
According to MOM, Zimmerman was probably looking around for something in the minutes after the NEN call ended. He made a great stunt about nobody knowing what Martin was doing for minutes.
Maybe Zimerman found something after his minutes of looking around? You know – the minutes during which nobody knows what Zimmerman was doing?
Sling,
I concede the timeline but would like to know whether the call was ended or was just another dropped call. I had thought that was info they could tell. Once upon a time, if you reconnected a call after it was dropped, your 1st minute was free, automatically.
I also believe that TM no more expected Zim to be armed than did Zim think TM was armed not withstanding TM’s attempt to intimidate. So, we have two people. One (Zim) following or not following but certainly on the look out for the other, and the other (TM) who was either scared and running or not scared and kind of skipping, whom you now suggest can’t walk home and talk on the phone at the same time. It was still raining, for which he was so concerned that he covered his head with a non-waterproof hoodie, decided to hang around in the rain for what must have felt like an eternity, when he was maybe 100 shuffle steps away from home after losing the nigga. The same can be said for Zim who was in the rain for several minutes but no evidence to suggest (much less prove) that he ever strayed far from the top of the T.
And as you point out, it didn’t dawn on him that the suspect might be near until he told his address, realizing he didn’t know where he was means he could be anywhere in that darkness.
While the law firmly disagrees, I am willing to allow that a punch might be appropriate if TM thought Zim was going for a gun. But, continuing the beat down and not stopping or asking for help when Good came out, would have defeated his self defense claim had the outcome been reverse. But we don’t have to speculate about the validity of TM’s defense. He attacked (rightly or not) and was shot dead in self defense. The prosecution claims that every variance in Zim’s multiple tellings of the story were lies, lies. many commentators have suggested that Zim’s story was tailored to put himself in the best light. The police had zero problems with the differences in his accounts. On the other hand, if TM had told DeeDee he was gonna teach that creepy ass cracker a lesson, do you think she would tell us that?
Allyn
I doubt very much that the call was activly ended, since the fight must clearly have been in progress at the time it ended.
I suppose Jeantel could have ended it, but eh end result is the same – that she coud have heard the leadup and the beginning.
We don’t know anything about what was actually happening in that fight – other than Martin apparently being on top for the short time that John Good observed them. It seems that he was probably leaning over Zimmerman when the shot happened.
Good could not see hands. The best he could do was to say “downward arm movements”
Lord alone knows what he maeant by that. I hesitate to guess, give that his vertical was horizontal and standing was prone.
I was intriqued that neither MOM nor BDLR asked him to explain what “downward arm movements” actually looked like – perhaps by demonstrating.
They could have bee upward or sideways going by his vertical//horizontal.
I have a suspicion that both MOM and BDLR decided to leave it like that.
MOM afraid that these movements would turn out to be unlike a punching motion, and BLDR afraid of the opposite.
We don’t know if Zimmerman had actually drawn his gun. If so then Martin would have been trying to stop him. If so then no amount of Good saying “stop it” would make him stop.
While Zimmerman claims totall recall of the high-point in the fight but little or nothing of the beginning, I would guess that both of them were over the edge at the time. There would be no logic. It would have been primitive emotions.
We only have Zimmerman’s word for how exactly the fight went on.
We have DeeDee telling us that she heard something, but she certainly saw nothing.
“On the other hand, if TM had told DeeDee …whatever…., do you think she would tell us that?”
How about:
“If Zimmerman had done something that he thought would look bad for him, do you think he would tell us that?”
Both DeeDee and Zimmerman have credibility issues.
ItsMikeNotMake made an insightful remark about DeeDee a while back – before we saw her in court. He opined basically that she didn’t care for anybody much. I think he was right. She has little or nothing to gain from lying about what she heard. She strikes me as a lone feral.
There’s little or nothing known that helps us determine culpability in the fight – if you put it in a closed box and ignore the lead-up.
“While the law firmly disagrees, I am willing to allow that a punch might be appropriate if TM thought Zim was going for a gun. ”
If by “the law” you mean the jury decision – if they even considered such a thing, ok in the event.
If by “the law” you mean the general law concerning self defence I think you might be in error. Are we expected to wait until we is absolutely positive that the person has drawn a gun? Are we to wait until we are absolutely positive that the person intends to use it? This would seem to be leaving things a bit late.
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My position on a manslaughter charge is based on the known actions immediately before the fight. A reasonable or prudent person would not have gone in blind into that dark place in the circumstances and most certainly would not have stayed when it dawned belatedly on them that they had no guarantee whatsoever that ‘the suspect’ might be close by in the dark.
I don’t see Zimmerman as the evil monster that some portray.
I think he’s an incompetent person who messed up bigtime. He was reckless and compounded that error by his reaction when he encountered Martin.
On top of that, he is clearly lying about his time in that central area.
It was left to MOM to suggest that he might have been “looking around” during the missing minutes. Zimmerman has always denied any delays in there.
I really have strong doubts about the “circling” story.
If it happened, it happened just as the dispatcher had asked him to report on what Martin was doing.
Why does any of that matter? A short skirt may attract the wrong kind of attention, but it does not make rape consensual. Similarly, Trayvon had no right to attack Zimmerman for asking a question or seeming to follow him. None.
Once Trayvon started into the full ground & pound, the previous events lost relevance. Zimmerman was defeated – if Trayvon stopped and then went home, he would alive, though probably in jail for battery.
You have absolutely no way of knowing who initiated violence other than chosing to believe Zimmerman.
If Martin struck Zimmerman first you have absolutely no way of knowing why he did.
Ignoring what DeDee said that she overheard, we do possibly know one thing about the beginning – if we believe Zimmerman when he says and demonstrates in Walk-Through and interviews that he put his hand to his waistband and that Martin then punched him.
HANNITY: Yes. You said he started from almost the beginning in that 911 call, you said he came towards you, and he seemed to reach for something in his waistband. Did you think that was a gun?
ZIMMERMAN: I thought he was just trying to intimidate me.
HANNITY: To make you think that there is a gun?
ZIMMERMAN: A weapon.
George was observed by TM using his phone, in the gated, private community on a public path, reaching for a weapon is not the most likely explanation.
This was not a public access place filled with possible hooligans, while TM entered illegally, the person in the vehicle was an obvious resident of the neighborhood.
Martin seems to have noted that the guy in the truck was using a phone.
We don’t know if he could see Zimmerman in detail as he crossed the path West to East and on a call. It was really dark there. Apart from any light from Zimmerman’s failing flashlight, the only other light source seems to have been John Goods back porch light – which was about 50 feet away.
Hannity’s question to Zimmerman did not mention a phone. It mentioned a gun. This was because of the circumstances in which the “hand in waistband” was observed.
If I was walking down the street and saw someone put their hand to their waistband, I would not consider that they were reaching for a gun. A phone would be reasonable.
If I had been followed by truck and having left the street then found myself in a dark place facing the driver, and he did not explain himself in answer to my query, I would assume a gun.
There is a cardinal rule in dangerous situations.
If someone wants to take control of you via threat, you do NOT allow them to take control. Once they have control, they can do anything they want with you.
I’m pretty sure that in that situation, I would have attacked the guy. I can’t run faster than a bullet.
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Martin was staying in the neighborhood as a guest of a resident.
He entered at the unfenced NW corner of the gated community. According to Frank Taffe, this route was the normal pedestrian route used by residents.
To say that Martin “entered illegally” is to display a very transparent attempt to artificially smear him.
Two points regards ~your~ reaction, first you still ignore the location on private property, second that according to both GZ and RJ it was Trayvon that confronted the man (a resident) with a question and then punched him as he reached into a pocket per GZ statement. Where was the actual threat?
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No actually it is not “the normal” * pedestrian route (that it was used as a shortcut into the adjacent community aside) the area was marked no trespassing on the “Colonial Village” side and that the RATL HOA had neglected erecting a fence until months after the shooting, continued as a sore spot for many residents.
There is a pedestrian gate located beside both entry gates, had TM used either he would have removed one obvious point of suspicion.
*(if you have a FT quote in this regard I would like to see it)
Aghast,
Two videos related to Taffe and that route:
The YouTube urls are without the http, etc. and won’t be clickable. This is because
– Mike doesn’t like the automated screen still that gets generated in the comment, and
– Only one link per comment is allowed – as I remember
youtube.com/watch?v=kvHLnN4UAUU
Between 0:47 and 0:54 in this you can see people walking through that unfenced NW corner into the area. This is before the fence went up. That’s a lot of foot traffic just during the short time the camera is there. To describe their activity as “illegal entry” is perhaps stretching thing a bit.
Taffe pops up then to give a tour- but not about the NW corner in this one.
In this he says that Zimmerman told him that he began the call while parked in Twin Trees and facing the clubhouse – and that Martin approached him from the clubhouse (i.e. from the mailboxes).
However, Zimmerman’s walk-through video released after that has the call starting at the front of the clubhouse, with Martin passing him there, and Zimmerman then following him into Twin Trees.
The benefit of the video is that you get a feel for the layout.
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I can’t find the video where Taffe specifically says the route is normal, but I do have the one where he says the route is the quickest route, and makes no noises about it being illegal or a problem. He also acknowledges that the route is the only one that Martin could have taken if he did not have a key.
youtube.com/watch?v=oNUHIAVWJG0
At 1:20 in that, Taffe is at the now fenced area and describes it as “the quickest route”. His only beef with Martin using that route is that he is under the impression that Martin should have taken the southern route from there down RVC and then via Long Oak Drive to get home. He makes a big deal about the Northern (clubhouse) route being way longer.
That route is in fact only 120 feet longer – about 30 seconds at a normal walking pace.
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“There is a pedestrian gate located beside both entry gates, had TM used either he would have removed one obvious point of suspicion. “
No so.
At 10:15 in the video, the two are discussing the whys and wherefores of Martin’s route in.
Taffe says the pedestrian gates are “locked coming in, but open going out”. He then acknowledges that without a key, Martin would *have* to use the informal unfenced route past his house.
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While on the topic of that route and how Zimmerman first saw Martin, there is something interesting in the Hannity interview:
HANNITY: Weren’t there overhangs, though? Was he — he was walking, he wasn’t standing still? And he was walking closer to the house, which is back from the sidewalk?
He seems to be suggesting that the reason for Martin to be walking close to the houses was to use the overhands as shelter from the rain and he moved along. This would look just like someone ‘looking into houses’.
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That second video is a very interesting one for getting a feel for the layout, the distances and the times to walk them for the entire sequence of events on the night – right up to the fight, .
They go inside the clubhouse at one stage and discuss the positions of the CCTV cameras that picked up lights of passing vehicles.
The two of them wonder if Martin used the footpath behind the houses – that would have taken him directly through the path between the clubhouse and the pool area – and right into the mailboxes.
One thing that should strike anyone watching the video is the walking time from Taffe’s to the clubhouse. Zimmerman says he stopped there to observe Martin and then drove past him to start the NEN call at the clubhouse front.
Looking at the layout, this would mean losing sight of Martin – which would be a very odd thing to do. Unless…if Martin took that footpath “behind the houses” towards the clubhouse, then Zimmerman would have lost sight of him anyway.
Taffe has a story that Martin circled the truck both at the clubhouse front and in Twin Trees. He also thinks that Martin sheltered in the mailboxes – but that would be impossible in the timeline if he passed the truck at the clubhouse front during the NEN as Zimmerman describes in the walk-through, but not in the NEN.
Re: The Pedestrian gate, a picture says a thousand words – you know the drill; flickr.com/photos/81587998@N06/8462135577/in/set-72157632740930083/
there are many more photos in the accompanying sets see those referencing the neighborhood.
Re: shelter beside the home rather than looking in? again a photo v. video clarifies any ambiguity:
flickr.com/photos/81587998@N06/8449925318/in/set-72157632703088529
FT has never referenced the shortcut as “the normal pedestrian route” (it was Austin’s sister that made that inference) that newsvideo found persons using the route does not make it a legal point of egress. Finally and most important Taffe was not a party to the events of 2/26, his opinion is just that and nothing more.
God that tweet by Kirsten Powers hurts. I really like her and find her very reasonable except 1-2 times. This is one of them. She should have done proper research (I’m sure she is busy with other issues but if you comment on this in public you should cover all your angles and learn basic facts) -I doubt she even watched case for long, she knows bias exists and it’s sad she is mixing up gun violence etc with basic SELF DEFENSE. If he had no gun, George would be dead! This was a rail road job. Just glad he had smart Lawyers O Mara/West/etc who exposed the truth even if idealogues will never understand.
Tkink of it another way.
If Zimmerman didn’t have a phone – or had stayed on the NEN call (i.e. didn’t have to reach for his hip), Martin would still be alive.
Concealed Carry Phones ( CCP ) might have been the real problem there.
that’s garbage. that’s an assumption on your part that cannot be backed up by any facts. you have no evidence that martin would not have attacked Zimmerman anyway.
Zimmerman clearly says and demonstrates that his hand went for his waistband on encountering Martin. He might have been going for a phone, but Martin would simply have seen him going for his waistband.
Zimmerman says that when his hand went for his hip, that Martin punched him.
On the Hannity Show, both Hannity and Zimmerman agree that “hand in waistband” indicates gun/weapon in tense situations.
You have no evidence that Martin would have punched Zimmerman anyway.
I can prove martin wanted a confrontation. he had a history of fighting and aggression. he was under the influence of a drug that causes people to commit crimes and get paranoid. he had ample time to go home, but instead he CHOSE to circle back around to confront Zimmerman. he was recently thrown out of his mother’s home because his aggression and disobedience was too much for her to take. he expressed anger at Zimmerman on the phone before the confrontation.
the only reason why this was a tense situation was martin’s creation of a tense situation. martin wanted a fight, Zimmerman didn’t.
reaching for a cellphone is not starting a fight. telling someone they have a problem now and punching them is.
All your 4 points on Martin, I can match for Zimmerman:
1) Zimmerman has fighting and aggression in his history. He is the only one of the pair that had actually been arrested for physical. Also check out his time as a bouncer.
2) He was taking medication for a mental condition. His condition and medication have side effects such as sudden mode swings and even aggression.
3) He chose to follow into the dark after a person that he perceived as dangerous.
He chose to remain there even when he realised that the guy might not have gone.
He always claimed that he was returning directly to the truck, but the timeline proves that that he lingered for about 2 minutes. Faced with that, MOM suggested that Zimmerman might have been “looking around”. Hello? For what?
4) Zimmerman expressed anger on the phone before the confrontation.
Martin was returning from the 7-11. He was not a local burglar casing houses.
He saw Zimmerman in his truck stopping to eyeball him ater he entered the community by the informal pedestrian route that even Frank Taffe says is used by everyone.
He saw Zimmerman in his truck waiting at the clubhouse and eyeballing him.
He saw Zimmerman in his truck follow him into Twin Trees.
He saw that Zimmermna had followed on foot into the dark pathway area.
That’s a tense situation – entirely caused by Zimmerman tracking Martin in the truck and then coming into the pathway area.
Zimmerman could have defused that by talking as Martin passed him while he was safe in the truck. Zimmerman chose to wind up his window – which in the circumstances of his obviously tracking Martin was in itself inflammatory.
Zimmerman could have attempted to defuse the tension by explaining he was NW – both at the truck and particularly on the encounter.
Zimmerman chose not to explain. By his own account he answered “No. I dont have a problem”. This was the polar opposite of ‘defusing’.
Zimmerman then reached for his waistband.
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“Reaching for a cellphone is not starting a fight.”
It might not be if you announced to the other person “I am reaching for my phone now”
In all of the circumstances listed above, what Martin saw was a stranger who had followed him reaching for his waistband.
Hannity and Zimmerman both agreed that reaching for waistbands in such situations indicates a gun/weapon.
Zimmerman might well have been reaching for an itchy spot under his waistband to scratch it, but no observer would be able to know that.
What Martin saw was what Hannity would understand to be someone reaching for a gun.
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If it’s any guide to you, 3 of the jurors initially considered that Zimmerman was guilty of at least manslaughter. One of the 3 thought it was M2 but then changed to manslaughter.
It was only after they were given some guidance on technical jury instructions that they reduced to not guilty. There was a problem with the jury instructions as West had managed at the last moment to get a particular instruction deleted.
Had the prosecution being focussing their efforts on manslaughter rather than crazy M2, it is probable that Zimmerman would have been found guilty.
Zimmerman did not have fighting and aggression in his history.
Zimmerman was not under the influence of a drug that causes people to commit crimes and act paranoid.
Zimmerman did not choose to follow someone. he was asked by the dispatcher where trayvon was and the only way he could respond was by getting out of his vehicle.
multiple witnesses confirmed that Zimmerman did not express anger when he talked before he was attacked. you cannot just make things up and call them facts.
a police dept investigated Zimmerman and found no crime. the fbi investigated Zimmerman and found no crime. a jury tried Zimmerman and found no crime.
deal with it.
“Zimmerman did not have fighting and aggression in his history.”
Assaulting an ATF officer. Barring order. Bouncer losing it. Giving a work colleague a hard time
“Zimmerman was not under the influence of a drug that causes people to commit crimes and act paranoid.”
Zimmerman has a condition that causes people to act strangely.
He was on medication that is intended to moderate that condition but which in turn can have its own undersirable effect on his acts.
Sudden mood swings and agression are not uncommon.
“Zimmerman did not choose to follow someone. he was asked by the dispatcher where trayvon was and the only way he could respond was by getting out of his vehicle.”
“We don’t need you to do that” (follow)
“He’s running – which way – down towards the back entrance”
Zimmerman saw all of that while still sitting in his truck. He says he saw Martin going out of sight down the central pathway. “Running” was the pace up until the Hannity interview, when it became “skilling/faster_than_walk”. He relayed this to the dispatcher while getting out of the truck. He is very clear that the reason that he got out of thetruck was to get an address. Even though he said “Yeah” to “Are you following him?” he was only going in the same direction – to get an address on RVC.
multiple witnesses confirmed that Zimmerman did not express anger when he talked before he was attacked. you cannot just make things up and call them facts.
“These a**holes, they always get away – F**king ****s” Listen to it yourself on the NEN recording.
a police dept investigated Zimmerman and found no crime.
Admittedly sloppy forensics. Interviewing officers on the night telling people what happened. Singleton getting the wrong time for the NEN call from the County Sheriff’s office and so not realising that there was a 2.5 minute gap between the NEN and the 911 – when Zimmerman was claiming no delays.
the fbi investigated Zimmerman and found no crime.
FBI were not investigating the merits of a murder/manslaughter case. They were checking for a racist motivation.
a jury tried Zimmerman and found no crime.
Yup. Based on the way BLDR shouted garbage combined with restrictive jury instructions.
he didn’t assault an atf officer. some ALLEGED that he assaulted a police officer, and the charge was DISMISSED. once again, you are just making things up. you will never win an argument by passing off your assumptions or unproven allegations as facts. you are either ignorant or dishonest. multiple eyewitness testified that HE DID NOT SAY THE PROFANITY IN ANGER. your entire post is a fictionalized, twisted, made up version of the facts. you are living in a dream world.
He took the equivalent of a plea deal on the ATF thing.
In return for not getting a criminal record, he entered a formal diversion program. He did not walk away from it.
The extent to which his father judge might have facilitated this deal is unknown.
The ATF thing happened.
Part of his defence was that he asserted that the plainclothes ATF officer did not identify himself.
This is very ironic when you consider that both at the truck and on the encounter, Zimmerman chose not to identify himself.
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“multiple eyewitness testified that HE DID NOT SAY THE PROFANITY IN ANGER.”
Some people listened to the recording afterwards. They did not witness him by eye or by ear at the time.
You and I are as well qualified to listen to that recording. I hear the words and the tone.
You assert that Martin expressed anger in his call. Do you have a recording? You are depending on your own interpretation of the veracity and judgement of Jeantel for your assertion.
If Jeantel is the standard that you use for assessing anger then the only fair thing to do is to ask her for her opinion on whether or not Zimmerman is expressing anger in “These a**holes” and “f**king ****s”.
Sling, you are a gifted although often verbose writer, why do you continue to misspell defense?
Sling, A few points. I don’t believe it was an ATF officer, as those are Feds. Minor issue, granted, but it was most likely the equivalent of what we have in Texas, which are TABC Officers (Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission). Talk about wanna be cops! My understanding is that Zim saw his friend being drug out by unidentified individuals. George put his hand on one of their shoulders and he was arrested for assault, a charge that was quickly dropped to a misdemeanor for interference. Bottom line here, he was coming to the aid of a friend and was not violent.
You keep saying that Zim reached into his waistband. I don’t remember that. My recollection was that he reached into his pants pocket, where he normally keeps his phone, but it wasn’t there, as he had put it in his coat pocket. I understand why you keep saying otherwise, as Zim had said that TM had reached into his waistband in an effort to intimidate and you are trying to say George was doing the same.
At one point you say TM slugged Zim because he thought he was going for a gun because he reached to his waistband but then you say we don’t know who struck first. Huh? So Zim is reaching into his pocket with his right hand and simultaneously taking a swing? I don’t think so.
You also keep referring to Zim not trying to talk to TM from his car. Why would he. He had never confronted a suspicious person. His not saying something here follows that pattern. He even said on one of his prior calls that he didn’t want to (don’t remember the exact term) interface with a suspect.
And then there are all the “ifs”. How about this one? If the police at school had turned the evidence of a crime they found in his possession, maybe TM would have been in jail, rather than in Sanford that fateful night. Or at least, facing charges, with an order noy yo leave the county.
Allyn.
The particular type of officer isn’t material. I understand that the officers were in plainclothes. It was an underage-drinking bust. ( Corruption of minors whiff for those knowingly drinking with them I think. )
“George put his hand on one of their shoulders and he was arrested for assault, a charge that was quickly dropped to a misdemeanor for interference”.
That would be defined as an assault. He laid physical on the officer. He could just have asked – although guys hauling out a number of underagers in connection with a drinking establishment should have been a clue.
If you follow news reports on some of the things that cops do, you’ll see people up on charges for a lot less than putting a hand on a cop’s shoulder. Some people don’t do well in getting out of such charges. Maybe they don’t have connections – like maybe a father …etc.
The real reason that I remember the ‘ATF’ incident is that “The officer didn’t identify hinself as such” was offered in mitigation.
Given that Zimmerman, even by his own account, made no attempt to identify himself ….this is very ironic. You’d think that his experience of the ‘ATF’ matter would have taught him the value of people identifying themselves.
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As to reaching for waistbands, look at Zimmerman in the walk-through and interviews describing both phone and gun. He acts it out. His hand goes to his hip for both phone and gun. We see that in full light and it looks the same. To an observer in a dark place, it’s definitely the same. In the particular circumstances on the night, “gun” is a reasonable conclusion.
Who goes for a phone in such an encounter?
My point about teh ‘hand to waistband’ is not to say for certain that Martin punched Zimmerman because of that particularly.
We don’t know.
We don’t know for instance if Zimmerman put his hand on Martin’s sholder.
There were no witnesses.
To be sure, Zimmerman ended up with injuries, but that does not prove who started it.
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Zimmerman not talking to Martin at the truck?
“He had never confronted a suspicious person”. Yup. He had never walked up / caught up to a suspicious person and engaged them in conversation.
This time the suspicios person walked up to him.
He was safe in his truck from any attack. This is a completely different situation from any previous.
He says that he rolled up his window to avoid a confrontation. But…
Any confrontation in that case would have been a conversation. If the person intended to attack the truck, they were going to do it anyway.
Had Zimmerman chosen to speak to Martin then, none of this would have happened.
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He wanted to avoid a confrontation.
THen he gets out and goes blind at the dark corner around which the suspicious person had disappeared. On Hannity he says that the person was not running and not in fear. This increases the odds of the person being close when he himself gets to the corner – *particularly* if the person might have circled the truck.
Having got there, he clearly says in the NEN that he is aware that the suspicious person (who may or may not have just circled his truck – depending) could be close by.
He wanted to avoid a confrontation – and that was even when he was safe in his truck.
The person may well be close by in the dark. He clearly realises this now. He is out in the open and unprotected. He has completely forgotten that he has a gun.
What would any reasonable and prudent person do in those circumstances?
Juror B37 thinks he should not have got out of the truck in the first place.
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You propose “if’s”?
If Zimmerman had been convicted of assaulting an officer. He might have had difficulty in obtaining a CCW, and Martin would be alive.
Your contortionist abilities are noted. The authorities did not believe George assaulted the alcohol enforcement guy who was under no obligation to identify himself. Yes, it was a mitigating factor for George’s interference. If George had violently punched the guy, (ala TM style), I would bet the charge would not have been reduced. George was not an authority and there is no evidence that him identifying himself as someone who was concerned but had no authority would have made a bit of difference. To assume it might, requires you to explore TMs attitude that evening, his history, whether he relished the thought of a fight, the reason he hung around for 4 minutes (or why he circled back), etc. Punch George violently, you go to jail. Follow me so far?
I don’t care what you say, reaching into pocket is not grounds to violently attack someone, whether they are following you or not. If you don’t like it, call the police; get a restraining order; but if you violently attack, you go to jail.
Being 90 seconds behind someone does not presume confrontation. Realizing the suspect “might” be near, is not the same as expecting him to be near.
Can you attribute any bad act to TM during this entire evening? You make excuse after excuse for his actions. And you cherry pick George’s various tellings based on his memory of what turned out to be the most traumatic night of his life to try to support your telling of the case. Remember, the professional investigators had no problem with the differences. They expected differences. I don’t need you to enumerate them. One night I was stopped at a light. A white truck came towards me, nearly head on. I leaned away from the drivers door, he adjusted course and side swiped me, knocking off my mirror and doing damage to the side of the car. He didn’t stop. It was quite unsettling as I thought he would hit me head on. As soon as traffic cleared the intersection, I u-turned to see if I could catch him. I wasn’t even sure that the truck was white by now. Recollections change during such an event. It is grossly unfair of you to expect otherwise. The basic facts I remover well. How long it took me to get turned around? Not at all sure. How long did I spend trying to chase him down? 3 minutes? 7 minutes? 10 minutes? Not at all sure.
Just to follow up on the waistband/gun thing….
Zimmerman says that he thought that Martin saw the gun as he shimmied.
This is not possible for three reasons
It was really dark. The only light was Good’s porch light, which only illuminates the porch area. It would only very dimly light the pair about 20 feet away.
The gun is dark metal. It’s inside the waistband. It’s only 0.8″ wide. We’re talking about a 0.8″ x 4″ strip of dark metal in deep darkness. It’s facing away from the only light source (faint) and shadowed by the trousers and belt.
It’s also behind the hip.
He didn’t see it.
Given its very slim profile (lightest and smallest on the market – designed for Concealed carry – no bulge – it is most unlikely that he felt it against his leg…particularly as it was behind the hip.
So…
If Zimmerman is accurate and Martin put his hand down to take the gun (“You gonna die tonight MF” – C’mon….. )
How did Martin suspect a gun?
Perhaps he saw Zimmerman’s hand going to his waistband?
This would be after Zimmerman had followed him in the dark and not explained either at the truck or when asked on encounter.
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Did I mention that Juror B37 thought that Zimmerman should not have got out of the truck? And that the went too far in his actions.
“…the reason he hung around for 4 minutes ”
How about the reason that Zimmerman hung around for 3 minutes?
MOM offered a theory that he might have been “looking around”.
MOM didn;t go as far as to suggest what he might have been “looking around” at in the dark, cold and rain.
These are not ideal conditions for checking if the mamagment company have cut the grass and hedges properly.
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“Being 90 seconds behind someone does not presume confrontation. ”
2:07 Zimmerman “Sh**. He’s running”.
2:42 ((The background wind/movement noises die down)) – Zimmerman has eith ceased his fast walk or he is out of a wind tunnel formed in the ‘corridoor’ beween the side of Laeur’s condo and teh backs of teh RVC condo’s opposite. He has arrived into the central pathway area 35 seconds after Martin.
Zimmerman/dispatcher start a conversation about names., numbers, meeting the cops and where.
The peson that he is just 35 seconds behind has the following characteristics:
Suspicious – on drugs or something – up to no good.
Walked right up to him (fer chrissakes!!) and eyeballed him with hand in his waistband – indicating at teh very least a weapon on Hannity – but might perhaps have been bluffing – no way of knowing then.
Might have circled the truck with threatening body language. This not reported to the dispatcher despite the dispatcher asking him to tell him if the guy does anything. Was reported later.
Was NOT running – more skipped or moved quickly. NOT running and “not in fear”.
There are good reasons to suspect that this person might not be half-way to the back entrance by now. The actions described sound like someone not at all afraid and actually aggressive.
“Realizing the suspect “might” be near, is not the same as expecting him to be near.”
Zimmerman speaks out his address. And then..
“Oh cr*p. I don’t want to give that all out. I don’t know where this kid is.”
This suggests a very real sense that the kid might indeed near. It’s a bit stonger that some vague infinitesmal possibility.
“Oh cr*p!” Oops!! Shouldn’t have done that!
Whatever about the prudence of getting out of the safe truck. Staying exposed in this area is clearly wildly imprudent.
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The professional investigators missed out on one of the key factors.
Singleton asked the County Sherrif’s Office for the timestamps of the calls. She was given the wrong time for the start of Zimmerman’s NEN. She used that in her written timeline. It cut 1 minute 38 seconds from the gap between the NEN and the first 911.
It left her looking at Zimmerman taking 40 seconds to take a walk that should have taken only 20 seconds. That’s not significant.
She was not aware that the ’20 second walk’ would have taken 1 minute 58 seconds.
MOM suggests that Zimmerman might have been “looking around” during the gap.
Zimmerman is silent on the matter. We don’t know what he was doing.
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Can I attribute any bad act to TM during that entire evening?
Sure.
He could have attacked Zimmerman as described.
We don’t know. There is no way of knowing as there were no witnesses.
I float possibilities, probabilities and logic to counter the certainties of those who insist that Martin “doubled back” and attacked Martin – based on nothing more than Zimmerman’s say-so.
There’s a very nasty “-ism” associated with this case.
It’s authoritan-ism.
I never saw a racist M2 in this case.
I saw manslaughter.
That is based on Zimmerman’s clearly reckless and stupid actions leading directly to a completely unnecessary death.
The fact that he is clearly lying doesn’t help him either.
Lies – Not delaying in there – Almost certainly lying about circling. – Lying outrageously on Hannity.
You say “sure”, you can attribute some bad acts to TM and then say, “he could have attacked.” That’s it?
I’m not interested in this conversation any more. Under our theories of justice, Zim was always innocent. There was not adequate evidence to disprove Zimmerman’s claim of self defense. Self defense works for murder2 and for manslaughter. I’m quite aware that you have a better handle on the facts than the Sanford police, the Seminole prosecutor, the state prosecutors, the jury and everyone else. But the jury found him innocent of all charges, notwithstanding what 3 thought on the initial vote. Am I aware that one juror thought George should have stayed in the car? Yes, I am. She was the same juror who felt George’s heart was in the right place and ended up having to defend himself from his attacker after screaming for help for some 40 seconds.
I hope you find the inner peace that you need.
“Under our theories of justice, Zim was always innocent.”
Correction. He was *presumed* innocent.
“Self defense works for murder2 and for manslaughter.”
No.
Not if the “initial aggressor” instruction is given to the jury.
The jury can’t just go off willy-nilly and drem up a verdict.
The are given a pile of whatever evidence was submitted and allowed.
Most importantly they are give a set of Jury Instructions. You might have seen the discussions if you watched that part of the trial.
The lawyers on both sides argue out the standard instructions to be given and variations of wording within them.
The process is that they are told basically ‘These and only these are the legal definitions you will run the evidence past in order to come to your verdict’.
At the very last moment, the defence suceeded in getting the “initial aggressor” instruction removed.
This meant that the jury were not allowed to consider the lead up to the fight.
The 3 jurors who had though manslaughter or worse found that they could only consider the fight itself.
Reasonable doubt (in those limited circumstanes) ruled.
“that one juror thought George should have stayed in the car”
To be accurate. One juror said that. The others have been silent AFAIK.
Given that she was on the ‘not guilty’ side from the get go, this implies that at least 4 of the 6 thought that he should have stayed in the car.
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I return your good wishes and hope that you will find the inner peace that you need. :)
“George Zimmerman is alive because he was able to protect himself against criminal assault with a firearm.”
And that’s where I stopped reading. it saddens me that people feel the need to revert to such blatant, filthy lies to hammer their little point home.
it’s not a lie. it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The only firearm in the equasion was his. So it’s been “proven” (by six unschooled nincompoops you call “jury”) that he used his firearm to prevent himself from being assaulted with it? That requires serious brain gymnastics. What a complete load of crock. Was the NRA paying these morons?
It is desperately unfair to blame the jury for anything.
They had a really difficult task to face and in difficult conditions.
They were dumped into a very unfamiliar world of legaleze.
I have no doubt but that they did their level best in the circumstances that they were presented with.
rob, you idiot, he was a victim of aggravated assault. eyewitnesses saw him getting beaten and heard his screams. the jurors saw his injuries and heard the medical examiner testify his head had been slammed onto the concrete at least six times. he didn’t start the fight. he ended it. and he did it in a legal manner. deal with it.
Rob,
“George Zimmerman is alive because he was able to protect himself against criminal assault with a firearm.”
I think you misunderstood what was meant. It was not well structured. I believe the commenter meant to say “George Zimmerman is alive because he was able to protect himself with a firearm against criminal assault.” Mike can correct me, but I think the prepositional phrase was misplaced.
It is a fair supposition, but we don’t know if Zim would be dead but for the legal, defensive action that he took. But since you can die from head slams to the ground (ignore the concrete) which would leave little if no external injuries, I agree with the witness who said that after 45 seconds, George had no other options.
Rather unsurprisingly …… ;)
Forgetting for the sake of the argument all the options that he had up until he ended up on his back 40 feet South of the T…
He appears to describe the moment of that shot very lucidly.
Got wrist control.
Got the gun.
Made sure that his own arm was not in the way.
He shot just slightly off centre and straight back to front. He would have to very conciously move his hand in to line it up.
It does not sound at all like a quick panicky shot.
Why not shoot to disable? I admit the centre body mass would carry less risk, but still.
That classic centre body mass is really an aiming point for distances greater than close quarter.
.
What was he doing with his hands when he says that Martin was using both hands against him?
His MMA trainer says that Zimmerman sucked at it, but surely he picked up *something* from those training session?
Dear Allyn
I do not, outside the classroom, generally correct anyone’s grammar, particularly unbidden. I consider it bad manners. But since you raised the issue, you’re correct. The proper formulation is as you wrote it. This is a common error to which I often fall prey as compound/complex sentences come easily to me. Fortunately, it rarely interferes with understanding.
And you’re also correct that believing Zimmerman had no other option is inherently reasonable given the circumstances.
The author of this is “indeed” informed. I guess the accused’s only recourse was to kill. Sadly, we never will know the truth. One of the parties is dead, the other alive. Truth is the world is a funny place. Every action has its consequences which are metted out by nature. Time will tell. Cheers!
Just to concentrate on the “Aftermath” theme of this thread….
Mike refers to his blog as “scruffy little blog”.
So by comparison, my mini-blog that I created as a repository for my thoughts on just the Zimmerman/Martin thing must be a “very scruffy miniscule blog”.
SInce I created it about a year ago, it had been averaging maybe 20 to 40 visits a day. No big deal.
In the Aftermath………
Since the verdict, I’m seeing 500 a day and climbing.
There are 14 separate pages in the blog, but the site logs show that the vast majority of visitors that come via Google land on
http://zimmermanscall.blogspot.com/p/the-call.html
The logs show me that the seach terms that brought them rom the search engines there are all about the timelines of events and the transcript of Zimmerman’s call.
I’m also seeing a growing number of references to “gap” in the search terms.
This is an unmistakable change in activity following the verdict.
This (relative) upsurge in interest in a specific aspect indicates to me that with the verdict matter settled, inquiring minds are discounting all the distractions and drama of the racial cr*p and are now reviewing the core material.
A civil suit that does not have BDLR shouting about hatred and murder could go badly for Zimmerman.
Dear SlingTrebuchet:
I’ll be writing about this in greater detail soon, but a CNN interview of a juror does not support your conclusion. The jury decided the case on the testimony and evidence, whatever they may have thought of the buffoonish di la Rionda. That evidence will not change, in fact, in a civil case, far more evidence devastatingly negative to Martin will likely be introduced.
Hi Mike,
I didn’t intend to imply that the jury was influenced in its decision by buffoonery.
What I meant that the focus on trying to prove M2 and the attendant nonsense put forward as a replacement for actual evidence took resources away from the manslaughter aspect.
Had a competent prosecutor taken up manslaughter alone, I am certain the core evidence would have been presented very differently.
As you might note from a comment I made just a bit above this one, I don’t doubt that the jury did a good job under the circumstances.
Their request for quidance regarding manslaughter indicates that the verdict was not a slam dunk.
They were faced with a pile of evidence so extensive and apparently so messily piles that hey had to ask for a list of what they had.
They had to deal with complex jury instructions.
One thing about those instructions was that the defence had managed to get the “initial aggressor” instruction removed.
If the question can only be decided *solely* on the seconds of the physical struggle, then “reasonable doubt” must indicate a not guilty verdict.
If the question of Zimmerman’s prior actions and what a reasonabl person in Martin’s point of view can be considered, then the decision is not so simple.
I have no doubt but that a civil suit would have all sorts of information flowing about all sides.
Just to supplement that with a paste of the comment that I referred to
…… and some words from juror B37
It seems that 3 of the 6 came from the trial and thought that Zimmerman had some culpability, but that was the ‘spirit’.
The ‘system’, largely in the form of the restrictions placed on them by detailed Jury Instructions overrode the ‘spirit’.
Additional to that, I hold that the opportunism of Corey and the buffonery of BDLR ensured that the manner of presentation of the evidence that they chose to present lessened the possibility of its meaning being understood.
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