Posted on 04/16/2012 12:33:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The state of Florida has charged neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman with second-degree murder for shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman will defend himself by claiming Florida law allowed him to "stand his ground" against Martin's threatening behavior.
Evidence of what really happened is scant. Martin is dead, and no eye witnesses saw the encounter. A 911 recording casts doubt on Zimmerman's account, but the Florida law will make it hard to get a conviction.
It's hard to believe under the circumstances that a large armed adult had to shoot an unarmed teenager in self-defense, but the extra layer of justification provided by the ridiculous "stand your ground" law invites this sort of mayhem.
The law, passed at the behest of the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights promoters, gives people the broad right to use deadly force without having to retreat from a fight. It gives a decided edge to someone like Zimmerman, who hauls out a gun and eliminates an adversary. In defense, he need only show "by a preponderance of evidence" he was acting in self-defense to get a judge or court to deny a second-degree murder conviction.
Many observers think prosecutors made this relatively tough charge expecting it to fail, moving the onus to the court.
The basic culprit in this and similar cases is the law itself. Unless indisputable video or eyewitness evidence exists, proving self-defense is easy. Martin and Zimmerman did meet face to face. Who is to say which one was trying to "stand his ground?" Even without anything beyond the evidence at hand, a reasonable person would conclude the big, adult neighborhood watchman confronted the teenager.
That this is a "white on black" killing injects a toxic racial overtone. If Zimmerman walks, the surrounding black population might erupt; but regardless of race, the law is misbegotten. The only justifiable defense in such cases is "self-defense" without the legal encouragement for deadly force. Since hardly ever will evidence to the contrary clearly exist, shooters are almost always assured of protection under the law.
In a perverse sense, it's too bad the black kid was the victim instead of the shooter. If the killing had been black on white, the white public might be more eager to recognize the paucity of the "stand your ground" law, a sad but true indication of continuing racial bias.
In an earlier day when white vigilantes threatened black people, nobody proposed a "stand your ground law." Today the law tends to cast the likes of Trayvon Martin as a predator in an interracial encounter. If the killing had been black on black, would the "stand your ground" law be in play?
How in the world are they going to get a decent (fairly unbiased) jury for Mr. Zimmerman’s trial?
“A 911 recording casts doubt on Zimmerman’s account”
I stopped reading at that point.
Don't know about that, but we've got a black man who shot and killed a white man over here in Tampa, and he's using the SYG defense. No decision yet.
This shooting was last fall, and the story has gotten very little play, even locally.
Hey, George went back to being white!
Everyone in this country should feel shame looking at this picture...every one of you.
I pray that the charges are dropped, and that Zimmerman sues the pants off Sharpton and the other race baiters and collects enough money to live safely in a foreign country.
The "large armed adult" was 5' 9". The "unarmed teenager" was a 6' tall football player. As for being armed, that didn't help until Zimmerman pulled the trigger. Assuming that Trayvon attacked Zimmerman and posed an immediate danger of inflicting serious bodily harm, pulling the trigger was both legal and exactly the right thing to do.
Police report: “While I was in such close contact with Zimmerman, I could observe that his back appeared to be wet and was covered in grass, as if he had been laying on his back on the ground. Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and back of his head.” It's going to be unimaginably difficult to prove anything other than self-defense.
Excuse me—why should I feel shame looking at that photo?
The writer doesn't say how, because he can't.
It's hard to believe under the circumstances that a large armed adult had to shoot an unarmed teenager in self-defense
Zimmerman is not a "large" man. Trayvon in his bulky hoodie would have towered over the much shorter Zimmerman.
The basic culprit in this and similar cases is the law itself.
The basic culprit was Trayvon. If you take a swing at someone asking you why you are in the neighborhood, and break his nose and then jump on him and try to crack open his skull on the sidewalk, then the person you are attacking has the right to defend himself.
Even without anything beyond the evidence at hand, a reasonable person would conclude the big, adult neighborhood watchman confronted the teenager.
More MSM dishonest spin about the "big" Zimmerman. The MSM lie painting this as a much bigger grown man shooting down a young boy appears to actually have tainted witness accounts of the event, as I discuss in this post.
Where’s LaRaza and similar organizations? Seems like they at least would speak out about the sharpton/jackson lynch mob. I wonder what the Spanish/Latino radio stations are saying - are they in Zimmerman’s corner?
The author is the former editor and publisher of the Columbia Daily Tribune?
I spotted three factual errors in the first three paragraphs!
>>>That this is a “white on black” killing injects a toxic racial overtone.
If Zimmerman is white, so is Dear Leader.
And the author seems to think that getting your nose busted and having your head smashed repeatedly into the concrete by a larger, more aggressive stranger who is on top of you holding you down, is “threatening behavior”-well,I would like to know his/her definition of a beating??!!
Or is it only bad “behavior” when the aggressor is a black teen and the threatened is a “non-black”?
Threatening behavior makes it sound innocuous and something that you need to go to Anger Management classes for....when in reality, anytime you start banging someone’s head on the concrete while holding them down, is really an attempt to maime that person....or kill them.
There is no other outcome if the aggressor is not stopped somehow..and Zimmerman, like anyone with the urge to live, did what he had to do to protect his one and only head/brain/life...
Pure conjecture and hyperbole ...
Hey, isn’t the guy in the foreground of the picture the Florida chad counter from 11 years ago???
You comment can be interpreted in two completely opposite ways.
Did you mean, “Unjustly Accused.”
Or, “Zimmerman’s Guilty.”
They tossed him under a bus right away. Zimmerman is no longer “Hispanic.”
In a free and just country; this man would NOT be standing there in handcuffs. We should be ashamed of ourselves for letting it get this far...
Good catch, could also be a relative of Henry Waxman
Unjustly accused.
This article deserves a barf alert.
Well, yeah. FTA:
... it's too bad the black kid was the victim instead of the shooter.
He sure looks similar. Any one got the original picture to compare?
Did you notice it’s in backroom?
“The Race” threw him under the bus < 1 week after the story broke.
He’s sounds like a lib-dem *turd polisher*...
http://www.columbiatribune.com/staff/hank-waters-editor-and-publisher/
...cranking-out 1-2-3 “editorials”/day, for-pay:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/staff/hank-waters-editor-and-publisher/stories/
I’m ashamed of our ‘leader’ who gave his nod of approval for injustice to proceed by his first coming out and adopting trayvon DESPITER the FACTS that were coming otu at the time showing trayvon was NOT the sweet little angel the media was tryign to falsley make him out to be, and hten later when our ‘deaqr leader’ refused to weigh in on the case pretendign to ‘be above it aqll’ AFTER he had already set the raqcist injustice in motion!!!
Amen.
They are not and that is the plan, From start to finish it will be a kangeroo court.
“The basic culprit in this and similar cases is the law itself.”
Trayvon is the only culprit in this case. And he paid dearly for his attack on George.
Kind of hard to retreat when you are on your back being beaten to death.
The other culprit in this case is Mr. Waters, and other like him, who are murdering the truth with this type of screed.
We are all Zimmerman. Long live Zimmerman!
Gotcha—and I agree!
Color me unreasonable. Martin had height and being on the football team to Zimmerman's weight so that's a wash. If Martin had headed straight home rather than backtracking to confront Zimmerman with "You got a problem? Well, now you do" as he punched him in the nose and proceeded to pound the sidewalk with his head, he might be alive today.
The glasses, watch and hairline may be the same....but does this guy have the bug-eyes of that famous counting judge?
I dunno....he could have been a central Florda volunteer who assisted the Broward (Dade?) county election officials to help out with the tallying in the Gore recount fiasco.
The original photo is on an FR thread titled "Kerry: I'll Fight for Each Fla Vote". I don't know how to post a link here. Maybe someone can bring that old thread up and post the pic here.
Leni
Zimmerman stands in chains while Jon Corzine walks around free as a bird.
I hasten to add there is no evidence thus far that Trayvon was taking drugs - but before we assume that Zimmermann had a strength advantage, we might just want to wait for the toxicology reports. Conversely, if Zimmermann was high on something it could explain why he would "stalk" and "attack" a teenager - which some allege, and which appears to make liittle sense.
That's why, silly me, I like evidence first, judgement after.
Well yea, duh. You can't be surprised when a nation becomes corrupted from the Prez down to the janitor.
Sent to editor@columbiatribune.com :
“Henry J Waters III is a complete fucking moron. Either that or a race baiting far left POS. I’m not sure which. That may be the most disgusting one sided and patently false account of the Zimmerman/Martin shooting I’ve seen yet. You should be ashamed of yourselves but I suspect you’re actually proud.”
Good luck with that.
Fat Albert has a nasty history of not paying judgments against him.
By not getting to the point of needing a jury.
The case can be dismissed by showing that there is no evidence of “mens rea” (to wit: guilty mind), and to the contrary there is evidence of justified self defense (injuries consistent with being a victim of assault); if there is nothing which could be construed as evidence of the charges, there is no point in convening a jury to evaluate that non-existent evidence.
Remember: it’s “innocent until proven guilty”. If there’s nothing which anyone could construe as proof of guilt, he’s deemed innocent.
A competent lawyer should be able to pull this off (assuming Z _is_ in fact innocent) notwithstanding the “stand your ground” law.
“Have the toxicology reports come out yet?”
It would be interesting to see this info, but if the “pro-Zimmerman” narrative is correct, no drug-induced aggression was needed. Adrenaline and landing a heavy sucker punch to the nose provide enough edge to win most fights. The text message Martin had received, “I didn’t know you swung on no bus driver,” indicates prior experience with slugging authority figures he didn’t like. Is there any info on that incident out there? Was the driver hit in the face? (Apologies that this is off topic, but the linked editorial is too mendacious for comment).
Henry, your account of th Zimmerman shooting sounds like you got the script from NBC. No witnesses. I heard there was one or possibly two. One said they saw Trayvon on top of Zimmerman pounding away. The audio being portrayed as Trayvon screaming is weak at best. You sound just like the Leftists who jumped to a LYNCHMOB conclusion in hopes to score political points painting Zimmerman as a white racist out to kill the poor inocent black child.
I’m honestly confused here. Why, if the the video and photo evidence clearly doesn’t match with the police reports (no blood from either of them or grass stains on zimmerman’s clithing, no wounds or even swelling on Zimmerman’s head or face, etc.) why are we so readily leaping to his defense? Is it just because the libs, Sharpton, Jackson, et all took the other side, or is there actual logical honesty here? Why are we following their lead in being so certain of what happened before a trial?
First of all, who is this “we” you speak of? You got here exactly 10 days ago. Secondly, you need to keep up: The “video and photo evidence” was enhanced and does show wounds and other things consistent with Mr. Zimmerman’s account of what happened.
Another smelly turd of an article from the Lynch Mob Media.
The problem I have is that even the enhanced video is ambiguious at best, showing what could be something on his head, and only really supports presupposed conclusions on both sides. And, then there’s the nose, and like said earlier, no blood evidence. It’s amazingly cloudy, which is keeping me from jumping on the “I support you George” wagon.
You also have to claim that the Sanford police officer at the scene and the Sanford Fire Dept. fireman who treated Zimmerman at the scene lied about him bleeding from the nose and the back of the head.
That original police report is available elsewhere on the Internet.
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