Posted on 03/24/2012 4:27:07 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
ORLANDO - An attorney representing George Zimmerman is speaking out, saying his client is not a racist, and that he acted in self-defense the night Trayvon Martin was shot and killed.
Craig Sonner spoke with FOX 35 in Orlando. He said he did not know George Zimmerman's location. He said due to death threats, he has been advising Zimmerman to avoid going out in public.
He referred to a flier saying Zimmerman was "Wanted dead or alive."
"I have advised him to stay out the public eye as much as he can," Sonner said.
Sonner also gave more details about injuries Zimmerman sustained that night.
"He did suffer a broken nose, and he has an injury to the back of his head which should have required stitches. I think he was delayed in getting to the doctor and having stitches put in. But he did sustain injuries to his head," Sonner said.
Sonner said portrayals of his client as a racist are not accurate. As an example, he cited Zimmerman's participation in fundraisers for an African-American church in the Orlando area.
Sonner said Zimmerman was under "a lot of stress."
"He's very concerned about the grave situation he's in. There's a young man who is now deceased in this situation, he's very concerned about that," Sonner said.
Yes, this is his attorney's view, but some interesting tidbits.
First, the fact that the New Black Panthers are distributing WANTED: Dead or Alive leaflets with Zimmerman's picture is news to me.
Second, Zimmerman has a broken nose and cuts on the back of his head that should have been stitched.
Third, Zimmerman and his wife were helping a black family, taking them places and participating in a fundraiser in a black church.
These are interesting pieces of the picture, but consider the source and keep your powder dry.
Don't be a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and presume guilt or innocence.
One has to wonder why the black church isn’t coming to his side. So much for their Christian spirit.
This whole story might end up like the Atlanta Park bombing, where the security guard was accused but it turned out that he was the hero. Zimmerman might be owed lots of apologies by people all the way up to the White House.
I’m curious to see what the government comes up with; at this point I’m sure many people will be reluctant to defend themselves just as the warm weather combined with the horrible economy is sure to bring a spike in crime.
Like the Rutgers student who “bullied” the homosexual, making an example of someone may take precedence here (though I’m not sure, given the witnesses).
He might get a no-apology beer summit..
If he can avoid the angry, now-fully race-baited lynch mobs. I hope he/his family stays out of sight and safe, and that the atty gets him a fair hearing, under these threatening circumstances. Sounds like a lot more facts to come out, but the mobs won’t care, I’m afraid. They’re in for his head.
Constitution...rule of law...innocent until proven guilty. America.
gnip
> Zimmerman might be owed lots of apologies by people all the
> way up to the White House.
Heh. Don’t hold your breath.
Maybe posthumously after the Black Panthers kill him.
It’s good he’s still carrying. Wanted dead or alive? Why aren’t the people promoting those posters being arrested? The main reason the police can’t arrest him is they don’t have a charge that will stick, so this new grand jury will have to twist the facts to issue an arrest warrant. I heard that Keith Obermann was wearing a hoody last night, so for me the entire case has crossed the line into unintended satire.
Based on just the facts we know, this is going to be a very difficult case for the State of Florida to resolve.
I’m unclear about something that the Florida “stand your ground” law covers, maybe a Florida CCW aware FReeper can help me out.
Clearly, you can’t use deadly force in a fight you provoke and then plead self-defense. I think that’s true everywhere, whether or not there is a “stand your ground” law.
Clearly, the “stand your ground” law eliminates a “duty to retreat”, which includes by implication a “duty to de-escalate”.
But the right to use deadly force to remain in any place you have a right to be (sounds good, I’ve supported it for NH) seems to create ambiguous situations like this one. This fight, which escalated to deadly force because Zimmerman was in reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm might have escalated BECAUSE Zimmerman was armed. IOW, without CCW PLUS “stand your ground”, Zimmerman might have de-escalated.
“Stand your ground”, in order to be good law, has to cover all kinds of people in all (normal and expected) mental states, all the time. I’m not sure that “stand your ground” doesn’t set up situations like this one for recurrence.
None of that will matter. The DOJ is going to investigate as well as the locals. The DOJ will assure he is guilty regardless of what really happened IMO. They will bring civil rights charges and change the venue if they need to.
Good; I’m glad he is.
It’s long-since passed from the Law to Theater of Mob Rule, and they’re not going to be satisfied/gone until he’s on death row or at least indicted for murder. *Ugly* is coming, bigtime.
That’s beyond my pay-grade, JN. We have “Castle Doctrine” here, and I’m going to re-read that new law in a little while, to be sure I *know* what it allows.
I can't believe even what some of the republicans have said about this without knowing the facts!
What strikes me as most curious is that this incident occurred on February 26. Only now is it exploding in the media - one month after the fact. Someone or some organization has decided to use this to stir up the hornet’s nest for a purpose. My guess is to raise sufficient public outcry that enough people will demand that guns be outlawed.
The New Black Panthers came up with the poster. This has become a powderkeg. And its only Spring.
“One has to wonder why the black church isn’t coming to his side.”
I don’t wonder one little bit. A black group of any kind coming to the aid of a non black person would be a miracle. I don’t ever remember it happening even though white groups and churches have been standing by blacks for a very long time. When it comes down to it—they have only a herd mentality and do, on the whole, what their black slavemasters tell them to do.
Sadly you are right.
The facts won't make any difference. Yesterday a black leader said they wanted justice, and justice was Zimmerman being convicted.
So much just does not add up here. I really hope we get to the truth but the race batters have poisoned the well and we will NEVER know the truth, unless the truth is that Zimmerman murdered the kid in cold blood.
He is clearly Hispanic and his father says he has many black family members and friends.
it sounds like zimmerman was sucker punched after talking to martin. zimmerman was on the ground with two head wounds yelling for help and then a shot was fired. may have been a tussle for the gun. The commies desperately overplayed their hand when hearing the name george zimmerman. Now the truth is coming out and they have turned into an idiot mob. the commies were looking for something to get their race riots going for the usurper’s re-selection.
You forget Baracky in your list of folks who have already tried and convicted Zimmerman. Trayvon was in a gated community, i.e, tresspassing for starters. I know, not a shooting offense.
Obviously the race card will be played at every opportunity during the election cycle. Media was shocked to learn that Zimmerman is a Latino.
Waiting for La Raza to join in the fun.
Perhaps they are and and it's not being reported.
Or maybe they are hiding him and don't want publicity.
I saw how that worked with the Rodney King beating; cops acquitted, try something else.
What a hoax.
But to those who fanning the flames, Zimmerman is not the issue, Zimmerman has become a tool to further their main agenda. Theis agenda is? Three things: 1. Repeal of Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law". 2.Repeal of Florida's Concealed Carry Law. 3. Gin up support for obama by infering that Whitey is out to get me [obama]too. We must stick together. That Zimmerman is not White got lost in the same fog that obama is Black is.
This where things stand with Zimmerman. His guilt of innocence at this point is now moot. The media and instigators have declared him guilty in the court of public opinion. Zimmerman should get his affairs in order because at some point down the road, on some charge, he is going to prison.
“My guess is to raise sufficient public outcry that enough people will demand that guns be outlawed.”
That would be the expectation here in the northeast; for people down south the image of the much larger kid pummeling the smaller guy will make them buy more guns (as it should).
I think the media wants to run with the “white perp” story, and it was up-ended when the photo circulated. I haven’t see the shooter on the news, so maybe they’re still working on the people who don’t use PCs.
Obama been laudin’ that martial law, whitey killing a black is exactly the crisis he needs; he won’t let it go to waste.
Spoken like a true liberal. A person has the right to defend themselves even if they managed to piss someone off to the point the other person attacks them physically. If your life is in danger you have the right to use deadly force to protect it. You are saying that "no, a person doesn't have that right if they pissed the other person off". As for having a CCW escalating the situation that is pure BS, concealed means just that, concealed. Apparently the law knows the guy isn't guilty of murder or he would have had his CCW pulled by now.
Stand your ground laws are good laws and have reduced the crime rate in Florida, and other states, by a huge amount since being enacted and have saved many lives. People with your attitude don't belong on a conservative forum.
Some thug/gang sign pictures of TM are showing up on the net. His family scrubbed Facebook after he died.
Photos of which should be in Zimmerman's case file but the MSM has failed to ask for them........
I guess it's more convenient to publish nice pics of a smiling 11 year old boy.
Look at the photos at the bottom.
What do the codes mean?
Anyone here speak Jive?
But according to what is in the police report (sorry,don’t have marktwain’s police report pdf thread handy) he did de-escalate by heading back to his truck.
Here’s TM’s favorite music ... big Dogg Fee which was mentioned on his Facebook.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op5ZG4ryH1I&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I disagree with #3; this is not good for Obama. Many blacks were going to vote for him anyway, and few whites or Hispanics (in private) sympathize with the shooting “victim”.
I also think Zimmerman is going to jail, though I hope he doesn’t if it was justified.
I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion at this point.
That's what we've been told but now I'm not so sure. We've also been told that it was an "upscale gated community" but from the film reports I've seen of that place, it is far from upscale......middle income at best.
LLS
It’s Comrade Omuslim’s “Communist Spring”....
My hope is that Hispanics will remember how Obama turned on them.
Once again Obama went racist.
The media is having a field day with this. They are the ones stirring this crap.
Read the comments from the article you linked. That is the wrong TM Facebook page. That is a TM in Georgia.
Upscale was MSM code for “white.”
Now is the time to go after the Rev. Al Sharpton. He is trying to incite a lynch mob after leading the Tawana Brawley hoax. Yet he has broadcast gigs like he is a serious and respectable national personality.
Right wing personalities are marginalized after ony one incident, sometimes made up by the media. This is PC madness, and Al Sharpton is nothing more than a racial huckster.
The evidence is in part Zimmerman's testimony, but my impression is that there are eyewitnesses who testified to the same effect.
If Zimmerman is on the ground taking a beating, it become impractical for him to retreat and/or de-escalate.
-- This fight, which escalated to deadly force because Zimmerman was in reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm might have escalated BECAUSE Zimmerman was armed. --
I don't think hoodie-boy would have jumped Zimmerman, if he knew Zimmerman was armed.
That is not the Trayvon Martin in question. It is a middle schooler from Georgia.
See post 70 from this link for recent Martin images: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2863029/posts
zimmerman confronted the 6’2” 190# hoodie wearing man, then turned around to leave the scene. That is when he was attacked, FROM BEHIND, thrown to the ground, and with the 6’2” 190# man sitting on top of him, began to be assaulted, punched about the face and upper body, having his head slammed into the ground. As he lay there on the ground with the 6’2” 190# beating the shit out of him, he shot the attacker..... cut and dry self defence... and here is a little statistic for all of you, more people are beaten to death every year in the USofA than are shot to death..
He had a right to be there. He was staying with relatives who live in that gated community.
Yep, I see this as another beer summit where they one they cry racist and then they look like fools and have to buy the guy a beer for disgracing the guy for life.
As for Zimmerman, justified or not justified has already left the picture. He has been sacrificed on the altar of public opinion.
Do you recall the case of the Ohio National Guardsmen? For years they were savaged by the Communists in the media and the politicans were under tremendous pressure to prosecute them. Only Governor Rhoades standing firm prevented it. I do not believe that those in power today have that political courage. I would hope that they do but, there has been no evidence that I have seen to indicate it.
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