Posted on 03/30/2012 11:10:18 PM PDT by neverdem
The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month by a neighborhood-watch volunteer was a sickening and — unless new facts come to light — unjustified loss of an innocent life. Unless Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, had reason to believe that Martin was armed, shooting him was a grossly disproportionate response to a fistfight, even leaving aside the fact that Zimmerman had initiated the encounter. If such a shooting is justified under Florida’s broad self-defense law, that law has licensed violence that goes far beyond legitimate self-defense. Every American shares the despair of Martin’s family over this heartbreaking tragedy and supports a fuller investigation (though the entrance of the Feds at this point is premature, absent evidence of Florida’s incapacity to conduct a fair inquiry).
But is the Martin shooting emblematic of a larger problem? Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the mainstream media here and abroad certainly are portraying it as such. That larger problem, of course, is lethal white racism and a criminal-justice system allegedly indifferent to the killing of blacks. At a rally Thursday night in Sanford, Sharpton said that “Trayvon represents a reckless disregard for our lives that we’ve seen for too long,” and warned that “they,” presumably whites, would try to trick black protesters into violence by “send[ing] in provocateurs.” “Blacks are under attack,” said Jesse Jackson on Friday from Chicago. “Targeting, arresting, convicting blacks, and ultimately killing us is big business.” MSNBC analyst Karen Finney claimed that “racist rhetoric” used by Rush Limbaugh and several Republican presidential candidates was responsible for Martin’s death.
So determined has the New York Times been to fit the shooting into its favored racial story line that it has been referring to the Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic,” contrary to its usual practice of referring to Hispanics without any additional racial characterization. The fact that Zimmerman’s father is white does not explain this departure from the Times’s racial protocols; the Times’s one-drop rule still applies to Barack Obama, who is, according to the Times and every other media outlet, America’s “first black president.” (The Grey Lady referred to Zimmerman for the first time on Friday simply as “Hispanic.”)
Times columnist Charles Blow dealt with the complicating factor of Zimmerman’s ethnicity with a simple duality: “Trayvon is black. Zimmerman is not,” he wrote last Saturday, presumably conferring on Zimmerman putative white status. The Rainbow Coalition has apparently broken down.
Blow went on to claim that it is the “the burden of black boys in America” to be at high risk of being shot by non-blacks: “This is the fear that seizes me whenever my boys are out in the world: that a man with a gun and an itchy finger will find them ‘suspicious.’”
Blow is right about one thing: Black boys do face a much higher chance than non-blacks that they will be shot when they are “out in the world.” Black males between the ages of 14 and 24 were seven times more likely to die of homicide in 2007 than white and Hispanic males of the same age group combined. But the danger they face comes overwhelmingly from other black males, whose homicide offending rate in the 14 to 24 age category was nearly ten times higher than that of young white and Hispanic males combined. (The federal government’s crime data puts Hispanics and whites in a single category of “white,” thus overstating the non-Hispanic white offending and victimization rates). Most homicides are intraracial, but the chance of a black being killed by a white or Hispanic is much lower than the chance that a white or Hispanic will be killed by a black. Seventeen percent of what the FBI calls “white” homicide victims in 2009 were killed by blacks, compared to 8 percent of black homicide victims who were killed by “whites.” There were two and a half times as many white and Hispanic victims of black killers in 2009 as there were black victims of white and Hispanic killers, even though the black population is one-sixth that of whites and Hispanics combined. If Hispanics were removed from the category of “white” killers of blacks, the percentage of blacks killed by Anglo whites would plummet, since a significant percentage of what the FBI calls “white”-on-black killings represent gang warfare between Hispanic and black gangs. (Needless to say, there is no reason to think that racism plays a more frequent role in white-on-black killings than in black-on-white killings.)
Blow’s fear that his children will be blown away by a white is particularly ludicrous in New York City. Blacks commit 80 percent of all shootings in the city — as reported by the victims of and witnesses to those shootings — though they are but 23 percent of the population; whites commit 1.4 percent of all shootings, though they are 35 percent of the population. Add Hispanic shootings to the black tally, and you account for 98 percent of all of the city’s gun violence. In New York, as in big cities across the country, the face of violence is overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.
No evidence has yet surfaced to support the charge that the failure of the Sanford police to arrest Zimmerman results from racial bias, as opposed to ambiguities in the application of Florida’s self-defense law and the absence of eye-witnesses to the killing. But if such evidence of racial indifference does emerge, it would be not only shameful but also a great exception to the practice of police departments across the country. Far from showing a “reckless disregard for [black] lives,” in Sharpton’s words, it is the police and prosecutors who are the most reliable responders to black victimization, trying relentlessly to put together a case even when the witnesses to crime refuse to cooperate. Most police chiefs will say that they could solve every inner-city killing if the people who saw the crime or know the perpetrators came forward, instead of obeying the “no snitching” code.
And it is the concerted efforts of police departments across the country to bring safety to urban neighborhoods that have played a central role in the 50 percent drop in the black homicide victimization rate from 1991 to 2008. In New York City, over 10,000 minority males are alive today who would have been killed had homicide rates remained at their early 1990s highs; the largest cause of that crime drop is the New York Police Department’s policing revolution, which has created an unprecedented sense of urgency about protecting lives. The NYPD’s weekly meetings at police headquarters, known as Compstat, focus relentlessly on one overriding question: How can we save more people — overwhelmingly minorities — from being victimized by crime? Many an NYPD commander has lost his post because he has not had an adequate answer to that question.
The protesters in Florida and across the country are right to demand an explanation for the decision not to charge Zimmerman. A critical examination of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law is absolutely warranted. But the racial storyline that has been imposed on the shooting does not fairly represent contemporary America. That storyline is not just wrong, it is dangerous, because it only feeds black alienation and anger. Family breakdown, not white racism, is the biggest impediment facing blacks today, producing such casualties as the 18-year-old gangbanger who fatally shot a 34-year-old mother picking up her child from school in Brownsville, Brooklyn, last October. Sharpton and the national media didn’t show up for that killing, just as they don’t for the thousands of other black-on-black killings each year. By all means, demand justice for Trayvon Martin. But when that justice comes, as it most surely will, perhaps some small part of the energy devoted to securing it could be redirected towards stigmatizing black criminals and revalorizing the role of fathers in families.
Editor’s Note: This post has been amended since it was originally published.
So, could very well be a reference to drugs, on Martin's part, to Martin's GF. There is a timeline/map at JOM that would give Martin time to get home, stash things, then return to confront Zimmerman.
Last Map Of The Retreat At Twin Lakes - JustOneMinute - March 29, 2012
Crump said Martin got caught in some rain and had put on his hoodie and was running to take cover, unaware he was being followed by Zimmerman. ... But at one point, Martin spots Zimmerman.He was being watched by Zimmerman, and the recording of Zimmerman with dispatch has Martin well aware that Zimmerman is observing him. Martin stares at Zimmerman, then approaches Zimmerman's vehicle, then stares some more, then puts hands inside his waistband, THEN turns and runs away. All that in a period of 10-15 seconds. My impression is that Martin was not being followed until after he started running, and then he managed to lose Zimmerman."I think this dude is following me," Martin told his girlfriend, according to Crump. The girlfriend told Martin to be careful and run home, and he momentarily loses Zimmerman.
"He says,'he's right behind me again,' and she says 'run,'" Crump said. "He says 'I'm not gonna run, I'm just gonna walk fast."
The T-Mobile call log attached to the news story linked above is confusing to me, it seems to have some overlapping calls, but does deal with more than one telephone line. The printout of a webpage log says "Welcome, tracy," which makes the phone log that of Martin, not of the girlfriend.
Entries for February 26th ...
Next activity is March 2, at 12:45 pm, a call labeled "Emergency."
ABC News was there exclusively as the 16-year-old girl told Crump about the last moments of the teenager's life. Martin had been talking to his girlfriend all the way to the store where he bought Skittles and a tea. The phone was in his pocket and the earphone in his ear, Crump said.Looking at the phone log, the girlfriend called Martin, if the call is that 7:12pm call. That doesn't mean they weren't in verbal contact over the phone, just that there is a mix of Martin calling the girlfriend, and she calling him.
"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," Martin's friend said. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run, but he said he was not going to run."Eventually, he would run, said the girl, thinking that he'd managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin.
"Trayvon said, 'What are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again, and he didn't answer the phone."
[Crump] further added that the friend, whose parents insist on her anonymity, has been deeply traumatized by the incident: "This was her really, really close personal friend. They were dating [...] She couldn't even go to his wake. She was so sick, her mother had to take her to the hospital, she spent the night in the hospital."Her not showing up for the wake strikes me as strange. In my opinion, she knows too much, and she doesn't want others to find out what she knows. A significant part of the public being mislead lies at her feet. A heavy burden.
[Crump] then pieced together what happened that day, based on the 911 call, phone logs and the girlfriend's testimony: Martin was talking to his girlfriend as he was walking to the store, and phone logs show "without any doubt" that he was on the phone the entire way there and on the way back. He told her he wanted to make it home before it started raining. When it began raining, he ran to the first building he saw. Then he went back to walking, and back to talking to her. At that point, Martin told his girlfriend he thought a man was following her -- and she told him to be careful and run home. The girl said she heard him catch up to Martin, and could tell an altercation occurred, before the call dropped.
(CBS) FT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - An attorney for Trayvon Martin's family played what he said was a recorded affidavit from Martin's girlfriend, who was on the phone with the 17-year-old when he was allegedly approached by neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman.Much of the recording was inaudible when played Tuesday at a press conference in Florida, but attorney Benjamin Crump said that in it, Martin's girlfriend says that Martin told her "I think this dude is following me," minutes before he was shot by Zimmerman. ...
Add to this, the lawyer will NOT turn the "recorded affidavit" over to any of the authorities in Florida; but will (he claims) turn it over to the DOJ. Why not make copies of it and give it to all? It's not as though giving the evidence over prevents him from arguing his client's case.
I'm also struck by his choice of words, "recorded affidavit." If this was an important interview, he'd see to it that it was audible, and he might even have a transcription made.
It seems that this whole incident became national news because Ben Crump was able to get the attention of Gutman, and Crump has been feeding Gutman information since. ...So as we see, Ben Crump has been the mastermind behind the story from the beginning. His accomplishments probably include:
- Getting ABC news to initially report the story.
- Creating the imagery of Trayvon being armed only with Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea, even though there has been no police report released about what Trayvon was carrying with him. It doesn't matter if it never happened that way, the national media don't care about the real facts.
- Getting Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson involved.
- Making a recording of Trayvon's girlfriend in which she tells a story casting Trayvon in a favorable light.
- After a bunch of news articles appear talking about how Zimmerman was beat up and had a broken nose, somehow he obtains a police video in which Zimmerman doesn't look so bad and hands it off to Matt Gutman at ABC News.
That's incorrect. I'm doing some date-limited searching of Google now, but "skittles" and this incident appear before March 20. I don't know what date Crump came in contact with the Martins. Need to do more digging.
The google advanced search function is "daterange" The number "2455984" is February 26, 2012, and "2456006" is March 19, 2012, in Julian days. Put this in a google search ...
daterange:2455984-2456006 skittles
Wow. Two sentences full of WTF.
Family of Florida boy killed by Neighborhood Watch seeks arrest - Reuters - By Barbara Liston - Wed, Mar 7, 2012
"He (Zimmerman) didn't have to get out of his car," said Crump, who has prepared a public records lawsuit to file on Thursday if the family doesn't get the 911 tape. "If he never gets out of his car, there is no reason for self-defense. Trayvon only has skittles. He has the gun."
I think at the bottom of this all, it isn't about Zimmerman, it isn't about Martin, it's about stirring the pot of unrest, getting it simmering for the dog days of summer...
Tracy Martin, Trayvion’s father is the source of the Skittles story. At least as far back as March 9.
Martin’s father said the teen went out in a light drizzle around 7 p.m. that Sunday during the NBA All-Star Game halftime to get snacks from a nearby 7-Eleven. He purchased Skittles candies and an Arizona iced tea for his 13-year-old stepbrother.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/08/2684419/shooting-mystery-miami-dade-teen.html
That link didn’t work.
What Happened to Trayvon Martin? - "Str8Talkr" - Mar 5, 2012
When police officials arrived, Martin was dead by way of a single gunshot wound and Crump says the boy was unarmed. "What do the police find in his pocket? Skittles," Crump said. "A can of Arizona ice tea in his jacket pocket and Skittles in his front pocket for his brother Chad."
Makes me wonder, again, why we haven't heard much about brother Chad, and why brother Chad doesn't enter into the recounting of Trayvon's father, Tracy.
Anyway, I don't think Crump made up "Skittle and Arizona brand Iced Tea" out of thin air. Too much risk, if he cares about credibility even in the public / non-courtroom realm.
Not as full of WTF as as the single sentence I responded to:
<"I imagine the author never saw anyone killed by one punch.">
I can state in my history I've never seen anyone killed by a single punch, or any 17 yr old kill a healthy 28yr old as big as Zimmerman with a single punch either.
But then again, Trayvon Martin's scary looks alone would probably have given an an un-armed Zimmermann a nosebleed.
I've got Crump putting it out before March 9. Either way, neither Crump nor Tracy would have a way to know, unless either Chad, Trayvon's GF, or some other person told them. And Crump is quite consistently assigning the GF as the source.
I hope the investigators are leaning on the GF. Her story, as told by Crump, is full of holes.
If the contents matter to you, do a search using the full title of the article, in quotes. I'm pretty sure it worked for me, but I don't always test what I'm about to post. I blockquoted the part of that article that was interesting to me.
Not really. If the evidence supports the survivor's version; and there isn't anything in their character, demeanor or attitude to indicate anything else, then that's the way the evidence falls.
-- but the race baiting going on, the NBP involvement, and the heavy media bias and attempts to characterize the situation as a racial issue make me wonder. I think at the bottom of this all, it isn't about Zimmerman, it isn't about Martin, it's about stirring the pot of unrest ... --
I agree. The story here isn't the incident. The story here is the MEDIA. This is a huge window into the MEDIA. It lies, it obfuscates, and it agitates.
I was just pointing out that it looks like Trayvon’s father is the one that told Crump.
Try this one. Hope my previous didn't come across as snippy, BTW. I appreciate being told the link didn't work, but I don't always get around to fixing my remarks.
@DanRiehl: New High Def Police Video Of Zimmerman Appears Damning Of ABC Report http://shar.es/pRXjD
The only way Tracy would know would be to be told by Chad, or by Trayvon's GF.
Ping. Skip the first paragraph and this article is pure gold.
Therefore, things like this get demagogued by the government and the agitators and the president to justify their position and power to the Black community.
If Obama plays things like this up he doesn't have to worry about the African-American vote, whatever else he does.
If Sharpton doesn't play this up, he loses his influence (and he wouldn't be Sharpton).
Another bad link. I tried a search and couldn’t find the other one. I haven’t seen where Crump is quoting Trayvon’s GF regarding the skittles and tea,
Why do they go back and forth between fiance and stepmother for the father’s girlfriend? Can’t the media get anything straight?
I didn’t see where Crump is quoting Trayvon’s GF about the skittles.
Do we know where Trayvon was watching the basketball game? Could he himself have said he was going to the store for tea and skittles before he left?
Do we know if the father went home that night or stay with his fiance?
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