Posted on 02/20/2015 11:07:22 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
On Feb. 26, 2012, supposed "Neighborhood Watchman" George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man, as Martin walked home from visiting a convenience store in Sanford, Fla. The case ignited questions about racial profiling, vigilantism and Stand Your Ground Laws. On July 13, 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of both the second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. Despite national and even international attention to the case, one has to wonder what has really changed in the three years since the murder of Trayvon Martin.
The murder of black men by police or their wannabes has not stopped.
This is a mere sample of cases that occurred after the murder of Trayvon Martin.
16-year-old Kimani Gray was shot by two plainclothes officers in Brooklyn, N.Y., as he walked home from a birthday party on March 9, 2013. The two men who killed him claim he had a gun, but no weapon was found at the scene. Three of the seven bullets that penetrated Gray's body entered from the back, suggesting he was moving away, not threatening the officers. No criminal charges were brought against the assailants.
Randall Kerrick, a Charlotte, N.C., police officer, shot and killed former FAMU football star Jonathan Ferrell as he sought police assistance after an automobile accident Sept. 14, 2013. Kerrick was not charged for Ferrell's murder.
On Dec. 2, 2014, 24-year-old father of four Rumain Brisbon was killed when an officer mistook his bottle of pills for a gun.
Just seconds after seeing 12-year-old Tamir Rice at a park in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, an officer shot and killed him. While Rice did have a BB gun, video footage seems to show that the officers arrived at the scene and were not threatened but instead decided to pull the trigger.
Unarmed Akai Gurley, 28, was shot in the dark stairwell of an East New York housing project on Nov. 20, 2014. Even Police Commissioner William Bratton has called Gurley a "complete innocent."
Officer Daniel Pantaleo killed 43-year-old Eric Garner by inflicting a prohibited chokehold when Garner dared to speak out about being continually targeted.
Supposedly, Victor White III shot himself while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser in Iberia Parish, La., on March 22, 2014. Yet reports show that he had to have been Harry Houdini reincarnated to make that move. Far more likely is that he was shot by officers.
Twenty-year-old Reynaldo Cuevas was shot by police as he fled armed men who had attempted to rob his bodega. The Bronx district attorney did not find the officers at fault.
And of course, Office Darrin Wilson, who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., was not indicted. Since Brown was killed, 14 black teens have been killed by police officers, according to a Nov. 25, 2014 article on the Daily Beast.
It's not just black men who suffer from this official or quasi-official violence. On Feb. 16, 2014, 47-year-old African-American Yvette Smith was killed when she opened the door to officers responding to a domestic violence call at her home.
George Zimmerman has not changed.
Zimmerman has been arrested multiple times since being acquitted for the murder of Trayvon, most recently for aggravated assault and domestic violence with a weapon. Zimmerman was accused of domestic violence in 2013 but no charges were brought.
Stand Your Ground Laws remain.
Although Attorney General Eric Holder stated that it was time to question Stand Your Ground Laws, no state has repealed its law. In fact, states like Georgia and Florida have considered expansions of the Stand Your Ground protections. In Florida alone, at least 26 children and teens have been killed in Stand Your Ground cases since Trayvon's death. Research by the Urban Institute has found that in Stand Your Ground states, white-on-black homicides are 354 times more likely to be ruled justified as white-on-white homicides.
Three years post-Trayvon, little has changed except there is now a nationwide movement to fix this. I remain hopeful based on the courageous organizing I see occurring in most of our cities. For instance, peace and justice activists are working with affected communities to organize the first Truth Telling Weekend in St. Louis, Mo., the weekend of March 13-15, 2015. Rather than simply expressing outrage, these folks are acting to bring people together to discuss solutions. Really ... it's time for change.
*****
Dr. Laura Finley teaches in the Barry University Department of Sociology & Criminology and is syndicated by PeaceVoice.
Get over it Laura, move on.
There were so many factual errors in the first paragraph, I couldn’t get past it.
#BlackLiesMatter
Nice spin. He died from being in really poor physical condition and resisting arrest.
Who is this racist columnist?
What hasn’t changed is the incessant hand-wringing by the perpetually aggrieved.
I'm sure every one of these tragic youths were engaged in some innocent activity at the time.
While we were constantly reminded by the selective repeating of the audio and visual later unincluded text portions of the Martin Luthur King Jr. famous “I have a dream “ speech.
The left and its media arm never made references to the beginning and King’s references to the way this country was uniquely created with its purposes of existence declared through its carefully crafted Constitution, citing God gifts to mankind, and its Declaration of Independence .
They never cite King’s support and belief in it. Because it wouldn’t serve the purposes of racial division which King was against.
This race war crap was started for one reason and this agenda was driven because;
As opposition to Obama’s abuse of his constitutional authority and talk of “impeachment” began to arise and his polling numbers fell.
What Obama needed, worked for, and got , by separating and isolating his solid group of supporters the blacks through creating out of whole cloth stories of “victimization”.
Using circumstances where lawless black youths wound up dead in felonious struggles over guns held by figures of authority. Both Martin and Brown were the attackers.
Obama used his “Bully Pulpit to reinforce that “victim” agenda in Florida and Missouri. In both cases he portrayed authority as the aggressors and the perpetrators as the “victims”
In Florida’s case success was indicated by the number of incidents where members of other races were attacked severly injured or murdered by black youths committing these assults in the name of the so called “victim” All the while Obama neither commented on nor condemed such activity.Because of this, the question ; Is there blood on his hands ? Are those deaths that resulted from these incidents innocent “victims” of that agenda?
That question is neatly avoided and continues to be obfucated with misdirection offerings of pseudo arguments on various political positions including; “standing ground” “white guilt” usually produced by academic American Communist Patriots through venues supporting an undeclared revolution .
In Missouri he met with and issued a “stay the course” order to the Ferguson protesters. They in turn coordinated by the usual suspects organized nationwide protests. Their purpose and result was a successful demonstration of what would happen if congress ever moved on any constitutional efforts to restrain or even remove Obama including“Impeachment”..
Once the regime measured its unexpected success why not continue ?
Expand it to war on law enforcement. Get more cops refuse to respond or get killed if they do. or hesitate to defend themselves while attempting to confront “afro-americans” engaged in felonious assults while fleeing or are engaged in criminal activity resisting arrests.
Attack the Grand Jury system investigating police mal practice. It’s not after the facts. It’s after “payback”to those poor hypenated Americans known as “Afro” who because of their financial situation are forced to pillage, kill, and rape. And are entitled to do so.
Exploit innocent interchanges between “afros” and different races make them (the afros) believe it’s racist. Create uneeded tension between them and other groups so that those groups not only view them with aprehension but feral creatures unable to know right from wrong
All because the regime must be protected from being questioned in its exercize and abuse of power.
Then bring in another completely alien group which they believe are easier to manipulate which will furthur isolate the “afro” who will get thrown to the wolves once they’re politically no longer “usefull”.
All made possible by the agenda driven socialist products from academia running the alphabet soup venues controlling the visual and print media . Competing with each other protecting their beneficiairies financial interests. That has wound up in “Trusts” controlled by individuals or groups interested only in protecting their own self interests. “Trusts” which should be broken up.
Worse yet supported by the leadership of the political opposition. Who see the benefits of “working together” expanding government. As the happless voter having never to get their day of reckoning and their children’s children’s children pay the bills living in a culture their forebearers wouldn’t ever recognize. Using the dream of King’s speech as the door mat by a person of his race destroying it.
What a crock! This lame scag needs a dose of reality. Pack her up and send her to the wonderful country of ISIS. She can tell them how smart she is and how we just need to hold hands and sing Kum-bi-Ya.
She slipped up and called him a “17 year-old black man” and not a “young black teen”.
What’s changed? Not a whole lot, I’m still called a racist daily. Black on white crime is generally ignored in the media while white on black crime is national news for weeks, giving the appearance it happens a thousand times a minute every single day as white men with guns hunt them down for sport.
More people are on to your BS, for one thing.
One reason it feels like less than three years, is because of all the contrived race wars and orgies of faux outrage that keep happening again and again.
Well for starters I`d wager he`s gotten a bit more ripe!
"On Feb. 26, 2012, supposed "Neighborhood Watchman" George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man, as Martin walked home from visiting a convenience store in Sanford, Fla."
Lie #1 = Zimmerman was in the neighborhood watch, no "supposed" about it.
Lie #2 = Zimmerman shot and killed Martin as Martin was on top of Zimmerman pounding his head into the cement in order to save his own life.
I'm so glad we can rely on "professors" to be truthful.
A local non-news story became a national legend.
Actionable slander.
The people don't get it. We armed citizens aren't going anywhere.
Were are buying more guns, getting more training, and bring people who have never shot with us. We will shoot black men in self-defense if the situation calls for it. We will shoot a man or a woman from any other race, if the situation calls for it. We are the lawfully-armed citizenry, the militia of the people itself, and WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY.
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