That's sort of what "Neighborhood Watch" means, isn't it?
He’s made phone calls to the police over very minor things that should not warrant phone calls.
Well, that's really a matter of opinion, isn't it? In at least one call about a minor incident (an open garage door) Zimmerman explained to the operator that at his recent neighborhood watch training, they'd been told to report anything out of the ordinary. But, honestly, it seems to me that a guy who reports every minor thing to the police is sort of the opposite of a guy who wants to take the law into his own hands.
We also know that the complex had been broken into, mostly black males.
I don't think we know that it was mostly black males. We know that the neighborhood's residents were majority-minority, and about 20% black. And we know police had been called to the neighborhood 402 times in the past year, investigating nine burglaries, eight thefts and one prior shooting.
And we also know that George told the operator he wasn’t going to let this particular youth get away.
He said no such thing. He said "these assholes always get away."
His mindset suggests a reactionary one, where he’d be prone to overreact.
After saying "okay" when the operator suggested "we don't need you to (follow)" he stayed on the phone for almost two more minutes, during which he said he could no longer see Martin and did not know where "this kid" went. He declined to say his own address out loud because he was concerned Martin might still be close by and overhear him.
Those are all facts. What you conclude about his mindset is your business, but it ought to be based on facts.
Trayvon, was not a troublemaker by all reported accounts. He appears to be a normal 17 year old. He was in an unfamiliar territory, out to get some Skittles. It doesn’t appear to be that Trayvon doesn’t make it a habit to beat people half to death. It’s not who the kid is.
And that's the real tragedy, because the people who have spoken out about Zimmerman say he was a good guy who cared about his neighbors. A co-worker described him as "as an outgoing and friendly man" and expressed shock at the stories about the shooting. See, nobody who knows either of them can believe this happened. Yet it did.
I don't know who started the fight. Once the two came face to face, I really wish they had just told each other who they were and why they were there. But they pretty obviously didn't.
We have people from 35 countries here. Many of them are Moslems and Buddhists, there are Hindus and Taoists, we have Protestants and Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Orthodox Jews ~ blacks, whites, East Asians, South Asians ~ latin Americans of all types.
I"m kind of drawn to this story because the neighborhood where the shooting occurred is not all that different than my own ~ except as an Haitian fellow told me recently "It's so great to live here where you don't need to lock your doors". (BTW, not my impression at all, having seen otherwise, but it's a relative value thing ~ he meant during the day when you're home).
I’m not presuming that George wad a bad guy. High-strung, but not bad.
I agree, as George was the one with the greater authority, he was under the greater obligation of explaining to Martin what he was up to. If he had done so, all would have been well.
Martin could not have known who George was and I honestly think that none of us would have done much different than Martin did, under the circumstances.