I’m a yooper too, and agree with you. Except I’m not 100% sure he kept perusing Trayvon, I just don’t know. At any rate, if I were in Trayvon’s shoes that night, I’d have been very nervous about someone following me. How could he possible know that Zimmermann wasn’t going to attack and kill him? My guess is Trayvon probably thought he was defending himself from an attack. Or possible he actually had to defend himself. Did Zimmermann wave his gun around or show his gun to Trayvon? If so, Trayvon for sure did the right thing in attacking him and bashing his head into the ground. Oh...and I’m white too and a far right conservative.
“How could he possible know that Zimmermann wasn’t going to attack and kill him?”
He couldn’t, but you’re not allowed to attack someone because you’re not 100% sure they’re not going to attack you. You must base it on something more substantial, like fighting words. We restrict when you get to instigate violence, for good reason.
Anyway, what you’re doing is placing the bar lower for Martin than for Zimmerman. Which would be fine, if indeed Zimmerman instigated the violence. It’s not like I’m comfortable taking his word for it and calling it a day, but there’s no evidence he did. There’s every evidence, outside of arm-chair psychologist with wild epileptic tree theories about how he hates people in hoodies and plotted to get Martin to attack him in order to assert self-defense,that Zimmerman was 100% certain that Martin posed a threat. That is, according to Zimmerman’s story.
I find it funny, is all, that people would give the benefit of the doubt to the one who started the fight that he was somehow provoked, but not to the one who asserts self-defense, even though there’s evidence that he was losing the fight and no evidence that he started it.
“My guess is Trayvon probably thought he was defending himself from an attack.”
That seems a reasonable assumption, if you add “possible future” before “attack.” But in that case, knowing what we know, he would be in the wrong. Because the law does not allow for preemptive violence on the basis of not liking being followed.
“Did Zimmermann wave his gun around or show his gun to Trayvon?”
Assuming facts not in evidence. You see, this sort of question demonstrates how little people understand the law. It’s well and fine to question whether Martin was provoked beyond Zimmerman. So long as you’re idly speculating, that is. But when it comes to whether or not there’s an actual case against Zimmerman, you must remember that the burden of proof is on the prosecution. You can’t merely suggest that maybe Martin was provoked; you need actual evidence that he was. No such evidence exists, so far as I know.
By the way, this sort of thing reminds me of the way people were misled during the Casey Anthony trial. The kid was dead, someone must have killed her, and since the mother didn’t report her missing for a month, or whatever, it must have been her. Case closed. Except that’s not how the legal system works. You need to actually prove it was her, and that it was first degree murder or whatever else she was charged with, not just that it probably couldn’t have been anyone else, and that not reporting her missing should be a crime, even if it isn’t.
Now, there was some evidence: a smell emanating from the car, a sticker (or something, I forget) on the corpse, some internet searches, etc. But none of it amounted to a conviction, despite the public at large’s overwhelming instincts. The defense lawyer argued, smartly, that it could have been an accidental death covered up by the grandfather. He was right, it could have been. Because the prosecution could not prove its case. And though most likely the mother was guilty of something, we don’t know what.
Likewise, your feelings about Martin possible excuse for instigating violence and the other guy’s gut instinct that Zimmerman is a nut are what they are. But they are not evidence, nor legal reasoning. They are gossip, basically. Thank God we have due process, because you need actual evidence that Zimmerman instigated violence and that he was a law-and-order madman bent on killing the next hooded teen of a minority race he saw in order to lock him away.
“It’s well and fine to question whether Martin was provoked beyond Zimmerman”
Beyond Zimmerman following him, I mean.