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I believe it was the Florida medical examiner who determined the wound was a “contact” wound from a gun fired at point blank range. But they are trying to make something out of the county examiner concluding the shot was from “intermediate” range, however intermediate is not defined.

Another article I just read is touting a police report that night finding that the “encounter” was “ultimately avoidable” by Zimmerman, but the article headline says the SHOOTING was “ultimately avoidable”.

It’s kind of obvious at this point what really happened, and even if there is an issue about legal culpability, this case certainly doesn’t support any of the racial firestorm created by the media.

It’s not a case of a defenseless little kid who gets hunted down and shot dead for racial reasons.

“Getting out of one’s car is not a crime. Either is following someone in public. Using a “but for” analysis, why didn’t the officer conclude that had Trayvon not smacked Zimmerman, he would still be alive? That appears to be a far more immediate cause of the shooting than Zimmerman’s getting out of his car.

It’s also an unsupportable theory for criminal liability. How far back do you go? One could say if Zimmerman stayed home that night and didn’t go to the store, Trayvon would be alive. Or if Trayvon had stayed home and not gone to 7-11 that night, he would still be alive. But for a hundred things, Trayvon would be alive. (If only an airline passenger had taken a different plane, he wouldn’t have gone down with the flight. If only a person took a different route to the store, or left home 10 minutes later, he could have avoided a fatal car accident and would still be alive.) They are all true, but they are not a basis for charging a crime.”

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/5/17/221353/149

But they are trying to make something out of the county examiner concluding the shot was from “intermediate” range, however intermediate is not defined.

"Intermediate" is a term of art for these purposes as used by forensic examiners. One can see from the autopsy diagram that the stippling pattern from the gunshot residue was of 2" diameter, so I don't expect there to be a serious issue as to the distance at which the gun was fired.