"When I got upstairs and looked down, the guy who was on top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point," John said.
In other words, the witness said the guy (Martin) he saw first attacked then when he looked back, he was the one on the ground shot. It is pretty badly written.
The headline infers Martin initiated the assault, while the witness' statement -- or what we saw of it -- doesn't support such a claim.
But, somehow, I doubt the 5-9 Zimmerman (who looks a little on the pudgy side in his photo) would've initiated an assault on the 6-2, 200 Martin.
I don't now that, of course. But it seems a reasonable working assumption.
read it again.
“When I got upstairs and looked down, the guy who was on top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point,” John said.”
So the witness looked down from upstairs I guess of his home and saw the person who he had seen beating up the person with the red sweater(Zimmerman in red sweater) lying on the ground and presumably dead at that point.
Confusing
Per the 911 call Zimmerman made, when Zimmerman got out of his truck to follow Martin on foot Martin ran of into the darkness. Zimmerman told the 911 dispatch as he was ending his call that he was headed back to his truck.
Zimmerman never made it back to his truck. From what I gather from reading the police reports and listening to the 911 calls it looks like that after Martin fled off into the darkness he circled back around one of the condo buildings and ambushed Zimmerman as he was headed back to his truck.
The witness saw Martin on top of Zimmerman beating him in the face as Zimmerman screamed for help. Then Zimmerman pulled his gun and fired one shot. You can hear Zimmerman screaming for help and the one fired shot on one of the 911 calls made by a neighbor very close to the action.
It’ll be interesting to see what all of the Leftist FReepers have to say about this.
That was my conclusion also, after reading the article, and viewing the video, such as it is.
The key question from a legal point of view is, who initiated the violence? The title seems to promise an answer to that question, but the article fails to deliver. All it says is that Zimmerman was getting pounded, there was a bang, and Martin was dead. But we already knew that.
If a jury finds that Zimmerman initiated the violence, he's toast. On the other hand, if they exchanged insults, and Zimmerman was retreating back to his truck, and Martin pursued him and attacked him, then it's a good shoot. The article does not provide enough information to choose between those two accounts.
If Zimmerman had followed police advice, this never would have happened. So, at the macro level, Zimmerman is still the responsible party. You have an absolute right to go buy Skittles and bring them back to watch the game without being stalked by the neighborhood nazi.
If Zimmerman is laying on the ground getting his ass beat I guess at some point Trayvon attacked him.