Posted on 04/26/2012 10:41:46 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
How badly has the media mis-reported the Trayvon Martin shooting? Just look at how rapidly the story is mutating, now that George Zimmerman is up on charges – thanks to a ridiculously over-reaching affadavit, for which some observers, including legendary liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz, think the prosecutor should be up on charges.
Do you remember the story you heard on Day One, when this first became big national news? A racist white man gunned down an innocent little black boy for no reason, just because he was Walking While Black through a swanky gated condo community. The cracker cops of his small Florida town waved this trigger-happy paranoid self-appointed security guard on his merry way.
A million furrowed brows bent over the tape of Zimmerman’s 911 call, seeking to divine racial epithets from his barely-audible muttering. NBC News deliberately edited out the 911 dispatcher asking Zimmerman to describe the ethnicity of the person he was observing, to make him appear race-obsessed. When the media suddenly discovered what Zimmerman actually looks like, his designation was changed, with nearly one hundred percent consistency, to “white Hispanic,” by media outlets which had previously employed that designation three or four times in a century, at most.
We saw a thousand reprints of the most infamously disingenuous photographic comparison in recent memory: a shot of 12-year-old Trayvon beaming happily, next to an equally outdated mug shot of a morose George Zimmerman. It took a long time for the media to cough up more recent photos of either one.
And now we’re finally getting some “deep background” on Earth’s most famous “white Hispanic.” Reuters published a long profile of Zimmerman on Wednesday, and it’s nothing short of astonishing compared to the image pushed by the media over the past month.
Just for starters, it turns out this allegedly gun-happy nutball got his concealed weapons permit on the advice of an animal control officer, because a pit bull was menacing him and his wife. He was asked to begin neighborhood watch patrols by his community, which a black resident – who asked not to be indentified, because she fears retaliation – testified was being robbed by young black men.
And Zimmerman was raised in a “racially-integrated household,” with a family tree that included an “Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather.” His grandmother baby-sat for “two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.”
George Zimmerman was a Catholic altar boy, volunteered to work in a rectory, helped out at school by translating English to Spanish for immigrant parents, worked three jobs to buy his first car, and opened his own Allstate insurance office… with a black partner.
Here’s how Reuters describes that posh “gated community” where Zimmerman supposedly hassled Trayvon Martin for no good reason:
By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.
At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.
In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.
One of the incidents in question involved a black teenager stealing Zimmerman’s bicycle off his front porch. In another, two black men broke into an occupied house, trapping a woman and her infant son upstairs, whispering frantically to 911 dispatchers. Zimmerman contacted her after the incident, put a stronger lock on her sliding glass door, and told her to contact him or his wife, if she ever felt unsafe again.
Are you getting the picture? Do you see just how badly this story has been mis-reported? Much of this information was readily available to any media organization that cared to request it. I can recall allusions to some of it from early reports in the Florida press, before the story went national, but those details just plain dropped out of the story. Instead, we were told Zimmerman was a hysteric who melted 911 lines with bogus calls.
Even the clear description of his injuries from the police record was called into question. How far do you recall plunging into Trayvon hysteria before you were even aware that Zimmerman was physically assaulted during the encounter? How much further did we get before the media grudgingly admitted this was an undisputed fact?
None of this background information absolves Zimmerman of responsibility for his actions, but it makes second-degree murder tough to prove… and the prosecution must surely have known most of it when their affidavit was written. Remember, the affidavit expressly states that Zimmerman “profiled” Martin, implies that Zimmerman merely “felt” people had “committed and gotten away with break-ins in his neighborhood,” and asserted – despite considerable evidence to the contrary – that Zimmerman wantonly disregarded the 911 dispatcher’s instructions to stop following Martin.
Why did the media push a story so completely at variance with the picture Reuters paints of Zimmerman in this extensive profile? My guess is a combination of the hunger for sensationalism, a political agenda, and pure laziness. There was a time when such a major story would have called for more shoe leather, and less reliance upon press releases from interested parties.
No way can we have elections in that climate.
Not until The Emergency is declared over. (When hell freezes).
You have your trust in the right place. :)
No way can we have elections in that climate.
“Victims of YOU and ME, and every Whitey out there. No matter what steps a predominantly white establishment took to secure and guarantee equal civil rights for ALL members of society, it was never enough. Never enough for the Malcom X’s, never enough for the NAACP, never enough for the Urban League, and certainly not enough for the liberal media who led with their bleeding hearts, we as a society were taught that inside every white person, there was a Klansman hiding and eager to jump out, that a railroad tie was never ‘just’ a railroad tie, it was part of a creosote soaked cross waiting to be hoisted on the lawn of a black church, or the yard of a black family, didn’t you get the memo? WE WHITE FOLK ARE ALL RACISTS!”
“And the greatest lie foisted over these past 50+ years is the mythology that the Democrat Party is somehow the savior of blacks and all minorities when THEY were the ones who started the Klan in the first place, THEY were the ones who were turning fire hoses and police dogs on civil rights marchers in Alabama and elsewhere across the South, THEY were the ones standing in the school house doors refusing to admit black students that sought an equal education with white students, THEY were the ones who filibustered the Civil Rights Act, THEY were the ones who embraced a former Klansman (Robert Byrd of WV) and turned him into a political icon, and of course the Democrats had the audacity and sheer gall to accuse Republicans of being biased towards blacks, women and other minorities.”
There are possibly a couple of points in paragraph two that could be argued, as to their complete truth, but in general it speaks to the historical issues of the time.
Boy howdy, those two paragraphs need a whole lot of repetition, about as much as the repetition it took to pull off the “story” that Republican’s are racist. Folks, in defense of the dems in the south at the time civil rights marches were going on there were reasons galore for the, how should I put it, resistance to integration by the white population. I don’t need to repeat what those points of resistance were about, but they were in general valid.
Validity be damned, If I’m not mistaken, the Federal Government ended up being the “force” that apparently didn’t stop racism, but forced integration on a resistant community that was IMHO not quite ready for what integration would soon reveal. The validity of the reasons for resistance. Remaining comments self censored.
Racist disclaimer: I am not now nor have I ever been. But I can speak to why some are, were, or may become.
One of them was the klan and more research proved you correct, the second was the equal education point that I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of. My general sense was black schools and teachers though perhaps not funded at the same level, and that is based on a feeling not reality, were as dedicated to their students and capable of providing an equal outcome. The real issue was desegregation not equal schooling, but as I said unproven as yet by me.
Question: Is George Zimmerman more white or less white than Barack Obama?
With all due respect, George Zimmerman never made a 911 call (no matter how many times the media tells us that he did). Zimmerman called the nonemergency dispatcher.
The charging affidavit for second degree murder is careful not to call it a 911 call, although the same affidavit refers to the 911 calls made by others (such as the one on which a voice is heard yelling for help).
The City of Sanford's FAQ letter carefully makes the distinction several times:
"In this instance, the 911 calls made by neighbors in the subdivision, and the non-emergency call made by Mr. Zimmerman . . .
"[The telecommunications call taker asked Zimmerman “are you following him”. Zimmerman replied, “yes”. The call taker stated “you don’t need to do that”. The call taker’s suggestion is not a lawful order that Mr. Zimmerman would be required to follow."
Nope. Not a 911 operator. A 'telecommunications call taker" at the "non-emergency" number.
Obviously, I'm not poking at you. I just found your post a convenient place to hang this factoid.
Actually, my post was an entirely suitable place to hang your factoid. I was pointing out the importance of clear, unambiguous language. That should apply to me as well. The difference between a 911 operator; and a police station “telecommunications call taker” is important (or may be an important distinction, depending on how various laws may, or may not apply in each case).
In summary, we don't have a lawfully given order, from a LEO answering a 911 call (as the MSM would have us all believe). We have (at best) a *suggestion* from a telephone receptionist. Also, as others have pointed out, even a sworn LEO could not have *ordered* Zimmerman not to follow Martin.
No doubt, this will all come out in court. Then the questions will be:
1. Are jurors smart enough to understand the distinctions?
2. Will the MSM finally give an honest reporting?
3. Will there be riots regardless?
“Nope. Not a 911 operator. A ‘telecommunications call taker” at the “non-emergency” number.”
I wonder if the police give Neighbourhood Watch volunteers that number to call, so as to more directly contact the police. Also, a N.W. volunteer might be calling just to pass on information, and not want to make an “emergency” out of every call.
This is another story that shows the foolishness of Racism. In Chicago they teach that the first permanent white man in Chicago was a black man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baptiste_Pointe_du_Sable
Nah, they'll structure the lawsuit through a "foundation" .... make Zimmerman fight an empty paper bag. If the family sues, then Zimmerman's money flows through the paper bag to them. If Zimmerman countersues and wins, he gets an empty paper bag. Economics 201.
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