“Dude. He killed a kid walking down the street”
Not so. He killed a “kid” who was 6ft 3 and had him down on his back punching him in the face according to an eye witness. Try to keep up.
“Zimmerman was justified in using deadly force according to Florida’s STAND YOUR GROUND LAW because Martin was on top of him beating him in the face.
According to this eye witness quoted in this article Zimmerman was getting the worst of it and calling for help once the fighting started.
“The guy on the bottom, who had a red sweater on, was yelling to me, ‘Help! Help!’ and I told him to stop, and I was calling 911,” said the witness, who asked to be identified only by his first name, John.
John said he locked his patio door, ran upstairs and heard at least one gun shot.
“And then, when I got upstairs and looked down, the guy who was on the top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point.”
That is why the cops didnt arrest him at the scene after hearing this witness account, observing his bloody nose and his bleeding from the back of he head and grass stains on the back of his shirt. Considering that he had a concealed carry permit, was injured in the scuffle, was in fear for his live, and reasonably thought that Martin was a criminal, The cops let him go after cuffing him when the local prosecutors said there was not enough evidence for manslaughter conviction under Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law.
The witness said it was Zimmerman who was screaming for help and police detectives even ran the 9-11 tapes of the screaming by the “kids” father and the father said the screams were NOT from his son.
Besides Martin is not the angelic 12 year old pictured in almost all the news stories but was almost 18, six foot three, and had been suspended from High School in Miami so he went to Sanford to visit his dad. If you listen to the 9-11 tapes, the kid approached Zimmerman when he was sitting in his truck as a possible intimidation tactic. It is also possible that the kid was not a terrified babe in the woods as portrayed but regarded Zimmerman following him as a white man dissing him and he attacked the watch captain without warning.
Granted, Zimmerman was wrong to follow the kid but IF the kid attacked him he is protected from a manslaughter charge by the SYG Law.However,civil lawsuits against him and the housing complex are another matter.
Lets have a Grand Jury review the evidence and then arrest him if the evidence showed he attacked the kid first.
Nice summary and nice conclusion.
Your summary seems to incldue more facts than any other single peice of journalism or media commentary. Good Job.
Much of the hyperbole coming from the reactionary masses (somewhat represented on this forum, it seems) is washed away by the facts.
6-3 and 18, inner city wanna be maybe? Aggresses as captured on 9-11 tapes, and then escalation follows (as captured on 9-11 tapes) and the result is a shooting, who’d a thunk it?
I still stand firm-if Z is guilty of a crime, then he should pay.
Again, well done.
I was in Florida at the time this happened and the local news, I believe, interviewed the mother and stepfather or boyfriend, I forget exactly. Anyway they played the tapes and the mother was understandably distraught. Especially since, in her words, her poor baby was shot while shouting for help.
It made for great TV.
I had my doubts at the time but thought, hey, a mother would know her own child's voice, wouldn't she?
If that wasn't Martins’ voice on the tape then what does that say about the Mother and the motivations of all that have done their best to inflame the situation?
With all due respect, that information is not complete:
Sure, the teen was 6’3” tall. For some reason, his height is being used as some kind of evidence here. But, did you also know that, at 6’3”, he weighed only 140 lbs.? His nickname was Slimm, and Zimmerman outweighed him by 100 pounds:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/article/246108/250/Teens-death-renews-debate-over-Stand-Your-Ground
Btw, I think this is the teen’s Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Trayvon-Slimm-Martin/1353307542
Secondly, he was not almost 18. He was born in 1995; he’d just turned 17. I have a son almost the same age; I have to ask him to reach things for me, but height doesn’t mean they are grown men at that age. It also doesn’t mean they’re streetwise.
Thirdly, he was reportedly on a five-day suspension from school for lateness (hardly a serious offense):
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/os-trayvon-martin-shooting-tension-20120317,0,4288837,full.story
At this point, he’s hardly coming across like a gangsta-wannabe. Zimmerman is the one coming across as a wannabe-a-cop.
I don’t believe Zimmerman committed premeditated murder. My speculation is that both Zimmerman and Martin were suspicious of each other. Martin might’ve believed he was being followed by a gangbanger. Even if we give Zimmerman the benefit of the doubt: Suppose Martin did come at him when he got out of his vehicle. Well, Martin had been trying to get away from him. Now, suddenly, this man who’d been following him is out of his vehicle and coming toward him. Maybe Martin was “standing his ground” and acting in self-defense. Zimmerman is a young man in his 20’s, but maybe out-of-shape physically.
Whatever the case, the family is right in demanding further investigation, charges... a trial.
I will say one thing that’s been bothering me, though: With a son the same age, I can’t understand why the father didn’t go looking for his son when he didn’t return home right away. Why didn’t he notice something happening just 70 feet from the house where he was staying? I read somewhere that he called police the next morning. (I don’t know where I read that now.) Why not call that night? And why didn’t the girl on the phone call the parents to tell them something had happened? Maybe I’m just a very protective parent, but there are lots of unanswered questions in this story.