The cops believed it.
The cops believed it.
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And we on FR are all agreed that the police are always competent, always honest, always hard-working.
Look, I work EMS, so that’s medical not police, but to me Zimmerman has psychologically needy attention-seeker written all over him (more than forty 911 calls in a year.) Instead of being sick and needing an ambulance ride, he sees suspicious people and crimes about to happen.
Listen to his 911 call, his voice shaking with adrenaline, his frustration, anger, venom, his mood shifts. He sought out that confrontation.
Who took it to the physical level first, I do not know. What would you do if you were a 17 y.o. boy being followed, stalked, approached, by a visibly unbalanced man? Isn’t that how it must have seemed to Trayvon Martin?
Listen to Zimmerman shouting for help in the 911 call from the woman witness. His voice is deep, controlled, rhythmic. Not shrill, panicked, desperate. Not thinking he’s going to die. His injuries were trivial.
Zimmerman is morally culpable for provoking this confrontation. I would hold him civilly liable. Criminally liable? The police did a piss-poor investigation. Just because someone says self-defense doesn’t make it so. They didn’t test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. Didn’t get a crime reconstruction team there. If Martin had had a juvenile record, I would have expected them to release it in the early days to cover themselves. Now of course it would be politically inexpedient.