Trayvon Martin - Basic Geography May Cut Against Zimmerman (Or Not - See UPDATE)
Posted on 06/25/2013 7:53:51 AM PDT by kristinn
Two flawed innocent lives intersected one 2012 February night in the town of Sanford, Florida. Afterward one life was ended and another was marked for death.
The debate over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman sixteen months ago has partisans painting each as villains in order to justify their belief in the guilt or innocence of Zimmerman of the charge of second degree murder.
Those who believe Zimmerman is innocent have rejected the Martin family’s attorneys’ portrait of Martin as a cuddly boy who looked about twelve years old. Instead, they point to Martin’s thug-wannabe social media persona and high school suspensions to portray the just turned seventeen-year-old as a hardened Black street thug who was casing the neighborhood where Zimmerman lived.
Those who believe Zimmerman is guilty have cast the part Black, part Hispanic, part White, then-twenty-eight-year-old as a white racist cop-wannabe who stalked Martin that February 26th night with murder in his heart.
But what if neither view is correct. What if the basic stories told by the two key witnesses in the case were pretty much what happened. Zimmerman and the mysterious ‘Witness 8’s tales overlap on key points.
Witness 8 is the alleged girlfriend of Martin who was supposedly speaking to Martin as he walked though Zimmerman’s neighborhood as he made his way to the townhouse home of his father’s then girlfriend where he was staying after being suspended from school in Miami. Her statement (albeit with spin and hyperbole) was relayed by Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump at a news conference March 20, 2012.
Zimmerman and Witness 8 both say that Martin was staying close to buildings. Both say Martin walked near Zimmerman’s parked car to check him out. Both say that Martin and Zimmerman lost sight of each other. Both say they came back in contact. And both agree confrontational words were first exchanged followed quickly by a physical altercation between the two.
Witness 8 says Martin was staying close to the buildings to get out of the rain—an innocent thing to do—and got upset that someone was watching him. Zimmerman, involved in his community’s neighborhood watch, took into account the rash of burglaries in recent months as he observed the stranger lurking near buildings.
Martin wanted to get a closer look at the stranger to him who was eyeballing him. Zimmerman took that as menacing. Martin then got away from Zimmerman. Zimmerman got out of his vehicle to see where the stranger to him was running toward. Losing him and being advised by the dispatcher not to pursue the stranger, Zimmerman says he started to make his way back to his vehicle.
It is not known why Martin did not go straight to his father’s then-girlfriend’s townhouse. He could have gotten disoriented in the evening rain as he tried to get away from the stranger, or he could have decided to confront the stranger who had gotten out of his vehicle in the rain to follow him. He would have been in his rights to do so--as would Zimmerman be in his rights to check out and follow the stranger in his crime-stricken neighborhood even if the police dispatcher advised him not to.
When the two met face to face, neither got violent right away. They both asked each other ‘what are you doing’ type questions. What apparently made the confrontation turn violent is the move by Zimmerman to reach for his cellphone. As he relates in his written statement to Sanford police the night of the incident: “…as I tried to find my phone to dial 911 the suspect punched me in the face. I fell backwards onto my back. The suspect got on top of me…the suspect grabbed my head and slammed it into the concrete sidewalk.”
Martin could very easily have been acting in self-defense if he took Zimmerman fumbling for a cellphone as him reaching for a knife or a gun. The way he reacted, according to Zimmerman, is exactly how a friend into self-defense told me long ago to get the upper hand in such a situation: First punch the nose hard enough to break it, thereby stunning your opponent, and then beat the tar out of them before they can recover.
So Martin would have been in the right acting in self-defense against a strange man who was following him who reached for something as they confronted each other.
Zimmerman also would have been right in trying to defend himself with deadly force as he did not initiate the violence and was quickly facing having his head bashed in.
There are no eyewitnesses to the beginning of the fight between Martin and Zimmerman, save for Zimmerman himself. The description by one eyewitness who saw some of the fight before the gunshot tracked with Zimmerman’s description at that point of the incident—just as Witness 8 largely tracks with Zimmerman’s account.
It is quite likely that the unarmed Trayvon Martin died believing he was fighting for his life from a stranger who stalked him with bad intent and was trying to pull a weapon on him. Zimmerman saying that when they were on the ground Martin saw the gun in his waistband would only have confirmed Martin’s fears.
If Zimmerman were trying to pull his gun out at the onset, rather than fumble for his cellphone, the fight would have right away been a struggle for control of the gun. There’s no evidence that happened.
It is my belief that both Martin and Zimmerman acted within their rights the night of February 26, 2012. Sometimes acting within your rights with flawed judgment can get you killed. Other times it can get you put on trial for murder by a legal lynch mob.
Just because somebody annoys you does not mean you have the right to pummel them. That is the foundation of civilized society.
LITTLE TRAYVON: "You got a problem?"
MONSTER GEORGE: "No."
LITTLE TRAYVON: "You do now."
Exactly right. Well said.
Nope, pounding someones head on the concrete would never be considered legitimate self defense under any circumstances.
That is a good analysis, Kristinn. Probably very close to how the whole incident went down.
HST, my contention is that Martin provoked the fight that led to his death — he could have — should have — gone to his father’s condo rather than conFRonting Zimmerman.
I’ll be interested to see how the lawyers FRame it in their arguments and counter-arguments.
I’m rooting for a Zimmerman acquittal, followed by a Zimmerman lawsuit against the state of Flori-duh for wrongful arrest and prosecution.
I disagee.
IF (big if) Zimmerman made mistakes, they were overridden by the mistakes and bad decisions Martin made. Mistakes which cost NO_LIMIT_***** his life.
And then to compound this miscarriae of justice - racist overtones by Crump, Sharpton, Obama and other racists have only added fuel to the fire.
Of course, we are told that all of these wounds were self-inflicted. Kind of like falling on your own knife - five times.
If T had gone back to the apt and gone inside, instead of trying to find and confront the person he said was following him, he would not have died that night, nor would Z be in this trouble.
This will be twisted around - already has been -that Z was wrong for following T and doubly wrong for allegedly not doing what the dispatcher said, with the caveat that Z did head back to his vehicle after the dispatcher’s statement, but was confronted anyway.
But the simple point is that Z was well within his rights to be looking at the individual’s movements that night, and that once T said somebody’s following me, all that needed to happen was for T to go inside the apt.
I’m all for thinking about both sides of the story. The problem is that your presentation TM is simply noncredible. Your own post had to back TM up five years in age to pretend that he was anything other than the street fighting druggie gangsta thug that his Facebook, IMs, school records, and all the other evidence shows he is.
You paint the question of why he didn’t go back to his family’s house as something to wonder about. The creep circled around to confront GZ. There’s no innocent conduct here. And even if this was just a stupid kid who made all the wrong choices that night, that doesn’t change the fact that GZ was justified in believing that TM meant him death or imminent bodily harm.
That realization may have occurred to him for the first time about 2 seconds before he expired. Up until that point, I think it was all fun and games for the little thug.
Does anyone know over what distance these events took place? Or how far Trayvon would had to have walked to get back to the apartment he was returning to?
If he’d just kept on walking, how far was he from his destinaiton after he saw Zimmerman?
The only real facts we have are that Monster George had been beaten and Little Trayvon had not.
All the evidence points to Little Trayvon being shot while in the act of beating Zimmerman.
Unless you want to be like England and make self-defense a crime, Monster George is innocent.
The entire prosecution case seems to be based on GZ's ONE statement about "these ass-holes always get away with it"... That statement is an explanation for why GZ FOLLOWED him... in no way does it show an intent to go KILL somebody.
There'd better be some additional, SHOCKING new evidence if they expect to get a guilty verdict.
What rubbish! The drug abusing, high on pot, jewlerly stealing, purple drank guzzing, suspended from school, fight club member, THUG, Trayvon Martin, did not fear for his life because of a cell phone.
If Martin had gone in his pocket to pull out his cell phone and Zimmerman had pulled his gun and shot him to death, would ANYBODY say he was justified?
Martin was a THUG, high on drugs, who resented being questioned by a neighborhood watchman and then brutally attacked him.
Nobody has the right to try to administer a beat down on another person just because they looked at them. Even if they are stoned and not thinking
Trayvon earned what he got.
The jerk missed/skipped 53 days of school. Students go to school 5 days a week. 53 days is almost 11 weeks of school missed. Kind of a lot, eh?
The goal of the Circus in Sanford is to get both the Stand Your Ground law and the Castle Doctrine struck down, creating court precedent for Leftist activists to get similar laws in other states stricken from the books.
That way, citizens cannot defend themselves when the Gibsmedats come boiling out of the urban kraals. Jesse and Al, as well as the NBPP, have already stated that there WILL be riots, regardless of the verdict.
Back-door Gun Control, legislated from the bench. That’s all there ever is or was to this case.
It is not known why Martin did not go straight to his father’s then-girlfriend’s townhouse. He could have gotten disoriented in the evening rain as he tried to get away from the stranger, or he could have decided to confront the stranger who had gotten out of his vehicle in the rain to follow him.
And they forgot to mention that witness * testified that she told Martin to just let it go, but he didn’t. This is BEFORE Z and M met again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.