Free Republic

For the last week or so, the entire nation has been talking about gun control — or at least the media has been talking about it. The sudden tsunami of gun control stories, articles, op-eds, and segments is the result of the terrible mass shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in beautiful Parkland, Florida. Sadly, the focus on gun control has caused the media (and the people who get their news from the media) to miss the far-larger scandal revolving around Douglas High School. First, let me be clear; I’m not talking about the scandal of...

(03-30) 13:43 PDT West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) -- When he was shot, Trayvon Martin was not the baby-faced boy in the photo that has been on front pages across the country. And George Zimmerman wasn't the beefy-looking figure in the widely published mugshot. Both photos are a few years old and no longer entirely accurate. Yet they may have helped shape initial public perceptions of the deadly shooting. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/30/national/a124959D75.DTL#ixzz1qdnyTFbC

..."[George] Zimmerman's life was not without difficulties. In 2001, when he was 17 or 18, he was the victim of a minor criminal assault, said Manassas police Sgt. Eddie Rivera. The city's computer records do not provide details of the crime. In school, Zimmerman hinted at ambitions in the business world. He joined a Future Business Leaders of America club. And in his senior yearbook, he wrote: "I'm going to Florida to work with my godfather who just bought a $1 million business." In Sanford, Zimmerman shifted his plans, with hopes of becoming a law enforcement officer. NPR reported that...

George Zimmerman once took criminal justice classes at the community college and was practically a one-man neighborhood watch in his gated part of town, calling police close to 50 times over the past eight years to report such things as slow-driving vehicles, strangers loitering in the neighborhood and open garages.