Are you Team Trayvon or Team Zimmerman?

The BBQ Pit
781

So what did you mean by your comment? You can vomit up a paragraph and mention hijacking, but can’t explain your own hijack?

OK, I get what you are, you’re simply a petty, wanna be lawyer but too-stupid-to-get-into law school person who resents guns. Fine. I understand anti-gun; had your pot shot been based in rational thought, maybe it would have meant something to someone vehemently pro gun who can’t see both sides. As it stands, you apparently can’t or are too embarrassed to explain. That’s all right lil cowpoke, but you sure aren’t doing your cause célèbre any justice.

782

Who followed who? Who has the history of anger and violence and so is the more likely candidate? Who had already decided this “asshole” wouldn’t get away?

All the guy had to do was observe, report, and stay in his car. He had to get out of the csr, and I don’t give a damn what he says now, you get out of the car to start something. And NO CRIME HAD BEEN COMMITED. I think he precipitated ALL of it.

I think he is a cowardly lyinhg asshole.

783

Sadly, the option is not ‘what is was most likely to have happened’, but only ‘what can be proven in a court of law’.

784

Yes. It’s just a username. Shall we rank the posters in this thread for their propensity to violence, judging by their chosen usernames?

785

Whom. Can you cite the law that was broken by Zimmerman when he followed Martin?

786

I don’t think mine shows a propensity to violence…

787

Already brought this up in the IMHO thread, but I’ll post a revised version here.

The default assumption in all the discussions of this mess that I’ve seen so far has been that Martin was on top of Zimmerman when the fatal shot was fired. But Booman at Booman Tribune, after extensively quoting the statements of witnesses to the altercation and summarizing other evidence, offers this analysis:

Could this be what really happened? I’m not saying yes, definitely; but it does appear to fit what’s known at this point.

And yes, I have considered the point that Martin was found lying face down, his hands underneath him; but I can think of at least one explanation for that if Booman is correct: that Zimmerman flipped the body over as or after he got up from the ground. Consider this witness’s statement:

Oh, and before you go there; I’m not claiming this is an unbiased opinion; merely that it’s one hypothesis.

788

I seem to recall that in 1984, gangs of armed vigilantes roamed the streets of Rio de Janeiro murdering teenagers they found out walking around.

Perhaps your username explains more about your position than I thought.

789

When I see or hear young people using phrases or handles like that, I generally assume it’s a reference to a hip-hop song or artist I’ve never heard of, which is a vast category. That may be the case here; I have no idea.

If that isn’t it, and I just saw someone with that handle, I’d guess they were probably black (or possibly non-black and into hip-hop culture). The “no limit” part? Could suggest they think very highly of themselves. Maybe they see no limits for their future. Maybe they have poor impulse control. Maybe it’s a skinny teenage kid who wants to sound all scary and bad-ass. It’s an ambiguous handle; you are free, of course, to jump to the worst possible interpretation if you feel it connotes evidence of Martin’s “hot-headedness,” but it’s pretty weak sauce.

It is, right? Just between you and me? Not your strongest argument?

790

No. At least one witness puts the man in red on the bottom. The man wearing red was Zimmerman. But, why not actually wait to see the statements? They will be released… Because it’s too much fun to speculate, spew venom, claim there is a default position anywhere in this thing, and to quote articles that say “and then he was executed” saying that they offer a rational theory. What is rational is to have some basic facts–maybe some of the facts the police had from the beginning…

791

But it’s not relevant to my reply to Shodan. Or rather, it’s relevant, just redundant and unnecessary. Section 776.012 is just the formal wording of what Shodan described in the post I was responding to and what we all know very well by now: Zimmerman is claiming he had to resort to lethal force to save himself. His specific point appeared to be that the problem of Zimmerman provoking the aggression would be cancelled out by the severity of Martin’s aggression (and indeed it might be, but only after the serious examination I outlined in that post - or at least, that’s what the law says in Section 776.041)

776.012 isn’t exempt from the requirements of 776.041, you know: “The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter.” The sections. Meaning all of the ones that preceded section 776.041, beginning with Section 776.012. Including the text of 776.012 doesn’t do anything except clutter up the screen.

But you asked for it, so here goes!

I’ll do better than simply bring up both, I’ll bring up all, the way they read before the 2005 “stand your ground” changes and the way they read now, in their entirety. (Florida has a fantastic website that lets you look up the current law, and the former law. So I pulled both versions, before and after the SYG bill was passed.)

The parts that are the same before and after are black. The entirely new sections that were created by the SYG bill are in blue, and the amendments to already-existing sections are red. Stuff that has no bearing on this case because they are entirely devoted to law enforcement or civil penalties are in tiny type. (Walls of text? Check! Colors and sizes? Check! See what you make me do? Tsk tsk… If I’m not overwhelming with walls of text, I’m being disingenuous by leaving stuff out…can’t win for losing, I tell ya…) )

The chapter is actually very tidily designed in structure, if hideously conceived in substance… the first three sections break out all the circumstances that permit lethal force. The fourth section adds all the insane bonus goodies about being immune to arrest, for god’s sake, and then section five comes along as a very important afterthought/caution against taking it into your head that having been given SO much fucking leeway to whip out your gun and start blasting, you can “goose” things a little by poking people with sticks to get them to behave in ways that fit into sections 1-3, whether by design or by paranoid delusion.

The rest is directed to circumstances specific to law enforcement, and finally to the details of litigation arising out of it all.

So now can you clarify for me why you feel that my failure to include section 776.012 had to be either gross ignorance of what vitally important truth or a deliberate attempt to avoid which damning reality?

792

And that, in your view, definitely establishes his claims as false? I don’t believe that was what the court found - IIRC, they were both ordered to stay away from each other.

Again, I don’t think that has been established, at least not legally, and possibly not even factually. I have read at least one account that says that incident was expunged. I’m not sure what that entails, but it is a good ways from being cut-and-dried that Zimmerman was a walking time bomb.

It also doesn’t take a genius to understand that the recommendations of a 911 operator carry no legal weight, and therefore do not go any way at all towards showing that someone was the aggressor in a situation.

Certainly you can suspect that. You can also suspect that it was Martin who was the aggressor, given his history of equally petty drug and vandalism offenses.

That has not been established. According to Zimmerman’s story, he did not use his gun until Martin attacked him. If that is true, the first criminal action was committed by Martin. Martin, in other words, would have been the instigator.

Do you believe, that if Martin had killed Zimmerman instead of vice versa, that Martin would have been justified in doing so?

And I asked a similar question in other threads - if it is so easy to get away with murder in Florida, why doesn’t every murderer there claim self-defense?

The fact that he was armed does not establish his guilt, the fact that he was advised to back off does not establish his guilt, and his following Martin does not establish his guilt.

Before the shooting? Correct, we do not know of any crimes that had been committed. Not by Martin, not by Zimmerman.

Regards,
Shodan

793

I guess I’d consider myself Team Higher Standard for Getting Away with Killing People.

794

:confused: Yes, I saw the starting posts - I even quoted one of them. I’m talking about what immediately followed.

795

To recap:

  1. Martin had the right to walk there.
  2. Zimmerman had the right to follow him.
  3. There was no crime committed, by either Martin or Zimmerman, until the physical confrontation started.
796

Stoid, your colors make my brain hurt. Are you conflating the statutory mention of “provoke” and the term “initiating” as used by Shodan? Did you not read what Shodan wrote then?

This is the quote from Shodan that immediately preceded your quote of the “Use of force by Aggressor” section:

Note the term “initiating” and the term “cold-cocked.” Shodan was still assuming the account that the first actual force used was by Martin per Zimmerman’s statement.He even says that clearly. So, your explanation is based on that statement i.e., assume Zimmerman’s story is true re force.

Zimmerman could have jumped around called Martin an “idiot” and that is not “provocation” as contemplated by the statute. I honestly don’t know how “fighting words” are construed in Florida so I won’t give the example of Zimmerman telling Martin “your momma” jokes. Are you calling the fact that Zimmerman followed Martin “provocation”? It’s not for the purposes of that statute. It is stupid, possible even negligent, but not provocation per a statutory criminal force argument.

If, you simply couldn’t read the words used by Shodan and are now claiming you meant Zimmerman hit or threatened to hit or threatened to shoot Martin first. Please clarify.

797

No Limit Records is pretty big, although I haven’t exactly followed hip hop since the late 90s. Those young people and their music, I tell ya. Menacing stuff.

798

“Provocation” in most states, including Florida, would include such things as brandishing a weapon, no? (Board lawyers, please correct me if I’m wrong.)

Carry law in FL does not allow open carry in public except as associated with transport directly to and from legal venues for shooting (range, hunting, etc.). I’ve not seen any suggestions that Zimmerman was in the middle of any such activity, but I have seen statements to the effect that he was wearing his weapon at his hip. I would think that deliberate display of a handgun, whether holstered or not, during a heated verbal altercation counts as brandishing. I know that I would find it provocative. Threatening. An obvious attempt to intimidate.

I’m not claiming that Zimmerman definitely displayed his 9mm to Trayvon Martin, much less that he unholstered it, but this certainly fits with the picture of a self-appointed neighborhood watch “captain” and rejected LEO wannabe with resentment toward “these assholes” he’s on watch against.

799

Has anyone seen this map?

Assuming it’s accurate as to the relative positions of Trayvon’s house, Trayvon’s body, and Zimmerman’s parked truck, Zimmerman’s story makes no sense. Martin’s body was less than 70’ from his home, which makes his body (the site of the confrontation between the two) more than 70’ feet away from Zimmerman’s vehicle.

800

Jeanie, I don’t know you from Adam, and you’re awful damn personal for a stranger. But simply what it is, what I said. You want someone to argue gun laws with, there’s a bunch of 'em here, you just start yourself a thread and you can dance with them till the cows come home.

Not me. It just ain’t worth it. And those other people will offer a viewpoint roughly similar to mine own, so similar that the distinction isn’t worth the effort. Now, you want to talk bar-b-q or tell Aggie jokes, I’m your guy. Outside of that, why don’t we just each pretend the other doesn’t exist? Suits me just fine, how about you?