Then you claim that Zimmerman is a cold blooded murder. You’re not accusing Trayvon of a crime, ergo you concede that Trayvon did not assault Zimmerman (that would be a crime) ergo Zimmerman killed Trayvon in cold blood. Right?
Or are you actually accusing Trayvon of a crime?
I’m pretty sure he means that we don’t hold trials for dead people, so Trayvon is not on trial. I don’t think your “ergo” follows at all. There are plenty of people who are now dead, and therefore not accused of a crime, whose actions still gave justification to self-defense shootings.
Given your misunderstanding above, I don’t think you should be holding yourself up as the arbiter of what the “vast majority of people in this thread” think.
Transcript excerpt from Post 116:
Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there’s a real suspicious guy, uh, [near] Retreat View Circle, um, the best address I can give you is 111 Retreat View Circle. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about. ..
That’s what Zimmerman said on the phone. Apparently something looked suspicious about Martin’s actions and, as a recent arrival to the complex, he was not a familiar face to Zimmerman.
I asked earlier, did anyone claim Zimmerman harassed residents or visitors of any color as part of NW activities?
In what way was he not just walking home?
Why do you think that he was?
Never mind.
Here’s a suggestion. Go read the Wikipedia article on the shooting. Don’t skip paragraphs, start at the beginning and learn new (to you) information that is helpfully supported by online citations.
Have a good weekend!
I posted at lot about the Zimmerman trial at the time, because Zimmerman’s testimony is so full of holes I’m surprised loose change didn’t fall out. I’m not going to re-hash all of it.
But for starters - Zimmerman’s testimony about the altercation does not match where Martin’s body ended up, nor does the timeline match up based on the transcript of the 911 call.
Zimmerman claims he was almost back to his truck when Martin approached him from the other direction, and then ‘sucker punched’ him, with Zimmerman claiming he fell back towards the truck.
But Martin ended up dead well down the path in a completely different direction. It’s pretty clear that Zimmerman is lying about where the altercation took place because he wants to make it seem like he was innocently heading back to his truck when he was ‘sucker punched’.
Also worth asking why if Martin was going to ‘sucker punch’ Zimmerman, Martin would ruin the element of surprise by talking to him first.
Finally - also probably worth mentioning that the team of prosecutors were unbelievably incompetent. The entire case was an absolute train wreck.
Exactly that.
You’ve clearly never been in a real world fist fight. Go visit Worldstarhiphop: Breaking News | Music Videos | Entertainment News | Hip Hop News to see how a fight really transpires.
Evidence suggests that, prior to the encounter, Martin was just walking home. Change the time frame by 30 seconds (Zimmerman left the store 30 seconds earlier or later) and, so far as we know, nothing at all would have happened. In that respect, I fail to understand how Martin was not just walking home.
Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman,
“…Zimmerman is a civilian who was explicitly told by Dispatch not to follow Trayvon Martin…”
Not quite what happened when asked if Zimmerman was following Trayvon the dispatcher said, “We don’t need you to do that.” So he wasn’t ordered not to follow he was informed that is wasn’t necessary, I can only assume you didn’t listen to the 911 call.
Now had you listened to the call Zimmerman stated there had been some break-ins in his neighborhood, he saw someone who looked suspicion and called it in.
Later after the shooting Zimmerman stated he was going back to his car and that Trayvon approached and attacked him. Zimmerman was treated for an open wound of scalp and later with closed fracture of his nose, two black eyes, lacerations to the back of his head, a minor back injury, and bruising in his upper lip and cheek.
We know that Trayvon knew someone was following him, according to the girl he as talking with on the phone. she stated he said someone was following him and that she later told him to run.
Should Zimmerman have followed Trayvon, that depends on your point of view, would you want your neighbor to keep an eye on someone who might be casing out homes to break into or not? Should have Trayvon ran? Again depends on your point of view, if you felt this person was a danger to you wouldn’t it be prudent to get away? Should Trayvon, if you believe Zimmerman, have approached Zimmerman instead of trying to get away? Shouldn’t Trayvon called 911? After all he had a phone, and if he was worried about someone following him wouldn’t it have been prudent to call the police. Had he done that the dispatchers might have prevented all this from happening.
You see it wasn’t cut and dry, there were many things going on and not everyone was aware of what was happening.
Just so you know, yes I’ve called the police on people, yes I kept an eye on that both of them (they were a half a block away from me) yes I would have got involved. In my case two people were fighting a guy and a girl and it appeared to me the guy was being very aggressive to the point were I felt the girl might in danger. The police did show in time and they took care of it.
The most damning inconsistency is that Zimmerman claimed he was the person heard desperately yelling for his life up to the point the gun went off while claiming simultaneously that he also was being choked/suffocated by Martin and unable to breathe up to the point he shot the kid. While all this choking (and screaming) was going on, he also claimed Martin was sitting on his chest.
None of this shit is humanely possible, but people swallowed it just like they swallowed the rest of his bullshit tale. It takes a massive breakdown in critical thinking skills to listen to that tape and come away thinking it was anyone other than Trayvon Martin screaming.
Debating this case is truly like trying to argue with die hard Trump supporters. Once you realize that these people believe what they believe because they give credence to pathological liars, you know it’s a hopeless battle.
You clearly don’t know what a sucker punch is.
You think Martin was screaming while he was scratching up his knuckles on Zimmerman’s face?
It is through assumption that bias gets in the way.
I would not assume Martin asked this angrily. If I were in his shoes, fear would be more likely…wouldn’t it be for most people? I mean, if a heavy set stranger was skulking after you in the dark and you’re all alone and unarmed, wouldn’t you be afraid?
I understand that you are not among those who defend Zimmerman, but I’m using your post to highlight a problematic issue I notice in a lot opinions about this case. The more difficulty one has in believing that a black teenaged boy could feel afraid and vulnerable in a situation that would cause most folks to shit their pants, then the more difficulty they will have in seeing him as Zimmerman’s tragic victim rather than Zimmerman’s assailant. It is precisely because people associate anger and violence with black males that they withhold sympathy from Martin, allowing themselves to become susceptible to Zimmerman’s self-serving narrative about a thug who went after him rather than the other way around.
Is this a serious question?
Yes.
Obviously it is. Why would you not expect it to be Zimmerman, the person who was injured, to be screaming?
HurricaineDitka, if you need someone to explain how it is possible to scream while trying to repel an attacker with one’s hands, please contact the person who wrote this wiki, or reach out to the woman described in this article.
I really thought I had typed out a rather long reply to this, but it seems to have been eaten by the ethers.
Right, and in the context of the thread, I thought you would get that I was talking about the context of Martin’s situation, as that is what we are talking about. I didn’t think that you would become confused, and think that we were talking about some random other event that is not related to the topic of the thread. I apologize profusely for my presumptiveness.
So, you are saying that you would have lead a suspicious person who was following you in the dark back to your home?
If you were confronted by a suspicious stranger who was following you in the dark, you would defer to him in every way?
Do you think that when Martin told Zimmerman to fuck off, it’s none of his business, that Zimmerman simply said, “Okay, go about your business, then.” Or do you think that Zimmerman would have made an intimidating move to prevent Martin from brushing him off?
I don’t know why you insist that Zimmerman must have done everything absolutely correctly in this instance, when it is obvious that he was not. If Zimmerman had grabbed Martin to prevent him from walking away, would Martin’s actions have been justified at that point?
I get that you won’t speculate on the motive, because the motive doesn’t make sense with your narrative. And that is because your narrative is flawed. With the narrative that Martin just ambushed Zimmerman for no reason at all, then the motive for Martin’s actions is that he is simply an out of control violent thug.
That you would push a narrative that only makes sense if you dehumanize the victim doesn’t mean that you are not endorsing that motive.
If you switch to a narrative that does make sense, that Martin was afraid of this stranger who was following him in the dark, then Martin’s motive is simple, and the narrative is simpler too. It is only that we want to stretch everything to make Martin into someone who deserved what he got that gets you so confused.
But, you are more than happy to speculate on the events, and use those speculations of events to damn Martin for being the one to initiate violence, and then say that you can’t understand why he did it.
I find it incredulous that “right by” means “in the doorway”. There are many meanings for “right by” when you are coming from a location a distance away, but you and Shodan are insisting that that means that he could have just opened the door and gone in, and you are doing it with far less evidence than that needed to know that “right by” is a relative term.
It can mean anything from a few houses away, to being on the same street, to even being able to touch your house. However, I could be right by my house, I could be touching it even, and yet have a bit to go to get around to a door to actually get in. That would involve going around a corner, and breaking any cover or concealment you currently have, and entering a new line of site for your pursuer to see you.
Right, but there is not even a crime that he is being accused. Had things gone a bit differently, and Martin was only wounded, not killed, what crime would you be charging him with?
You are claiming that the only reason that Martin is not on trial is because he is dead?
What crime, specifically, was Martin committing which gave justification to a self-defense shooting?
And he was not on drugs, he was not up to no good. The only thing that Zimmerman had right in that was that he was walking, which, even in Florida, is not a crime.
You see how much Zimmerman got wong in even just that one sentence, but you take his word on everything else.
“Something”, eh? Sure. Did Zimmerman call the police and confront anyone he saw on the street that was not familiar to him? When people move into the neighborhood, are they required to register themselves at the Zimmerman household? If you want to have visitors, is it required to run it by the Zimmerman’s first?
If he was not harassing every resident that he did not know by sight, then what reason did he have to harass Martin?
Do you really think that is what the 911 operator meant there. “Oh, no don’t worry about it, you don’t need to go out of your way to help us out.” Or do you think she meant, “We don’t need (nor want) you to do that.”
Since when has law enforcement been fairly cavalier about civilians taking on law enforcement activity?
And that is fine. You see someone suspicious, you call the police. Too bad Martin did not have a gun, as it has been determined on these boards that having a gun puts you above suspicion, and that you may not have the police called on you for that.
Being black, though, that’s a whole different matter.
And his statement doesn’t match up to the timeline, nor the witnesses, nor the location of the altercation, but everything else he says we should believe.
You should have seen the other guy!
Right, which is why it doesn’t make any sense that he could not have possibly felt in any sort of fear of this man following him in the dark.
I don’t want my neighbors following people behind houses in the dark. If they see something suspicious, they can call the police.
You pose an excluded middle, either they come out armed and follow and stop and question every person that they don’t know on sight, or not.
He did run away from the suspicious man who was following him in the dark.
“If you believe Zimmerman”. Zimmerman’s story doesn’t line up with the evidence we have, so believing him is not necessarily my first instinct. Maybe he was confused, and is is not intentional lying, but the story he gave does not line up.
Yeah, because black teenagers have a great history with the police. The police is not your friend, you know. The police are as likely to show up and shoot him.
Including the scared kid who is being followed in the dark by a suspicious stranger.
Did you ever follow a black teenager back behind houses in the dark while armed?