Is the New Black Panthers "bounty" on Zimmerman a federal or state issue?

Granted, it appears no one is taking this seriously except the wingnuts on Fox News and AM radio.

But what are the legalities of this? And would such be a federal crime?

Seeing as how they carefully worded it to “turn Zimmerman in to the proper authorities” I don’t see a crime. Certainly a negligence action should Zimmerman have been hurt.

Sean Hannity didn’t mention that part. That is pretty important.

My mistake for listening to that moron. He was calling for Holder’s resignation over this.

Maybe there was something new that I didn’t read. The original $10k “reward” was for finding Zimmerman and turning him over to police. If something else happened, I missed it.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-24/news/os-trayvon-martin-new-black-panthers-protest-20120324_1_sanford-vigilante-justice-black-men

Zimmerman wasn’t charged with a crime at that time.

Asking someone to Abduct him for a bounty was offering to pay for a kidnapping and a crime.

for the OP, kidnapping is a federal crime. I’m not sure what the charge is for offering to pay someone to commit a federal crime is.

Its worth pointing out that Zimmerman had no warrants or charges against him when that bounty was offered. No one had any right to abduct him and take him anywhere.

Bounty hunters can only arrest people who jump bail. They can’t just drag any free citizen off the street.

This is very plausible.

Arranging a hit on someone would be a state crime I believe.

Bounty hunters can go after people who jump bail after using a bailbond company and signing a contract allowing the stuff bounty hunters do. If you pay your bail out of pocket and jump you won’t have bounty hunters on your tail since no contract was signed.

I don’t know how the rewards for dead or alive the USA government offers on people like the deceased Osama Bin Laden work.

One has to listen to Fox News and mainstream news too. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Inconsequential, considering the Attorney General’s loyalty to his political party.

The authorities seem to be taking the position that since NBPP is a small gathering of kooks who speak for nobody but themselves, making a grand empty proclamation, they’re not going to put in great effort on them since it would only serve to give them the attention they crave. * “Look at the injustice inherent in the system, help, help, I’m being oppressed”.*

(Their call for Zimmerman to be “taken before authorities” was a stupid attempt at a provocative publicity stunt at someone else’s expense since, as mentioned, at the time he was not legally on the run from any authority, and if someone took them up on it, of course it would result in those authorities telling everyone involved to go the hell home, or even charging the “bountyhunter” with false imprisonment, and voilá, come see the injustice and oppression!).
Pet Peeve:

“The truth lies between” is such a tired cliché, and it doesn’t account that it may be “between”, but NOT in the middle but rather 90% of the way to one version or the other. Besides the disagreement between media sources in many cases these days is not over what was actually said or done by whom when, but over what importance to give to it, how seriously to take it.

If no-one is taking this seriously except “wing nuts at Fox and AM radio,” why is OP posting precisely on their opinions?

Nor does it account for the possibility that the truth may lie outside the two endpoints entirely.

How true! And how much more smug and self satisfied would you be if the Fox news side were not reported at all?!

I don’t know about federal or state but I thought that politics in GQ was an SDMB crime.

I’ll refrain from tieing into post #10 as that belongs somewhere else too.

Kidnapping is only a federal offense IF a federal element is present.

IIRC, since the local and state authorities had declined (at that time) to arrest or charge Zimmerman, the NBPP was offering the bounty to anyone who would perform a “citizens arrest” and turn Zimmerman over to federal authorities. IOW, they were claiming that the state and local authorities were simply refusing to pursue a prima facie case of murder because of racism, and it was time to bypass the good ole’ boys “protecting” Zimmerman.

Great political theater, lousy legality; and I’m thankful nobody was stupid enough to actually try it.