[QUOTE=Magiver]
Once someone is on top of you you’re screwed. If they don’t have your arms pinned the best you can do is try to shield your face.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Magiver]
We’re done.
[/QUOTE]
LOL. You’re funny. Guess it dawned on you there are some problems with GM’s story, hmmmm?
Go back and listen to the 911 tapes of the fight and gunshot. Those are animal-like screams of primal terror. The person screaming is afraid for their life.
How does this fit in with GZ’s b-grade movie-esque bad-ass quotes? ‘You’re going to die tonight’. ‘You got me’. He says these like they were spoken in a normal conversation voice, but you wouldn’t be able to hear jack over the screams for help, unless TM was also screaming the lines like a banshee - but there’s nothing on the 911 tapes.
And most important of all:
GZ insists several times that he didn’t know his shot hit TM. He says after firing the shot that TM 'sort of sat up and said, ‘you got me, or you got it’, or something like that - like he had heard the gunshot and was yielding. He even pushes TM off him and straddles him, checks to see if he’s armed, asks someone for help in restraining him, etc. He makes a big deal out of ‘not knowing that my shot had hit him’ (which is pretty damned odd, considering that the shot would have been from a distance of about four inches, but anyway).
If GZ’s story is true…why does the scream for help cut off -instantaneously- with the gunshot? You’re telling me that GZ was the one screaming, that he stopped screaming the *instant *he pulled the trigger, mid-scream, even though a) he didn’t know his shot hit TM, so he didn’t know if his life was still in danger or not, and b) it would have taken at least a few seconds for him to realize that TM was yielding?
That blows up every BS meter in a fifty-mile radius.
**Steophan: **First of all, I’ll remind you that we were discussing your hypothetical, where GZ was actively attempting to premeditatively kill TM, and then my armed-robber hypothetical, where the facts of the case couldn’t be more clear, unlike in the actual case.
In response to my hypothetical, you said:
And that is just plainly not so. The armed robber was in the act of committing a felony and threatening the clerk’s life with a firearm. He had no means of escape (unless you think he could outrun bullets), because the clerk pulled his gun and started firing, wounding him, but not yet killing him. At that point, his only recourse would be to beg for mercy and/or run for cover or attempt to escape, and yes, if the clerk continued to fire and shot him in the back, then the clerk could face charges for that. But otherwise, AT NO POINT would the robber be legally justified in shooting the clerk under self-defense, even when the clerk fired first and the robber had no other way to “escape” his bullets. The robber initiated the armed attack while in the commission of a felony, so it was clearly the clerk who had the right to self-defense under SYG. And even though escape wasn’t possible, the robber didn’t attempt it, and instead shot and killed the clerk.
No judge or jury in the land would allow that armed robber to get off for killing the clerk by claiming self defense, Florida SYG law, or not. It’s only your extremely generous parsing and interpretation of the evidence and law that could find otherwise, probably due to your overzealous desire to justify GZ’s actions by any means - even when you apparently have to contort all semblance of reason to do so.
But that’s both FALSE and oversimplifying, as it applies to the hypotheticals, which is what we were talking about; it’s possibly true in the actual case, IF Zimmerman’s many dubious claims about what happened aren’t impeached by the evidence and testimony.
Here’s the law:
You’re obviously clutching to 776.041 2a, but that would only apply to the actual case (not the hypothetical), and then only if there wasn’t sufficient controverting evidence to GZ’s numerous fantastical claims. Among the most fantastic of those claims is that one punch to the nose and the two likely resulting nicks to his head is all he has to show for the supposedly brutal, savage, and sustained beating that supposedly put him in fear of death or great bodily harm. Oh, but let’s not forget the quite conspicuously convenient and ludicrous verbal threat when TM supposedly said “You’re gonna die tonight!” or the similarly absurd assertion of being suffocated - both glaringly obvious fabrications that Zimmerman must have invented when he realized his story needed some additional, non-falsifiable embellishments to help justify his use of deadly force.
I’m not sure what’s fantastical about claiming to be in fear of death or serious injury when you’ve been punched to the ground, and the person who punched you is on top of you, continuing to attack. He does not have to have sustained said injury to be in fear of it, although in some jurisdictions any broken bone will count. I don’t know about Florida, but if it does, then there’s no question of the reasonableness of the fear.
My opinion is that to convict Zimmerman, the state will have to prove that Martin did not continue to attack Zimmerman after punching him. As there’s witnesses that say he did, I doubt that will happen.
I originally thought that, if Zimmerman could be shown to be lying, he would be convicted - probably of manslaughter. Having looked at the actual laws involved, and the witness statements, I no longer believe that. The state has to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Zimmerman was not acting according to the law - that is, self defence in this case is not an affirmative defence, and Zimmerman is not required to prove anything.
Unless there’s another witness out there that I’m unaware of, “John” is now on record saying he doesn’t remember what he saw or heard. Martin could have been throwing punches OR pinning Zimmerman down. There is a big difference between these two actions.
And ya’ll know this, too! So either produce another witness or quit bringing up what “John” saw as evidence.
Either of which is a continuing attack after punching him to the ground, and neither of which is proof that Zimmerman could not have reasonably feared death or serious injury.
What is required, in my opinion, is a witness who either saw that Zimmerman had an opportunity to escape Martin’s attack AND that Zimmerman started the conflict, or a witness that saw that Martin did not, in fact, continue to attack Zimmerman after punching him.
The problem is that you don’t like the inconvenient fact that, in order to punish him, Zimmerman’s guilt has to be proven, not just assumed. Is he possibly guilty? Yes. Is he probably guilty? Maybe. I don’t know, I don’t care as it’s not relevant to anything. Is he provably guilty of murder? In my opinion, obviously no, based on the evidence available to the public.
This is true only if you can’t imagine how Trayvon could have been defending himself from a gun-wielding creepy guy who would not let him go. Or if you can’t imagine that Zimmerman lied when he said that Trayvon made first contact. If Zimmerman tried to tackle him upon their initial encounter, Trayvon could have rolled on top of him. He could have punched him in his attempt to break away and then tried to pin Zimmerman’s arms if they were especially grabby. There are many more scenarios that could have played out besides the one that Zimmerman is trying to cram down our throats.
We do have such a witness. The kid who saw the two of them separated on the grass. Both parties could have escaped from the encounter at that point in time, including Trayvon. I can imagine why Martin was frozen in place, though. If he’d seen Zimmerman’s gun and/or Zimmerman was holding it at him, he might not have been too keen on running or running into his house where his little brother was. Zimmerman may have had the same exact fear (since he thought Martin had a gun). But since he knew he was armed as well, he had a safe exit plan available to him–especially since there were witnesses nearby and he knew the police were on the way.
You are not fooling anyone with this line of shit. I have been leagues more objective about this case than you have. You know, I kept waiting for you to defend Jerry Sandusky, but strangely there were only crickets from your corner throughout that entire saga. That lynch mob was much more vicious for him than folks are for George Zimmerman. They really needed your calm-headed reasoning to corral them…but unfortunately you were too busy farting around here, playing-acting defense attorney. Go sit down somewhere with your “objectivity”, man. You lost that fight a long time ago.
The eye-witness accounts will not be useful to anybody. GZ stressed several times in the video about how dark it was: No eye witness would be able to say with any confidence what they saw. GZ, seconds after the shooting, realizes there is a bystander nearby, and he has to ask if he’s a cop or not. Why does he ask? *Because it’s too dark to tell if the bystander was wearing an instantly recognizable cop uniform. *
Did you watch the video of his interview three days after the shooting? Or are you going to just pretend the interview doesn’t exist?
His story has more holes than a Dunkin’ Donuts.
The “many more scenarios” is the problem, as far as determining his guilt.
That he knew the police were on the way is what makes it so unlikely he was holding Martin at gunpoint.
An objective look at the evidence available to the public shows that Zimmerman cannot be convicted of a crime. There may well be other evidence we’ve not seen.
The Sandusky case was different. There was evidence that he was a continuing risk, so he could be locked up prior to trial on those grounds. There’s no law that allows sexual activity with a child under certain circumstances, and provides immunity from arrest and prosecution in those circumstances. In fact, there’s nothing that excuses his conduct, conduct that we know for certain that happened, so there’s no doubt he should have been charged. The reason I didn’t get involved in those threads is that I took one look at it, decided he was almost certainly guilty, and would be found guilty, and found it uninteresting.
If people were calling for Sandusky to be lynched without trial, they are just as bad as people calling that to happen to Zimmerman.
Actually, I think it’s the exact opposite. If it happened as GZ is telling it, I think it would be much more likely that holding Martin at gunpoint is -exactly- what he would have been doing while he waited for the cavalry to arrive.
He insists that when Martin confronted him, his first reaction was…to reach for his phone. Why does he need to call the police if - as you say - he knew the police were on the way?
What I can’t see is how Trevor could have seen the gun in a waist holster if he was on Zimmerman beating him up / holding his mouth and nose while Zimmerman was supposed to be struggling. If Trevor is on top, he’s got to be on his chest, right? Otherwise Zimmerman would not have had to struggle to move his head.
So how does he see the gun? Look behind him?
Or am I missing something?
Then why did he wait until after Martin broke his nose, blackened his eyes, and put two gashes in the back of his head, to shoot?
It appears that your scenario is that Zimmerman approaches Martin with gun in hand. Martin responds by punching him in the face, and putting gashes in his head. And Zimmerman spends the next minute and a half screaming for help and getting beat up, instead of shooting.
Regards,
Shodan
In previous calls to the police, the suspicious characters always ran away. If you remember, Zimmerman stated the assholes always get away. It takes seconds, not minutes, to leave the development. It makes sense for Zimmerman to tell the cops he’s still here, insgtead of just giving a description. Zimmerman isn’t the only person who found Trayvon’s actions suspicious, so did the custodian at his school.
Actually, it isn’t, but thanks for playing.
The custodian at Martin’s school could tell he was acting suspiciously all the way from Miami?
No, you’re not missing anything. I mentioned it a few posts up, for a brief recap:
GZ says that TM knocked him down, straddled him, and was banging his head against the concrete sidewalk, then putting both hands over his nose and mouth. While squirming to ‘get his head off the sidewalk’ (how he had the composure to know that his head was close to grass, but couldn’t squirm/buck/kick to get TM off is beyond me, but anyway) he says that TM noticed the gun.
Now, the gun is black. GZ was carrying it in a black waistband holster. It’s worn around the back, basically near your back pocket. If GZ was on his back on the ground, his body is pretty much resting on top of the gun. Check out the re-enactment video, and you’ll see that GZ reaches behind him to indicate where his gun was.
Now, you tell me how Martin was supposed to see this black gun, in a black holster, which is underneath GZ. In the dark.
Second, please tell me how the hell GZ is supposed to be able to ‘pin’ TM’s arm with his right arm, then *with the same arm *reach behind him to pull the gun out of the holster, aim, and shoot a perfect shot. Unless GZ’s right arm unhinges at the elbow, it’s physically impossible. His elbows would have to bend -out- to get to the gun - which means TM’s arm is no longer restrained.
If so…pray tell me, what was Martin doing while GZ was trying to get his gun out? At the very least he had one hand/arm free: Martin would have used his left hand to get to the gun - you’ll see pretty quickly that trying with his right arm is pretty much impossible, and even if it wasn’t, there’s no way GZ would be able to ‘pin’ the arm. So Martin had his right arm completely free even if GZ somehow kept his left arm pinned.
Martin had, accordingly to GZ, done the following, unprovoked: Hit him in the nose so hard he knocked him down, straddled him, banged his head repeatedly against a cement sidewalk, tried to suffocate him. But when GZ goes to get his gun out and shoot, TM just sits there?
And that’s before we get to the ridiculous notion of TM - upon seeing the gun - instead of continuing the assault or making an immediate mad scramble for the gun, decides to sit up and make a bad-ass quote before ‘taking his hand off GZ’s mouth and sliding it down his chest’. I mean, it makes no sense. Why would TM run his hands down GZ’s chest? The gun was behind and underneath George.
And of course we have to consider that while TM was supposedly straddling and pummeling GZ, GZ’s hands/arms apparently weren’t free to punch back / block / remove hands from nose/mouth etc - GZ says all he could do was squirm to get his head of the sidewalk. Which means TM had to have been sitting or otherwise restraining GZ’s arms with his legs.
If so…how does GZ pin TM’s arm, and how is he then able to get his gun out?
The entire story has more holes than your momma’s colander. And I notice that no one has even attempted to refute the massive inconsistencies that are now obvious from GZ’s video interview at the station.
You speculated that Zimmerman was holding Martin at gunpoint while they waited for the police. Therefore Zimmerman must have had the gun in his hand (in your scenario). How do you account for the fact that Martin was able to break Zimmerman’s nose, blacken his eyes, and put two gashes into the back of his head before getting shot?
Regards,
Shodan
Please point out where I speculated that Zimmerman was holding Martin at gunpoint.
I am assuming here that GZ is George Zimmerman, “I think it would be much more likely” is speculation, and “holding Martin at gunpoint” means holding Martin at gunpoint.
:shrugs:
It’s hard to have a reasonable discussion if you don’t mean what you say.
Regards,
Shodan
No, what I mean is that if GZ had encountered TM as GZ says he did - hangs up phone, TM suddenly ‘appears out of nowhere’ and says, ‘you got a problem?’ - then I think it would be far more likely that GZ’s first reaction, when suddenly faced with a suspicious, hostile dude that he thought was probably armed - would be to either a) run or b) reach for his gun, not his phone. Or maybe both.
Instead, his story is that he stood there like a doofus, fumbling for his phone. Trying to call cops that he indicated later he knew didn’t need to be called because they were on his way. While he lets TM move in close enough to knock him down with one punch.
What part of that story makes sense to you?
It makes no sense to me. Which leads me to believe that at the very least, the encounter did not happen the way GZ is saying it happened.
Now…what possible motive could GZ have for lying about how the encounter happened?