I think your version makes sense, Voltaire. But I suspect once the gun was out, Martin was no longer being gripped by Zimmerman. I only say this because the way Zimmerman fully extended his arm when he reenacted the shooting suggests they were apart. Odds are Martin had frozen and was playing what he thought was his safest defense: to scream for help.
I still think the screaming drove Zimmerman to kill Martin. A mixture of panic at the realization he’d gone too far with this kid (by then he would’ve figured out he was dealing with an unarmed person…and it also probably occurred to hm he wasnt a criminal if he was crying like an innocent kid) and the fear of being caught overstepping his bounds llikely provoked him to kill Martin.
I think this is at least in part why he has been charged with 2nd degree murder. This meets the depraved mind element of that crime. It wasnt just a heat of passion type of thing; the evidence suggests he made the conscious decision to pull the trigger on a kid begging for help and mercy for self serving reasons.
Ran into a door? Who knows? I concede that Martin may well have punched George. But Martin could have just have easily been standing his ground vs an aggressive, armed attacker. The only evidence we have that Martin punched GZ unprovoked is GZ’s account, and his account has more holes than your momma’s colander.
How reliable do you think this ‘eyewitness’ would be? George stresses several times in the video how dark it was. And seconds after the shooting, he notices a bystander near him…and he has to ask if the bystander is a policeman. If he can’t tell if someone next to him is a policeman, how the hell do you think any eyewitness is going to be able to state with any certainly who was doing what to whom?
I’d also note that your eyewitnesses have recanted their stories. Perhaps they realized that the cops had initially been encouraging them towards a particular direction?
You appear to be assuming the entire struggle took place on the ground, with Martin on top, straddling George and punching him in the face, slamming his head into the concrete, and trying to suffocate him.
Go back and look at the re-enactment video. George says that Martin punched him near the ‘tee’ in the sidewalk. In his statement on the night of the shooting, he tells detectives that he was knocked to the ground when he punched him the first time.
Please explain to me, then, how it is possible for Martin’s dead body to end up considerably farther down the path. In the re-enactment video, George changes his story from knocked down right away, to stumbling & grabbing etc, obviously trying to get his his story to match where Martin’s body actually was.
So, no - I don’t see any evidence that Martin was beating on Zimmerman for 40 seconds.
If Martin had George pinned down, please explain to me how George managed to draw his gun. That he was lying on top of. With his right arm, which was supposedly also pinning Martin’s arm. It is physically impossible to do both, and if George had tried to go for the gun, Martin would have gotten to it first.
Did Martin punch George? Possible - but Martin could have easily been standing his ground against an armed attacker. By sheer coincidence, George shot the only person who could have told us Martin’s version of events.
GZ’z wounds are minor - far too minor to be consistent with being punched repeatedly in the face (‘and it felt like Martin had something in his hands’) and head slammed into the sidewalk. His story is riddled with far too many inconsistenices to be even remotely believable.
I note that you still continue to completely ignore these inconsistenices. You going to even try and address them, or is ‘he’s got a boo-boo on his nose’ all you got?
Zimmerman’s gun could have recoiled into his face, causing his injuries. With a such a small gun, one that he was supposedly holding one-handedly, this is not implausible.
Since there was nothing but crickets the last time I posted this question, I’m gonna post it again.
Aren’t those defending Zimmerman wondering why in the hell O’Mara has shown zero indication he’s filing a motion for a SYG hearing? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think there wasn’t going to be one. Doesnt that screw up a lot of yall’s arguments about what the State has to prove?
Hey maybe a UFO landed and an alien punched Zimmerman?
Sure. That aggressive attacker didn’t manage to inflict any damage on Martin for almost a minute of the fight while suffering a broken nose, black eyes and lacerations on his head.
No, that particular eyewitness, although he supposedly “recanted his story” insists that Martin was on top of Zimmerman.
Did I say all that or did you just make it up?
Either Martin had Zimmerman pinned down or Martin was beating up on him. Martin certainly was not sitting on top of Zimmerman tell him bedside stories. So - which one is it?
I ignore them because they are irrelevant to the question I asked. No matter what the inconsistencies, do you believe that there was a point where Zimmerman was lying knocked down on the ground, nose broken, blood on his face, being straddled by someone who is pinning him down? And if you do, do you think it is reasonable for someone in such a situation to fear for his life?
Note that the question has nothing to do with Zimmerman’s story. Zimmerman’s story is irrelevant to the question. Do you dispute any of the above premises?
It may depend on how the bail ruling goes. Zimmerman didn’t testify at the bail hearing, and I would imagine that O’hara doesn’t want to put him anywhere near the stand for the moment. I don’t think GZ can tell you what the weather is like without lying.
It doesn’t necessarily make him guilty under Florida laws, but that can’t be a pretty situation for defense attorneys.
I used to charge my more difficult consulting clients more money, just because they were pains in the ass to deal with. I wonder if O’hara does the same. I guess in one way he does, because now he’s got additional work he needs to do, such as trying to explain why his client is a lying piece of trash, but not a guilty, lying piece of trash. That takes time and money.
He actually hinted at that during the hearing Friday, but I don’t think he can do that until discovery is complete on both sides. I recall reading one recent case where the SYG motion wasn’t applied for over a year after after the dependent. was charged.
If O’Mara decides to do the SYG hearing, he might not apply for it until next year. You might want to keep in mind that the Casey Anthony dog and pony show took three years. Also keep in mind that O’Mara has to show the preponderance of evidence favors his client in a SYG hearing. His burden at trial is much less.
I know this isn’t addressed to me, but has it been shown that Treyvon was on top of Zimmerman and pinning him down? I lose track of what the witnesses say and recount, but what is the actual evidence? The officer said that Zimmerman’s back was wet, but that doesn’t indicate if anyone was pinning anyone else down.
If we through out Zimmerman’s story, we have several witnesses claiming various conflicting things and sometimes contradicting themselves, correct? It seems that one person was on top of the other, but it seems there isn’t enough consistency among the witnesses to establish who was on top and who was below.
Zimmerman has a certain amount of injuries, check. That does not inevitably lead to the conclusion that Martin had him pinned on the ground.
If Martin had hit him, GZ had fallen down but got back up, and then been able to wrestle Martin to the ground (I AM NOT saying this is what had happened, just one of many possibilities) then no, GZ was not being pinned and therefore not in fear of his life because of being pinned. Not that he wasn’t in fear of his life for some other reason which would need to be explained.
Yes, eyewitnes #6, both in his original testimony and in the “changed” testimony adamantly insists that Martin was on top of Zimmerman
Some couldn’t tell who was on top. Some could. Not one that I saw claimed that Zimmerman was on top of Martin.
See eyewitnesses.
Again, eyewitnesses. I mean, as long as we’re speculating, why not speculate that someone ran up to the struggling duo, wrestled the gun away from Zimmerman, shot Martin, wiped fingerprints off the gun, shoved the gun in Zimmerman’s hands and ran away? “I AM NOT saying this is what had happened, just one of the many possibilities”…
And I repeat - the eyewitness testimony is meaningless, because George has already told us it was too dark.
I mean, we know by his own admission that George was on top of Martin straddling him at one point - does any witness say they saw this?
Bolding mine. You want to just hand-wave away the inconsistencies and focus on the boo-boo on his nose? Well, you’re nothing if not consistent.
Based on the inconsistencies, I do not believe that George received the ‘injuries’ he suffered in the manner he describes. Based on the inconsistencies, I do not believe any struggle he had with Martin was as savage, prolonged, or as one-sided as George describes. Based on the inconsistencies, I do not believe that George was pinned down and helpless in the manner he describes.
Your entire assumption is meaningless because the only way to get there is precisely by ignoring all the inconsistencies that all but prove George’s story is hogwash.
Touch a nerve when you realized that my scenario is the most plausible one yet offered? It doesn’t conflict with anyone’s statements (except Zimmerman’s, naturally) and I didn’t specify that TM necessarily touched the gun.
Furthermore, I never implied that my opinions and speculation were admissible or of any use at trial, so your flailing little jabs at it have missed the mark by a wide margin.
I challenge you or any other Zimmerman supporter to come up with a similar scenario outline that attempts to explain, not only both GZ’s and TM’s actions, but the motivations for those actions and their states of mind at the time they took those actions.
Suuure. A UFO landed and an alien broke Zimmerman’s nose, then flew away.
Suuure. And that super aggressive George Zimmerman who savagely attacked the innocent teenager managed not to inflict even a tiny scratch on the teenager while suffering a multitude of injuries himself. You may not call it “one-sided” but anyone reasonable would.
You do understand that in order to convict someone for murder it is not enough to say “I don’t believe you”. You also have to present an alternative to his narrative, that you can prove beyond reasonable doubt. Saying “your testimony is inconsistent, thus you’re guilty” is not even close to this.
Well, in my scenario, GZ releases with one arm in order to get his gun while TM is raising up to either try to get up and away, or in order to drop down and shake him loose. As soon as he grabs the gun, he fully releases his hold with his other arm and legs so that, once TM starts getting up and creates some separation, he can fire. So, it doesn’t really conflict with what you’re saying.
I gotta say, I really find this highly implausible. No offense intended, but IMO, it’s almost as implausible as the actions that Zimmerman and his supporters ascribe to Martin. I really don’t think Zimmerman is a cold-blooded murderer. He doesn’t have it in him, just like Martin doesn’t have it in him to say and do the things he’s been accused of saying and doing.
Neither one of them wanted to kill or do great bodily harm to the other - it was just a series of events that escalated beyond the point of no return due nearly entirely to GZ’s actions. TM might have been able to make some better decisions to avoid or diffuse the situation, but ISTM that nothing he’s likely to have done was that unreasonable or deserving of what GZ did to him.
GZ, on the other hand, was likely unreasonable and irrational at almost every step of the way. Not only was he the adult, but as the Neighborhood Watch and as the person carrying a concealed weapon, he had the duty and obligation to avoid and diffuse the situation at every step of the way. He acted very, very stupidly, recklessly, and irrationally, and he should be held accountable for those actions, but IMO, Manslaughter is the proper charge for what he did.
I’m not entirely up on the intricacies of the law, but I do believe that a Manslaughter conviction, involving the use of a firearm and the killing of a minor child, should put him away for an appropriate amount of time, and serve as a deterrent for other would-be gun-toting neighborhood vigilantes to avoid similar reckless behavior.
Less outwardly evil people commit murder all the time. I am not qualified to say what Zimmerman is or isn’t capable of. The fact remains that he has been charged with murder, not manslaughter, and this is no small thing. The screaming for help is the most obvious lynchpin. There may be more, I don’t know.
I think Zimmerman was willing to do great harm to any “asshole” standing in the way of him and his hero fantasy. Martin wasn’t a real person to him; so his rules of conduct towards him were different. I think he was so caught up in being a hero, that he gave himself permission to do things a normal person would find reprehensible.
I hate to play the appeal the authority card, but his charges back me up on this. In your version, he should only be charged with manslaughter. So in a way, your version is not consistent with all the evidence if we treat his charges as evidence that must be reconciled with everything else. It should also be noted that my speculations about his motivations proceeded his arrest. I don’t think my read on the situation is far off the mark, but YMMV.
Does he say he did it during the fight? Or after the shot? If after the shot - yes, there are witnesses that say they saw it. If during the fight - no, George didn’t say it.
