A question for **Bricker **- you might have answered this already, but: Florida’s deadly force law says:
I’m correct in saying that if I’m being punched by Suspect A, I can’t say, "He was punching me, and that’s aggravated assault / aggravated battery, and that’s a forcible felony, so I shot the mofo’, right? The ‘prevent the commission of a forcible felony’ is a distinct act separate from the actual ‘getting punched’ part, right?
Just want to make sure I’m correct in thinking that the circular logic doesn’t fly, as some seem to think.
If you were already being punched, shooting the mofo doesn’t prevent a forcible felony. The felony was already committed when the mofo started punching.
So maybe another way of asking this is whether this statute is broad enough to include stopping a forcible felony already in progress. For instance, if you encountered someone beating an apparently helpless victim, would shooting the attacker be justified?
Also, what if an out of control child approached you and started hitting you – can this child be said to be committing a felony, even if they are too small or weak to cause serious damage? Would this law justify shooting the child even if you did not fear for your life?
Bricker already answered this - the “forcible felony” has to be an independent act, separate from the self-defense incident. But that’s irrelevant in this case - what is relevant is the “if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself” part.
Are you saying that while foolish and dangerous, they are not so foolish and dangerous that you would consider them illegal? In other words, Zimmerman’s actions did not illegally contribute to Trayvon’s ultimate death?
In my view, he was acting in good faith to protect his neighborhood the entire time. He did “call the police” I believe he did intend to “let them handle it”. I don’t believe he ever had any intention of direct contact with the person he suspected.
After Trayvon ran (i.e. skipped or bounded) away, Zimmerman had good reason to think Trayvon intended to vacate the vicinity. I think Zimmerman headed to the “T” to see which way he had gone.
The dispatcher asked him if he was “following him”, to which Zimmerman said “Yep”, but only in the sense that he was headed to where he last saw him. I don’t believe he ever intended to head south down the path after him. Not seeing any sign of Trayvon at the “T”, I think he walked a little bit east to get a house number to give the dispatcher, and then headed back to his car. I don’t think it was outside the bounds of reason for Zimmerman to do this. Especially having been asked by the dispatcher which way Trayvon had gone- and where to meet Zimmerman at.
I think Zimmerman was a guy who was acting in good faith to protect his neighborhood. He thought Trayvon was suspicious, so he reported it to the authorities. After Trayvon seemingly fled, Zimmerman got out of his vehicle so he could tell police where he had gone and where they could meet him. On his way back to the car, the guy jumped him and attacked him without relent to the point he finally shot him.
In retrospect, it’s easy for everybody to say, “He should have just kept driving since Trayvon wasn’t doing anything wrong!” Well, Zimmerman didn’t know that. He saw a kid he didn’t recognize whose behavior struck Zimmerman as peculiar. He didn’t have the benefit of hindsight.
In retrospect, it’s easy to say that Zimmerman should have stayed in his car! None of this would have ever happened if he had! Yeah, in hindsight, that’s clear as day. But he had reason to think Trayvon was no longer in the area, and even if he was, he knew the police were already on the way. How was he to know the kid was going to attack him, much less attack him without relent, to the point he would have to shoot him?
Personally, I think it’s OK to act to protect your neighborhood. When I was a kid I had adults keeping an eye on me. I’ve run from adults. I hid from adults. I was even physically confronted by adults- one time they even pushed me in the head (I deserved it). Another time, one of them literally detained me and forced me into his car. (I ran out the door on the other side.) Even in those cases, I never attacked the adult.
I can think of many times as a kid that I was observed, followed, pursued, verbally and even physically confronted, even physically detained by adults. And I never assaulted them. Or even thought about it. Much less a relentless assault- where you are hammering on a guy screaming for help? There’s just no excuse for it, in my book. There is just no evidence that Zimmerman did anything that could have remotely justified that.
776.08 Forcible felony.—“Forcible felony” means treason; murder; manslaughter; sexual battery; carjacking; home-invasion robbery; robbery; burglary; arson; kidnapping; aggravated assault; aggravated battery; aggravated stalking; aircraft piracy; unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb; and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.
History.—s. 13, ch. 74-383; s. 4, ch. 75-298; s. 289, ch. 79-400; s. 5, ch. 93-212; s. 10, ch. 95-195.
Basically it’s any felony involving the use or threat of force. Which seems like it would cover a lot of things, but apparently only the very serious assaults and batteries are felonies. (Most instances of assaults and batteries are misdemeanors.)
784.021 Aggravated assault.—
(1) An “aggravated assault” is an assault:
(a) With a deadly weapon without intent to kill; or
(b) With an intent to commit a felony.
I do not follow you at all.
The calls were to 911, and have their own time stamps on their own event logs.
How are the time stamps for those calls changed by or dependent on GZ’s call?
I don’t get that connection.
AFAICT, for any call of a fixed length, the start time has a direct impact and relationship to the start time.
If this assumption is incorrect, please explain.
The SCSO hasn’t “corrected” anything afaict. They submitted the event report.
In the document dump are notes that someone made from that event report.
There is a discrepancy between the notes and the SCSO event log.
As such, I don’t find the question about the SCSO’s motives for an actions they did not take to be somewhat from left field. Ciouched in that question about their motives is an assumption which is not asserted nor supported by the facts presented–that the SCSO made a correction of some sort somewhere.
AFAICT, the SCSO merely released the event report. It’s by comparing the two things–the event log and the notes made from the event log–that we can see that the notes have an error.
So while the SCSO may have issued some statement of correction, I am unaware of any such statement.
As such, the question about why they didn’t also issue a correction isn’t meaningful. imho.
Because all the calls would be reported using the same computer using the same clock. If the time on one call is wrong, then they would be offset by the same amount.
Do you actually have any documentation for that? They could just be just recording the start and end time and calculating the elapsed time. That is how I would do it.
You’ve seen the actual call record. You’ve seen the times that the dispatcher has entered in information.
And you’re not only going to continue arguing that somehow the Sanford Police Department’s non-emergency line call center is using a time stamp that is 100 seconds off the time stamp used by the 911 line, you’re going to argue that, in fact, for a phone call of fixed length the end time might not have anything to do with the start time?
I can only say that you’re lucky this isn’t the Pit.
Yes. Based on the publicly available evidence, I am convinced that Zimmerman’s foolish actions do not rise to the level of criminal culpability.
And the dispatcher asking him to not pursue?
It has no legal significance, I grant, but it’s seems odd that you hold up the dispatcher’s question as a valid impetus to pursue, but disregard the more direct request to stay put.
What is the minimum evidence that could convince you otherwise at this point?
Also, what part of his story do you believe? All of it? None of it? Some of it? If the latter, how have you decided what parts are believable and which are not?
If you don’t think he’s credible and therefore don’t put much, if any, stock in his narrative, what state evidence do you think is lacking that shows this killing was an unjustified one?
I hope Bricker chimes in here - I recall reading the discussion about this earlier in the thread, but I thought it was related to when the -defendant- had to be accused of an independent act forcible felony.
This discussion is ‘this guy was about to beat me up, or was beating me up, and that’s an aggravated assault, and that’s a forcible felony, and I have the right to prevent a forcible felony with lethal force, so I shot him’. It obviously can’t be right - for one, it completely removes the whole ‘reasonable fear of death’ etc. bit. Just wondering what the legal wording (or specific case law) would be.
You use the word “pursue”. Pursue means "to follow in an effort to overtake or capture.
Zimmerman wasn’t doing that. He was walking to the “T”.
He wasn’t “following” in pursuit, he was only “following” in that he headed to a place where Trayvon had been.
If he had actually intended to “follow” Trayvon in any other sense of the word he would have, of course, traveled south down the “T”. But he didn’t. He went straight (east) to get an address and then headed back to his vehicle.
If you have a problem with the time Zimmerman’s call ended, take it up with the prosecution not me. You are the one trying to change it to fit your scenario.
THE TIME STAMPS ARE CORRECT. I am not sure why you think that the time stamps are incorrect.
The time stamps are what shows that the notes about the event log are wrong.
The event logs are fine. The time stamps are fine.
The only thing in error are some notes prepared from the Event log which used some wrong time stamps. Time stamps which show the correct time. But which are not noted correctly.
Seriously? Do I have documentation to show that if you start a 4 minute call earlier that it ends earlier than if you start it later?
Shirley, you’re asking me something else.
How about you examine the event log for yourself?
There is a time stamp when the connection is created and when the connection is ended.
There’s an additional time stamp for each note that the dispatcher enters.
There’re time stamps and notes from the officers [entered remotely from their vehicles] who were dispatched as they respond.
There’re multiple time stamps on each event log corresponding to various events as they happened. The time stamps are entered into one record from multiple locations via the magic of computers and modern communications technology.
I suspect that this time-stamp-as-they-go method is more reliable and potentially more useful than the method you suggest of merely recording the start and end time of the call.
Please, feel free to examine the evidence.
The links have been provided to you since this conversation began again.
I am unaware of what evidence the prosecution is availed of, as are you. However, the fact remains that as far as we know,
It is solely Zimmerman’s account. We have no corroborating evidence it is true, and
It indisputably IS contradicted, at least to some extent, by where the shooting took place, which is beyond where Zimmerman (according to you) claims he went. If he only went east, and then attempted to walk back to his car, how did they end up south, further down the path?
Is that proof beyond a reasonable doubt Zimmerman is guilty of second degree murder? I would say not. But his claim is simply not established fact, and you are presenting it as if it is.
LOL. You take it up with the evidence we have at hand. This is Singleton’s notes versus the SCSO’s time stamps, not internet posters vs the prosecution.
Examine the timeline in the actual documents–it’s not the prosecutor’s official timeline as the news article makes it out to be.
It’s from a document prepared by Singleton in the SPD.
It’s not the prosecution’s timeline–it’s something prepared by Singleton. It’s one document among the many.
If you feel the need to go with this secondary document instead of the one from which it was derived, that’s your business.
But there’s no indication that the prosecution is going to use that timeline from Singleton instead of the one recorded by the SCSO’s computers.
At least there’s no indication of that being the case that I know of.
If you have some reason to believe that the prosecution is going to use Singleton’s document to establish a timeline instead of the SCSO’s event logs, please feel free to share.
This is Singleton’s notes versus the SCSO’s time stamps, not internet posters vs the prosecution.