Well if an actual lawyer is ignorant surely you must be an idiot. It just follows. I’m hoping for a separate title like “doody head”.
You know your debate point landed when you get back an emotional blanket accusation of blasphemy without any particular rebuttal to discuss.
Moderator Warning
No. You are not to take comments from the Pit and drag them into other threads. I asked you to cool it earlier today and you’re obviously not, so I’m issuing you a warning for ignoring a moderator’s instructions.
Ellen Cherry
What do you want me to tell you that I haven’t already? You’ve drawn a faulty conclusion from the article. Serino’s affidavit was filed the night of the shooting. When would he have had time to be pressured by any colleagues, let alone colleagues not even in his chain of command, when we’re talking about all of this going down within hours of the shooting?
Obviously, all this alleged pressuring applies to a later time, as time went on and Zimmerman went unarrested.
You seem to blindly accept whatever the SPD and others involved in this travesty have told the press, seemingly not realizing these fools have every incentive in the world (Serino included) to cover up malfeasance. You really need to ask yourself, if Serino’s probable cause affidavit was never meant to be taken seriously (as Lee has suggested) why did he go into so much detail about evidence that Zimmerman acted unlawfully? They didn’t transfer this case to the state until a month later, anyway. So why in the hell would Zimmerman need to type up an affidavit so quickly when they were clearly not in the rush during any other stage of their investigation? These are questions you need to be asking yourself.
What’s interesting about the affavidit, by the way, is that Serino mentioned some of the very same things I’ve mentioned about probable cause being established (except not surprisingly, he said nothing about witnesses attributing the scream to Martin). Principally, he mentioned Martin’s small stature relative to Zimmerman, the fact that Zimmerman admitted to following Martin and needlessly getting out of this truck to do so, the lack of life-threatening injury to Zimmerman and the absence of a deadly weapon on Martin, the lack of corroborating evidence for how the fight started, and the lack of evidence that Martin was doing anything criminal that warranted LEO attention.
And the last sentence of the affidavit states his position unambiguously.
Why do you ignore this unambiguous quoted statement from Serino?
He effectively admits he was wrong to have ever filed an affidavit, since it was obviously not based on all of the evidence available.
And can’t you see how ridiculous it is for you to criticize me, and accuse me of blindly accepting whatever the SPD says, when you are the one who brought up Serino to prove your point? Don’t you think that is a bit hypocritical?
You even came to the conclusion that your fallen hero Serino is corrupt. But you still cherry pick his statements and treat them like gospel, as long as it suits your narrative, while disregarding his later statements that discredit his earlier ones.
Serino didn’t admit he was wrong to file an affidavit, “effectively” or otherwise. This is a desperate ploy to sow confusion in a matter that’s already all kinds of screwed up.
And I hope you seriously aren’t arguing that he was wrong to file an affidavit because all the evidence hadn’t rolled in. That would be crazy talk, and yet this is what the quoted sentence seems to be communicating.
So you know when this peer pressure took place? Pleas cite your proof. It could have happened that night for all we know. Zimmerman was at the SPD six hours that night, who knows what time Serino went home? It takes longer to write out an affidavit than it does for someone to pressure you or threaten you.
Serino stated that he explained why Zimmerman could not be charged to Tracy Martin, during his FBI interview. So he knew his affidavit was worthless.
So you are saying it was right to prematurely file a faulty affidavit without the benefit of examining all of the evidence first?
Even with the benefit of hindsight, when even Serino himself later admitted “The best evidence we have is the testimony of George Zimmerman, and he says the decedent was the primary aggressor in the whole event,” and “Everything I have is adding up to what he says?”
Now that is ‘crazy talk!’
No, crazy would be thinking a detective would be pressured to file an affidavit by a mob of angry black people way before the press or anyone else (including the victim’s family) had caught wind of anything, while not accepting that the same guy could have been pressured by his boss et al. to say “nothing to see here, case closed!” two weeks later, for the six o’clock news. “Crazy” actually falls short of what this nonsense is.
Who said anything about “a mob of angry black people”? I thought you were using ‘crazy’ as hyperbole but now it seems you are actually delusional and experiencing hallucinations and/or hearing voices.
Serino reported to FBI that he was pressured to file charges by his black colleagues - all police officers. “He listed Sgt AUTHOR BARNS, REBECCA VILLENOVE (phonetic), and TREKELL PERKINS as all pressuring him to file charges against ZIMMERMAN after the incident.”
doesn’t seem any crazier than YwtF’s accusation that he is corrupt.
Personally I think a lot of the malfeasance and bumbling by the SPD is easily attributable to limited exposure to these kinds of cases. That and a relatively new statute that forbids arrest under circumstances where there is no probable cause. Post Zimmerman I think most SYG shooters are going to find themselves immediately arrested, at least up to the point some sues for rights violations.
A more seasoned department and/or more experience with the new SYG law and I suspect Zimmerman would have been arrested on the spot regardless of Martin’s skin color.
I don’t know if the dude was corrupt. It is a point of fact, though, that he is no longer a detective. Someone with some authority and oversight must have thought neither he or his boss handled this case very well.
But you’re willing to believe his determination of probable cause was correct.
At least, the one he apparently made when drafting the affidavit.
Though it wouldn’t be the first time there were political casualties in a case with social overtones. Funny how when there is a public demand for heads to roll, heads roll, deservedly or not.
Don’t get me wrong. I am in no way suggesting the SPD handeled things well.
A non-functional Rolex can be right twice a day.
Serino was was more of a Timex than a Rolex, but he was still right on that second part of the day, at the one moment he could be(ie. recognising Z’s lies/self-serving “truths”).
If he was saying that still on Mar 16, he’s even less worthy of the title of Detective than I thought. I could imagine him coming out with such a bullshit line before he’d actually reviewed any evidence, but to say it knowing what he did makes me glad he is under such fire.
Here’s why your scenario is full of shit. We have to assume that:
a) GZ decided that rather than have the cops meet him at his truck, he’s going to find an address across the cut-through and have the cops meet him there. Not where he thinks Martin went (remember, he thinks Martin was running towards the back entrance). Nowhere near his truck. He apparently was prepared to just stand out there on the street, out in the open, no concern about how long the cops might take, even though he was concerned enough about not knowing where the ‘asshole/punk’ was that he didn’t want to say his home address out loud.
b) He’s still on the phone with the dispatch as he gets to the doggie pooper station, says that he can’t see Martin, and then keeps walking to the other side of the cut-through - it’s barely a 15-20 second walk.
c) Upon getting to the end of the cut-through, finally with houses on a street he actually remembers, he -doesn’t- give the dispatcher any house number, and instead insists that he tells the dispatch to ‘just meet me at my truck, it’s just past the clubhouse’, and the hangs up.
d) So now he -doesn’t- need an address? Because early in the phone call with dispatch he’s already told them where he’s at (past the clubhouse, turn left). And he says the only reason he got out was to find a street sign, then a house number, specifically so he could tell the cops where he was at.
e) And of course we know this is bullshit because we have the actual phone call recording: GZ -didn’t- ask to have the police officers meet him at his truck, he asked them to call when they arrived. If that was the case, then it’s even -more- odd that he didn’t get a house number if he wanted to let them know where he was at.
See, he didn’t have to ‘stay on the phone longer’. According to him he was IN FRONT OF THE HOUSES ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CUT-THROUGH WHILE STILL ON THE PHONE TO DISPATCH. He had every oppportunity to give dispatch a home address, and he didn’t take it. Gee, I wonder why?
Or is this just something else that GZ ‘mis-remembered’?
Which is absurd on its face. Probable cause can be established at any time; there is no requirement that all the evidence be available before an arrest is made. That’s what an investigation is for.
Prove my point about what? That Serino filed a probable cause affidavit for Zimmerman’s arrest? That’s a detail that can’t be argued against at this point. I cited his signed report explaining why he felt Zimmerman should be charged with manslaughter. Do you disagree that this affidavit exists?
You should see him as corrupt as well. What cop files an affidavit for someone’s arrest, signs that affidavit, and then, rather than accept responsibility for it, comes up with bogus excuses for it and points fingers at his colleagues? What cop, absent any proof, suggests these same colleagues leaked police info to the press, in a manner that looks awfully like he was trying to deflect attention from himself?
I have accepted nothing blindly from Serino. But it’s indisputable that he unsuccessfully tried to get Zimmerman charged with manslaughter early on.
I asked you why do you feel more qualified than the lead investigator to say that there was no probable cause.
Of course I think he was correct, but not because of anything he said. The evidence itself speaks to probable cause.