I don’t believe he should have been fired either, but I find it hard to believe that a silhouette of a person in a hooded sweatshirt presents a different teaching moment than one without hood. Perhaps Loach or another Doper in the law enforcement field can correct me.
I haven’t seen it but it was described as a silhouette of a hooded figure holding a can and a bag so it’s not a generic figure, it’s specific to Trayvon Martin. That makes it personal and is unprofessional enough to warrant getting fired.
You could potentially argue that had he been a beat-street cop whom worked in a black neighborhood, that a transfer was in order as it may stir up unnecessary violence and departmental issues - mind you that’s only a transfer.
This guy was an instructor. How and why would it make any difference if they kept him on the payroll?
Anyways, isn’t the hearing soon?
Since someone brought it up, I rather doubt Zimmerman, who is part White, Peruvian Indian, and Black, would be considered White on a census form, so crime statistics pertaining to Caucasians would probably not apply to him.
I believe the point attempting to be made is relating to the Caucasian support of Zimmerman(for whatever that’s supposed to entail), not that Zimmerman is considered white by any stretch.
Though if we work this backwards we get something interesting.
If Martin was doing something unlawful or inappropriate, according to the previously presented theory, Zimmerman wouldn’t have been able to identify or ‘smell’ trouble or bullsh*t.
So either Zimmerman isn’t white or, Martin was innocent!
Logic like that…how could anyone go wrong?
The paper targets show a faceless black hooded sweatshirt with a bull’s-eye on the chest. In one hand is a can of iced tea and in the pocket is a pack of Skittles candy, the same items Martin was carrying when he was shot and killed last year in a case that has drawn national attention.
The police crime scene photo’s prove that TM had Skittles and Arizona Watermelon drink, not iced tea, when he was shot. Why does Melissa Gray of CNN not know this??? If she can’t get the simple and obvious things correct, can I trust her to get the rest of the story correct? Is she too lazy or too stupid to do her job?
Meanwhile, the target in question was originally sold as the Travon Martin target. I understand it’s still available. Sgt King was a/the firearms instructor for the Canaveral Port Authority. He says he bought the target as a “no shoot” target. In order to put together a “shoot/no shoot” training session, you need “shoot” targets that depict people with weapons that trainees are expected to shoot. You also need “no shoot” targets that trainees are trained NOT TO SHOOT because they are not displaying weapons. The trainees would have been instructed NOT to shoot the TM targets.
King, who was hired in January 2011, disputed some of the details Walsh gave to reporters, including that he offered the targets to other officers to shoot. He said he showed them to only one, a fellow sergeant, to find out whether he thought they could be useful training aids.
King also said that the other officer had been complaining about Walsh and wanted him replaced. Was this whole thing an effort to embareass Walsh? idk. Should King have been fired for using the TM target as a “no shoot” target? No.
And I might be more likely to believe this fine officer if it weren’t for the fact that the Trayvon target has a fucking crosshair symbol drawn on its chest.
So, yeah. Firing justified.
Unless, ya know, all of the no-shoot targets had crosshairs on them. So maybe the trainees would have to actually assess the target for weapons rather than just whether it had a crosshair on the chest.
See a crosshair, shoot a crosshair. No crosshair, no shoot. Kinda invalidates the purpose of the training.
It doesn’t matter if he was using it as a no-shoot target. It’s in bad taste to use a target of an actually shooting victim and it’s fucking stupid to use one with such a large amount of public emotional baggage attached to it. It’s an eleven-on-a-scale-of-ten stupid.
Maybe distasteful and stupid, yet still not a reason to fire someone. His aloofness on this particular matter doesn’t affect is ability to perform his job.
This is just the department trying to avoid back publicity.
I do not understand why the have crosshairs on any of them. It’s distracting, unrealistic and pretty obvious where a bullet makes impact. Practicing Shoot/No shoot is not a competition.
There’s no maybe about it. The targets by themselves represent an incredibly insensitive and outright racist symbol. There is no rational argument that he can make that justifies them.
Zimmerman lived and breathed as a white man who had the opportunity and privilege of being able choose whether to disclose his ethnicity, unlike most minorities. He also has the benefit of an uncharacteristically European surname as well as having a light complexion. He could’ve passed as European (Italian, Greek), Middle Eastern, or even Turkish.
Let’s not kid ourselves. He is whatever race the police thinks he is. Tiger Woods, for example, doesn’t consider himself black, however, the police do. I sincerely doubt a police officer is going to say “Yeah, we have a unarmed Cablasian who breaking into the golf course. We need backup”.
- Honesty
Even if he was openly racist, it’s no ones business as long as it doesn’t impede his ability to do his job, which in this case is to provide efficient fire arms training.
All I got from that was ‘he’s technically not white, but because pretty much everyone else would see him as white, he’d get the benefit of the doubt AND therefore he’s not capable of smelling bullshit’
Good assessment … I wonder if any potential jurors with that kind of logic will impress the judge.
His actions have put into question his judgement, which is the most important skill to have when operating a lethal weapon.
At any rate, his employers have the freedom to hire and fire as well as they please as long as it is within the bounds of law. His actions made them their outfit look bad. That’s enough reason to fire him by itself.
No, you don’t get to be openly racist on the job. That makes it other people’s business. This person represented the city and promoting racism is against their policy.
Well that falls under the “all white people look alike” point of view. If you’re operating under the idea that the majority (white people) are discriminating against minorities then Zimmerman can’t hide behind his name.
So we all agree on this, at least.
No, it isn’t ‘fairly accurate’ at all.
The dispatcher doesn’t ask GZ what address he’s is parked in front of until well over a minute after George is out of the truck. By this time George is of course out of the truck and probably up the cut-through neaer the doggie-poo stand.
The entire converstation up to that point has George meeting the officers at his truck. Why in the world would he go to the otherside of the cut-through to get a house number? That’s not where his truck is. An address on the other side of the cut-through is meaningless. He knows where his truck is in terms of the Clubhouse, he’s already told the dispatch where his truck is.
:rolleyes:
Yes, he does indeed go to great length to stress how the dispatcher ‘needed an address’. About how he ‘thought to get out and look for a street sign’. But as noted above, the dispatch only asks for the address he’s parked in front of looong after he’s out of the car.
You really think he was walking?
There is a row of houses facing outwards towards the street RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. Literally as he’s saying ‘no address because these are the backs of the houses’ as he’s looking to the left for some stupid reason - there’s a house number, lit up with a house light and everything, like 15 feet from his nose. It’d be right in front of him the night of the shooting, right in the direction he would be facing as he moved up the cut-through.
Further, in the video walkthrough, he says he got to the end of the street while still on the phone with dispatch. He gets to the end of the street, but then doesn’t give get the address that he said just a minute ago dispatch insisted they need. Doesn’t get the address, and instead says that he agrees to meet back at his truck. Interestingly, he conveniently leaves out the fact that at the very end of the phone call he clearly decided that he -wasn’t- going back to his truck, because he tells dispatch ‘have the police call me when they get here’.
Oh for christ’s sake. There is no way in hell he was thinking in terms of ‘an exact location or address or street sign’ prior to exiting the vehicle. It’s not color commentary on the phone call, it’s a complete and utter bullshit lie.
Ah, yes the magical gangsta-skipping properties of Martin. On foot, Martin passes George while George is parked at the Clubhouse on the phone with dispatch, Martin gets up to the cut-through before George can stop at his final parking spot, cuts south down the cut-through towards the back entrance, turn back and walk -down- the cut-through all the way to George’s car, circle it, then run back up the cut-through and turn south again, all in like a minute.
If Martin actually did all this, then it’s even further evidence that George’s testimony as given in the video walk-through is completely wrong.
The defense filed a motion to get the relevant information from Trayvon’s cellphone. At this late date, they still don’t have it?
My understanding is that all phone records (and emails) are exempt (by court order) from discovery pending trial. That applies to Zimmerman’s phone as well as Trayvon’s (presumably).
The defense keeps filing motions that are destined for the garbage can, because making noise that signifies nothing is the best they can do right now.
IANAL and all that, but that makes no sense at all. Discovery is a major part of how you prepare for a trial. For a judge to hold back significant information from both sides until a jury is actually seated is throwing all kinds of exception flags. Anyone have a reputable cite for that? Not saying it didn’t happen, just want to pry the lid off that one.