Martin/Zimmerman: humble opinions and speculation thread

In My Humble Opinion
10663

It’s pretty silly to jump on Condescending Robot for referring to the beverage in question as an iced tea instead of as an Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail that is Vitamin C Fortified. Wait, those of you who mentioned that it was a watermelon drink failed to mention that it was a fruit juice cocktail and fortified with vitamin C rather than a plain old watermelon beverage? For shame.

Why do you assume that Zimmerman believes all blacks are burglars? I live in a neighborhood with a large number of black teens and most of them don’t look the least bit suspicious to me when they walk down the street. Some of them who aren’t busy trying to be surly teens even say hi. Admittedly I do get a bit suspicious when I see a teenager taking the time to peer into the windows of every car he passes while he’s walking down the street. I’d be very suspicious if I saw a teen standing in someone’s yard late at night when it was drizzling rain.

10664

So you have no answer then?

10665

If the judge allows the preposterous “These shall be” fantasies of other “experts” in, you can bet it will be.

10666

Lol. I’m not sure the defense wants to do to that after so earnestly arguing that the 911 call was inconclusive. I mean, Zimmerman knows whether or not he was yelling. He could gamble on this expert not getting up there and making his case worse, but how good is that gamble if he wasn’t the one yelling? But like I said, call me when this guy’s homework gets entered into discovery and we can see what his opinion actually is.

And while you’re at it, call me when the double top-secret super duper anonymous witness who happened to see the whole thing but has waited until the 11th hour to come forward has their statement entered into evidence too.

10667

Not based on the evidence. The evidence shows that Martin left his house, went back to Zimmerman and beat him without any verbal threat from Zimmerman. None of this is based on Zimmerman’s account. It’s based on Martin’s account by way of Dee Dee and the evidence of the beating. The evidence indicates Martin was the aggressor. How you manage to ignore this evidence shows astounding bias on your part.

This is the hard direct evidence. You also ignore the secondary evidence of Martin’s background. He LIKES street fighting. His girlfriend warns him his behavior is going to get him shot in the chest. She admits she thinks the phone call ended in “just a fight” . She doesn’t call the police even though the claim is made that she thinks Martin is in danger. Why? Why would someone NOT call the police if they thought their friend was in danger? Because this is what Martin does to entertain himself. Calling the police would likely have meant more trouble for Martin if he was caught fighting.

10668

Exactly.

[QUOTE=Odesio;]

Why do you assume that Zimmerman believes all blacks are burglars? I live in a neighborhood with a large number of black teens and most of them don’t look the least bit suspicious to me when they walk down the street. Some of them who aren’t busy trying to be surly teens even say hi. Admittedly I do get a bit suspicious when I see a teenager taking the time to peer into the windows of every car he passes while he’s walking down the street. I’d be very suspicious if I saw a teen standing in someone’s yard late at night when it was drizzling rain.

[/QUOTE]

Why do you assume that we believe all white men are child molesters and domestic terrorists? I live in a neighborhood with a large number of white men and most of them don’t look the least bit suspicious to me when they walk down the street next to those elementary and middle schools. When some of them aren’t congregating en masse exactly 501 feet outside the local high school after the dismissal bell, those white men will sometimes tip their hat and give a courteous nod to you. Admittedly, I do get a bit suspicious when I see a white male picking up a child without a female present, especially if there is any tickling or horseplay involved. I’d be very suspicious if I saw a white male standing outside my job, late at night, when it was drizzling rain without an umbrella or a raincoat.

On a serious note: mind your business and don’t worry about what other people are doing in a free country on a piece of road and concrete that you don’t own. It’s precisely that nosiness that gets people killed. Unless you see an illegal or immoral act taking place: mind your business. Please pass this along to your children.

  • Honesty
10669

I didn’t think it could get any deeper in here, Honesty, but you have restored my belief that no matter how ludicrous the length or path a thread takes there is always someone who can come along and add even more bullshit. I think I remember you saying something similar in another thread many moons ago. It was stupid then and it’s stupid now.

10670

My neighbors have their possessions because I stopped multiple attempts to steal them. It all started by observing suspicious behavior one of which was a kid just standing on the sidewalk. This is what neighbors do for each other. This is what Zimmerman was doing in a robbery plagued neighborhood.

Dee Dee Warned Martin that he was going to end up with a bullet in his chest. She could see the writing on the wall. That’s the message to pass down to kids. Don’t beat someone’s head on a piece of concrete you don’t own.

10671

No, a crime isn’t evident. Using deadly force in self defense isn’t murder, and using physical force in self defense isn’t battery.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
You want to know what’s interesting? For the last few days, the defense has been angling hard to prove the 911 tape is useless in determining who is yelling for help. They have thrown everything they have to keep any expert from weighing in on this at the trial. Which is quite telling. If I were innocent, and there was no question in my mind that frantic voice was mine, there is no way in hell I’d want anyone saying that the tape is useless. I’d be wanting every juror and their mama listening to that thing so that I could convince them it was me, and I’d be searching the world over for a credentialed somebody willing to exclude Martin as the source, even if their confidence was below 50%.

The only reason Zimmerman is trying to attack analysis of the 911 tape is because he knows it’s not him and he knows he can’t find anyone willing to say it was him. Because if he could find someone, the defense wouldn’t hesitate to put them on the stand. The only folks on the planet who can’t grasp this are Zimmerman’s blind supporters.
[/QUOTE]

The defense is angling to prove that the methods used by Owen and Reich are useless to determining who is yelling for help. Not that the recording has no value as evidence, or that the jury can’t hear it.

As it happens, the FBI’s expert, Hirotaka Nakasone, who has no stake in the case, agrees that it can’t be done.

Owen, by contrast, has a financial stake in the case, and his methods are highly suspect (his software requires a 16-second sample to analyze, but the recording yielded well under that. So, rather than conclude that it wasn’t possible to analyze it within the software’s standards, Owen looped the recording to make it long enough. The logical problems of that are self-evident).

To their credit, both Owen and Reich admitted at the hearing that their conclusions were not positive, only “probable”. When Reich was asked if his ID was “tenative”, the reply was “very”.

Also note that Owen didn’t analyze a sample of Martin, and thus couldn’t exclude him.

10672

I don’t buy it. He observed a person walking and because of his age and race, decided he was a threat. If he wanted to stop a robbery perhaps he could have discreetly tailed Martin until he saw him do something actually criminal, like breaking into a house.

10673

So, there’s no such thing as suspicious behavior, only suspicious demographics?

10674

I take BobLibDem’s point to be that there is indeed such a thing as suspicious behavior, but that Martin did not exhibit it.

10675

Unusual for me, but I agree with Bricker. Was Martin loitering or peeping in windows or looking in cars in driveways? I haven’t heard that he was. As far as I heard, he was simply walking in Zim’s neighborhood. So what aroused Zimmerman’s suspicions, other than Martin’s demographic?

10676

In the NEN call, Zimmerman reports that Martin is walking around, slowly, in spite of the rain “looking at all the houses”, and looks “like he’s on drugs or something”.

We can disagree on what constitutes suspicious behavior, but behavior is what Zimmerman reported, and it’s behavior that could indicate someone “casing” houses to burgle. Calling the police is hardly out of line.

This description was enough to get the dispatcher to send police to the neighborhood, for what that’s worth.

10677

Yep. He observed a person walking slowly in the rain “looking about”. True, if it was an 80-year-old in a wheelchair, such behavior would probably be less “suspicious”. So I guess the age did play a role.

10678

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
If he wanted to stop a robbery perhaps he could have discreetly tailed Martin until he saw him do something actually criminal, like breaking into a house.
[/QUOTE]
Or until he lost sight of Martin, and then Martin came back and did something actually criminal like attacking him and beating his head on the ground, as the evidence to date seems to indicate he did.

Regards,
Shodan

10679

How hard was it raining? If it was just a sprinkle, perhaps wearing a hoodie it wasn’t enough to quicken his pace. If it was a downpour, perhaps it was a matter of already being as wet as he could get. Not everyone runs in the rain.

When I walk my dog, I look at all the houses too. Hope I don’t get shot.

10680

If you beat up someone who approaches you and asks you a question, you just might.

10681

Zimmerman told Serino that his experience with some other black guy 2-3 weeks prior is why he jumped to conclusions about Martin.

An astute reader should notice several things.

  1. Zimmerman decided Martin was suspicious because he was walking near Taffe’s house like some other black guy that he’d pegged as up to no good. It was that guy who was going through his mind when he spotted the kid. Martin’s behavior was interpreted through that biased lens. Martin was profiled.

  2. Zimmerman said that in reporting this first guy, he couldn’t think straight because he was overwhelmed with adrenaline. Sounds like that is exactly what happened when he reported Martin too. This is a confession that when he sees suspicious people, he loses his senses. Which automatically puts into question his ability to assess risk in a reasonable way.

3)Zimmerman (supposedly) lost track of the first guy and blamed it on his screwed up instructions to the cops. What’s telling is how he emphasized how he waited and waited. He waited so patiently for the cops who never came and that’s why the bad guy got a way! This is what he wanted to impress upon Serino.

  1. Taffe supposedly is in the Neighborhood Watch. So he would know about the burglaries and the importance of security. So isn’t it weird that he would leave his house unsecured? I mean, if it’s not strange enough that all the windows were open during the winter, his front door was unlocked and the garage was open too. Zimmerman stated that he knew that “they keep it unsecured”. But why?
10682

Unclear, I haven’t heard any rainfall measurements or anything, just that it was raining.

Point is, a reasonable person could find Martin’s reported behavior suspicious. The claim Zimmerman must have based his NEN call solely on Martin’s age and race is thus unsupported by evidence. It could be true, of course.

The evidence suggests that Martin was shot for attacking and beating a man.