Jane Surdyka’s 911 call was pretty powerful. I’m not sure how much she really heard other than loud voices. It seemed like she added a few details in testimony. She said in cross that she heard the other 911 call and the screams. I think she mixed her first hand memories with what she heard on the 911 call. Not deliberately. It’s how memories work. Her initial statement is more accurate than her later testimony. She seemed very sincere. I’m not sure she added much useful.
Absolutely. General things like demeanor and nervousness and how it might arise from things like being foreign-born are exactly the kinds of things jurors may discuss with each other. Each juror’s life experience is supposed to inform his deliberations.
Any problems arise if we move from the general to the specific. Mikhail saying that someone who grew up in a Communist regime would be nervous in court is fine.
I’m pretty sure most college professors are familiar with AAVE (African American Vernacular English), and would have no problem with it being used in a tweet or other social media. You’re not quoting from her thesis proposal here.
I’m a high school teacher, and I don’t have any problem understanding the text of her tweets. She reminds me of some of my students, who would do or say all kinds of stupid things, just to get out of presenting a paper to the whole class; I can’t imagine her horror at the thought of having to testify - now on television - in a case like this. Let’s keep in mind that she is not the one on trial here, or as she tweeted “remember who cause the funeral to happen”.
What impressed me was DeeDee’s hearing. Not only could she hear the sound of grass she could tell it was wet grass.
I’d question her about hearing Martin say “get off”. She originally said she heard this a “little bit” and when asked to repeat it for clarification she did. It’s logical that the person away from the microphone would be fainter and that would be Zimmerman.
Why is Zimmerman farther away? GZ would have obviously gotten -closer- as they went from the initial exchange (standing apart) to apparently scuffling (based on the ‘get off, get off’). If they’re scuffling, the headphone & little speaker would be in between their bodies, which would explain why the sound was softer and/or muffled.
What I find interesting is that all the witnesses - including Dee Dee, to an extent, although I always thought she’d be pretty much useless as a witness - describe a gradual buildup of the altercation.
All the ear witnesses statements sound remarkably unalike a ‘sucker punch to the nose that immediately knocked me down followed by immediately being mounted and head slammed into concrete’.
This trial starts when we get to Zimmerman’s statements after the shooting.
Oh and come on hmarvin; still waiting for your cite of the ‘George pushed the buttons on his phone at the start of the altercation’ quote. We both agree that’d be quite significant.
FWIW, I appreciated the rawness: “Crazy Ass Cracker” is not something I would expect to hear from a prepped prosecution witness. So while that indicates profiling on behalf of Martin, she comes across as honest, albeit a little fuzzy. I can excuse the white lie about her reason for not going to Martin’s funeral and a little less so her lying about her age. The precise words she heard in the opening moments of the encounter is key, in my opinion. Not sure her changing that around at this point helps the prosecution.
Are we going explore the timeline (touched on in opening states) between Zimmerman ending the NEN call and the ending of the DeeDee (sorry, still calling he that) call. That’s three minutes, give or take. What was Zimmerman doing during that time? Walking very slowly back to his vehicle?
Is Zimmerman going to testify? Will we get to hear his point of view?
(Full disclosure: I’m a lifetime member of the NRA and I fully support right to self defense, lethal self defense. I’m not convinced that this was a ‘good shoot’ but the burden of proof is on the state. As it should be.)
Dee Dee said several times that Trayvon was at the mailing area. That statement makes sense to me. I’m pretty sure my old apartment’s mailboxes were covered by a roof. I remember it was in front of the rental office. A big covered area with about 100 boxes.
I can see Trayvon seeking shelter from a hard rain under that covered mailbox area. Somebody needs to get a picture of the condo’s common mailbox area and see if it is covered. That could explain the 25 minute gap between the time he left the 7-11 and when he he was seen by Zimmerman at 7:10. If he got caught in a cloud burst then he may have taken shelter by those mailboxes.
Anyway, Dee Dee said Trayvon mentioned the mailing area.
Once again I agree with Dee Dee that the cops should have identified her much quicker. She even mentioned *The First 48 *and Attorney West just looked at her blankly. The homicide detectives always look at the recent numbers dialed from a victim’s cell phone. I’ve seen homicide cops from at least six different cities follow that procedure on The First 48. It’s just common sense that you’d check up on recent calls from a cell phone. Yet, the cops didn’t find out about Dee Dee for several weeks. Trayvon’s dad was the one that tracked down Dee Dee.
The redirect with Dee Dee is fascinating. Trayvon’s dad and mother had quite the adventure trying to get Dee Dee to come forward. They thought she was a minor and were trying to reach her mom (who was out of the country). They had a heck of a time getting this girl to meet with the Martin’s attorney. Meanwhile the Keystone cops were clueless.
I never realized what a cluster fuck it was getting ahold of the person Trayvon was talking too just before he was killed.
Something else occurred to me. She was nervous and who knows how much she was lying, I don’t. But, maybe that all affected her ability to communicate well; however, I think there was another factor here…
It is not that hard for most blacks to ‘code switch’. But a young nervous girl may have a hard time in this situation because the questioner wants her to retell exactly what was said between her and Trayvon. That is going to be a challenge for the poor girl, because she doesn’t really feel confident speaking the exact way some black people speak to each other when we are alone. The slang can get thick as hell, really, and it is going to be difficult for a young scared girl to really relate it to a room full of people who she thinks won’t understand. So she is trying to on the fly translate some of how they were talking, mumbling in her effort to translate some of the heavier black dialect and slang so that her audience will understand. I am having a hard time myself, trying to explain this.
ETA: It struck me hardest when she had to relay things like ‘creepy ass cracka’. And especially when she said, “He said that nigga is following me” or whatever. She struggled with that so much, because she knew that white people don’t really know that we call whites nigga too, the same way we call each other nigga. She knew it would seem weird and the defense would ask her to repeat it, and she was just bracing for all of that, and feeling overwhelmed and nervous about it all. Just my take on it, anyway.
I understand now why the Martin’s Attorney, Crump is on the witness list. It’s very unusual that he found a witness that the cops didn’t know about. So he’ll be part of this trial.
The cell phone records confirm Dee Dee’s phone conversations with Trayvon. But Crump still needs to testify about his involvement in the case and how Dee Dee was found.
She didn’t code switch, she mumbled when she had problems with what she wanted (or did not want) to say.
She basically mumbled her way out of explaining what Martin was doing when he left the store and she played dumb with the 46 minutes it involved. Martin left the store, magic happened, and he’s at the mail kiosk. She goes from speaking clearly enough to understand her to pure gibberish. This time span represents a huge block of time she would have been on the phone and yet…nothing. She was the prosecutor’s worst nightmare and the defense didn’t make use of this at all.
She was very evasive about that gap. I found the testimony confusing. I think West said there was a 20 min gap where Dee Dee wasn’t on the phone with Trayvon. But I don’t understand her reluctance to recall more details of their phone conversation after he left the 7-11. That long time gap between leaving 7-11 and getting back to the apartments may never be explained.
West impeached her testimony in a couple places. Her answers changed slightly between the Crump interview, the Depo, and then the trial. She’s in for more questions in the morning.
I can’t decide if Dee Dee is playing dumb or if she is dumb. I noticed she has a very good memory for dates. Several times she vividly remembered the day of the week, date and even time of events. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s playing the “I’m so confused” card when she doesn’t want to answer.
I missed that she wasn’t on the phone the whole time. It appeared to me she said she was on it the whole time between leaving the store and arriving at the mailboxes. She acted like there was no gap in time to the point where she was adamant about it. I would focus on that because it means Martin walked straight to the malboxes and then after a significant gap in time is now at the cut-through.
She didn’t grasp the time difference at all. so either she’s lying about something or there is no time gap enroute to the mailboxes. Either way there is a huge gap in time unaccounted for by Martin.