As I see it, GZ will not be convicted of 2nd degree murder. He MAY be convicted of manslaughter, and I think that was the prosecution’s objective all along.
He is certainly guilty of poor judgment. It’s impossible to be sure what else he may be guilty of, and that is for the jury to decide.
Had he stayed where he was, none of this would have happened. Instead he chose to go beyond the limits of his authority and of his capability, with tragic results.
I don’t know if that constitutes manslaughter but the jury may think so.
Im white and I very much believe its a race issue. If It was Trayvon who was thirty, was acting like he was a cop, and he chased a white high school boy behind a building and killed him, he would be tried and convicted on murder.
I couldn’t disagree more. If the white highschool boy started the fight and had the black neighborhood watchman on the ground and beating him, as a white man, I would support the neighborhood watch guy.
Are there some racists in the world? Sure. It’s not so institutionalized anymore.
I didn’t say all, but I would say it’s quite a few. And it’s a damn shame.
I’ve not given an opinion before the case, but after the prosecution laid out their “evidence”, it’s apparent to me that this is nothing more than a race related witch hunt. The sheer number of Black people who have already decided that Zimmerman is some kind of vigilante murderer while Trayvon was some kind of saint does nothing to change my opinion of that, nor do the plethora of race related signs/shirts.
Now, sure, there are people who think Zimmerman is guilty independent of any race related issues, but I’d say that those people are a minority opinion within the group that believes Zimmerman is guilty.
There is no indication that he was acting like a cop. This is just an extension of the trope of calling him a wanna-be cop. He’s been training to become a cop and he’s also a neighborhood watch person. In the function of neighborhood watch he did the right thing by calling the police and following the suggested action of the dispatcher. At no point was Zimmerman ever directly chasing Martin.
Martin did the wrong thing. He DIDN’T call the police if he believe Zimmerman was acting suspicious. He had every right to do so yet he decided to confront and then assault Zimmerman. These were decisions Martin made and were beyond Zimmerman’s control. Based on the location of the fight it appears Martin was heading back to Zimmerman’s truck. If the fight didn’t start at the T the situation would likely have occurred a few seconds later at the truck.
For those who think race is not an issue in this case, if Zimmerman had shot and killed a white teenager, would he have gotten donations to pay for his defence?
What a buncha bull, but if you want to believe something badly enough, close your eyes, and just imagine…and, voila, your there! What a magical world you live in.
If the teenager was on top of him at the time of the shooting, I’d donate to his cause, whether he was black/white/asian/hispanic/Native American.
I’ve absolutely no doubt that there are members of that other message board who donated to GZ simply because he killed a “black thug.” But they’re self-acknowledged racist idiots. I’m sure in their minds they were only donating money to his “white half” and ignoring his Afro/Hispanic lineage.
uh, yes. Given that the Prosecution had to bypass the normal Grand Jury system and then used the same weak evidence turned down by the previous Prosecutor. There is an innate unfairness to the process that begs for help.
If y’all want to believe in some good in the world, Google “Jocelyn Rojas.” A couple of “children” chased her kidnapper on their bikes, resulting in her being set free.
I might be guessing wrong, but I think the jury wants to sleep on it before cutting Z loose. A lot of emotion because of a dead kid, so they want to make sure.