The Zimmerman/Martin case. Why so cleanly divided between the parties?

Great Debates
261

Nobody saw Zimmerman attack Martin. Wotmesses were in there homes and heard people arguing outsidfe and then the cries for help, and then the shot. Although they might have a certain impression they couldn’t really tell who was calling for help. Martin was 17 Zimmerman is 28.

The witmess John was interviewed on local TV. He saw two men struggling and, according to him, the guy on bottom was wearing red and yelling for help. He ran inside to call the police and heard the shot. It was a few seconds on a dark night and he may be incorrect but he’s not fabricated.

262

I’m not sure why you’re so focussed on the drugs thing. He also said he was looking around and up to something and that they’d had several break ins.
Z’man clearly assumed he was guilty of something but I’m not sure the drugs thing was all that relevant.

263

That witness was interviewed on local TV as “John” and I’ve seen the clip. He saw two men struggling on on top of the other. The one on bottom was wearing red, and , according to him, yelling for help. He went inside to call the police and heard the shot seconds later.

Witnesses are only partly reliable es[ecially on a dark night. I don’t believe anyone just hearing the yelling was able to identify who was yelling regardless of what impression they got.

264

Hardly moot. Is it possible the police handled it badly and are now in cover up mode? Sure, but that’s the evidence we have to work with amd means a little more than idle speculation.

The thing for me is even if Martin was kicking Z’man’s ass that doesn’t make him the original agressor. Which one was defending themselves? There are some very reasonable scenarios that make Zimmerman the aggressor. AS someone noted, you don’t get to provoke a fight, and then shoot the person when you’re losing and then claim self defense.

The big questions for me , that we may never answer is what was said, what happened in that angry confrontation. I can believe an overzealous Z’man agressively questioned MArtin, or possibly tried to detain him. If he pushed him, grabbed his arm, put his hadn on his pistol or even drew it, he’s guilty.
But we don’t know what happened and may not be able to find out.

265

Completely wrong.
The SYG law says you don’t have to retreat if you are in a place where you are allowed to be. In this case both were. However, If Martin approached Z’man aggressively it was Z’man who was standing his ground. If Z’man was agreessive with Martin then Treyvon was defending himself when he was shot.

266

Maybe not. How exactly do you think that relates?

267

because it’s the only thing he actually accused trayvon of actually doing wrong, and did so multiple times.
*
“This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something”

“This guy looks like he’s on drugs, he’s definitely messed up.”*

zimmerman had nothing but “suspicious activity” to report/accuse the teen of, which was just “walking about/looking around.” if his suspicion/well-intended busybodiedness really was he just wanted to be totally sure nothing bad was going on, he could have left it at that. but apparently he didn’t think it was a strong enough cause…

so he played the “he’s on drugs” card and even went as far as to say “he’s *definitely *messed up” (implying wrongdoing) and then urged dispatch to hurry over an officer.

it’s more than an incidental portion of this ordeal…zimmerman began with unwarranted suspicion of an innocent minor, so he fluffed up the situation by insisting he **must **be on drugs or something.

268

This is the forst I’ve heard of the young boy bei9ng swayed. One lady said that she was very upset about the shooting and that someone was crying for help and nobody helped. The detective siad, “If it makes you feel any better, the person crying for help is the one that’s alive”
Maybe he shouldn’t have done that but it’s not as nefarious as leading the witness. At the time, minutes after the shooting, he had no reason to doubt Zimmerman’s story and was trying to comfort someone.

Yeah, it seems to me the most they should have asked the kid was “could you tell what anyone was wearing, did you see what color clothes they had on”

If they were trying to influence him to make it fit a scenario that’s completely unaccpetable.

269

I agree he had no reason to simply assume Martin was on drugs but I think the key is that he was suspicious of a young black male because of the break ins they had. He said he was looking at the houses, and up to something. i think the drugs part is incidental rather than key.

270

he official police report says Z’man had blood on his nose and the back of his head and was treated by SFD. The funeral director said Treyvon had no signs of being in a fight, so it does appear that in the scuffle Treyvon was winning. That doesn’t make him the aggressor, which is key IMO, but at the time it seems the police had little reason to doubt Martin’s account.

I have read that one homicide detective wanted to charge him and was told no by others. I do wonder if that’s true and on what basis he wanted to charge him. Was there any inconsistentcy in Z’man’s story or was it just procedure.

271

you’re kind of late to the ball game, guy.

**terr **(mostly in a different thread on the same topic) plays a lot of “devil’s advocate” by questioning every single aspect of every shred of evidence, testimony or speculation damning zimmerman.

to say it more plainly, he’s presupposed zimmerman’s innocence and justifications.

rather than just full-on take that side of the debate and argue it, **terr **instead tried to make whoever brings anything against zimmerman’s innocence prove *their *case, demanding quotes and data and actual witness’ names and everything else.

when you provide this data, he tries to dismiss eye-witness testimony based on any minor portion that conflicts with police report.

in order for him to have a leg to stand on with this tactic, he’d have to say the police were beyond reproach, with justice and truth in mind. if he can’t say he stands by (and believes in) the civil disposition and investigation of the responding officers, then he really can’t dismiss the testimony of, say, Mary Cutcher, who has strongly conflicting testimony from zimmerman (and the police’s corroboration).
**terr **wants to throw away everything cutcher and her room mate says about what they saw because 1. it conflicts with his presupposed “zimmerman is innocent” stance and because 2. it contradicts the police report taken from cutcher…in spite of her repeated pleading to take a whole statement/the police “correcting” her actual statement and changing it in the report. she, in particular has a strong case for “the police didn’t really want to hear what actually happened” and has been the most vocal about it. she is, as well, one of only a handful of fully identified eyewitness and seems to have one of the largest amounts of information as to what happened.

but she, in particular, is “inadmissible” to terr’s debate, since the cops say her story is conflicting.

the only way he has a point is if he can say he believe the police are beyond reproach and their reporting/corroboration is honest to begin with (hint: it is, apparently, not at all honest, fair or upholding justice since chief lee was voted no confidence and has since stepped down, as well as them handing the case over the FBI).

i think you can appreciate the situation. if someone wants to hide behind the cops in this case and use their report as cause to ignore other eyewitness accounts, then they need to at least say they *believe *the cops.

pinning **terr **down, he just skirted the question. every time. indicated not even HE believes the cops were fully honest in how they reported and handled stuff.

272

Do you wonder how anyone hearing a muffled argument through a closed window , so muffled they couldn’t make out any words, could somehow be sure that one muffled voice was a 17n year old and one was a 28 year old. The reports of a child’s voice are unreliable because neither was a child.

273

the described “screams of a child” were, by all accounts, those of Martin after the first gunshot, before the second which silenced him.

i’m fairly certain that a 17 year old “man” is going to default to a fairly primitive sound when hot bullets enter him.

i’m not sure what authority you believe you have to make such claims as you are–

a horrific scream of a kid who just got SHOT is probably a sort of specific sound–something easier to distinguish than, say, specific words in an altercation.

274

Um, Zimmerman followed Martin for a long time before whatever happened, happened. It’s pretty much a dead certain lock that if Martin had been allowed to proceed as he was proceeding, the outcome of the walk would have been that he went home and gave his brother some Skittles.

Zimmerman is guilty, guilty, guilty as sin.

275

well Terr can speak for himself but I took it as looking at the available information reasonably without making leaps. I’ve seen lots of speculation and bad reasoning in discussions about this case. Nothing wrong with speculating and having an opinion if you’re aware that’s all it is. I do have a hard time with people assuming thier speculation is sound reasoning.

The fact is eye witnesses are not always relaible because emotion plays a part , especially is stressful situations. This was a dark night and the “eye witnesseses” you speak of heard something going on. That adds another layer of doubt.
The relevant question is , is it reasonble to assume people could tell the difference in voices between two strangers , one a 17 year old and one a 28 year old. My conclusion is , it’s not reasonable. They couldn’t really tell the difference.

This simply isn’t true. We can speculate all day and it means nothing. Is it popssible the police doctored the report to make her look bad? I guess. But her testimony is suspect without the apparent conflcit because it’s simply not reasonable to believe she could determine who’s voice was crying for help.
" I think it was a young boy" is more speculation that doesn’t help.

IMO, it simply doesn’t change anything. She saw Z’man standiong over Martin, and walking looking confused or in shock. That doesn’t contradict Z’man’s story. She can’t identify the noise she heard or the voice.

. She clearly doesn’t know what actually happened. Honestly, she has very little to offer in the way of evidence, so there’s not much reason to call her back.
Someone gave an anonymous interview and said there was a community meeting attended by the police asking for information, but that doesn’t mean they needed to hear from people they’d already had statements from.
She refers to Martin as the little boy, and says she knows it was him. He wasn’t a little boy and she can’t possibly know. That alone discredits her as having relevant factual information rather than just an opinion.
She went out to her porch after the shot. Of course there was no fighting then.
She simply doesn’t have much to offer other than her own speculation and feelings.

It’s more a matter of dealing with the information we have and forming reasonable conclusions based on the details.
At least two witnesses saw two men struggling before the shot was fired. She only saw after the shot. None of that contradict’s Zimmerman’s story.

Again, the key piece of info IMO is who was the agressor in the confrontation that led to a fight and the shooting. That, we simply don’t know and there are no witnesses who saw or heard , with the possible exception of Treyvon’s girlfriend which we haven’t heard much from.

276

Where did you get the two gunshots thing? Honestly, that’s new to me. I hadn’t heard anyone say they heard two shots.
I have heard the call that contains 40 seconds of screaming for help. There were two shots that were 40 seconds apart?

277

I’m not sure where you’re getting the “long time” from.

We actually don’t know who approached who after Z’man got out of his car. That’s the problem. Z’man may have been the aggressor but we don’t know that.

278

No, it means there was no fight. How do you get “he was winning a fight” from “no signs of being in a fight?”

Acknowledging that the mortician may not be a wholly unbiased source, if it is true that Martin had no injuries besides the bullet in his chest, it’s game over for Zimmerman. The idea that he was bashing Zimmerman in the face and didn’t end up with so much as a scuffed knuckle, let alone the broken bones in the hand that one would expect, is ludicrous.

279

(all that)

280

Not really. It wasn’t an extended fight. Z;man said the punch to the face knowcked him down, and Martin banged his head agasint the walk. There’s no indication it was the kind of fight that would leave marks on Martin, which might speak to the “fearing for your life” part.

I believe I read somewhere that Z’man said Martin was trying to get his gun, which could be self defense, but that might account for Z’man’s panic.

IN another FL case involving SYG, a 69 year old man took a pistol across the street to a park to confront a 40 year old Dad. They argued and the Dad tackled him in an attempt to get the gun. The Dad was shot and killed , but after 2 days of public outcry the older man was arrested. The difference was that some witnesses said the older man drew his gun from his belt, which means he was the aggressor and the Dad was defending himself when he was shot.

That’s the crucial info we don’t have in this case.