The shooter and an eye witness.
If it turns out that Zimmerman pursued and provoked or started an altercation with Martin, and then shot him when it turned out the fight wasn’t going as expected, he may still not be arrested, or perhaps be found innocent of charges, because of the nature of this law.
I wouldn’t call that ‘just’, but it must be accepted as a legitimate outcome of the legal system.
If the above speculation turns out to be correct, then the only way justice will achieved is by the elimination or amendment of the SYG law, so future killers won’t be able to do the same and walk away without punishment.
My original thought was that Zimmerman could be held to account for instigating a confrontation but Martin confronted him first per his girlfriend’s account of what she heard on the phone.
Zimmerman had a gun. Martin was unarmed. I think most people know who had the upper hand.
Not necessarily. If Martin only matches with a 30-ish probability, it means it’s far more likely Zimmerman. If they both give a 50-ish match, then the result means absolutely nothing at all. Only if M matches with say a 70-ish probability, then it means M is the more likely.
You have no evidence of this whatsoever. You don’t even have evidence that Zimmerman was injured.
Thanks for putting this out there so bluntly, though. I guess you’ve decided to cast away the pretense of objectivity. Good call, because it wasn’t like you were fooling anyone with that.
“Upper hand” as in who was on the receiving end of the fight. There is nothing to show that Zimmerman intended to engage Martin or start a fight with him. All we know is that Martin started a conversation that was followed immediately followed by a fight and that he was on top of Zimmerman. The fight involved head injuries that are consistent with Zimmerman’s testimony. Put the 2 together and you have justification for the defensive use of a weapon. It is the very reason people carry guns in the first place.
Now in the sense that Martin wouldn’t have known Zimmerman was armed and therefore would not have engaged him in a fight then yes, Zimmerman had the upper hand in a fight.
Where are you getting this from? What head injuries? Have you seen EMT records that the rest of haven’t been privy to?
We have a police report that Zimmerman was injured consistent with his story. We have neighbors who saw his face bruised consistent with his story. We have an eye witness who saw Martin on top of Zimmerman and an ear witness that Martin engaged Zimmerman first in conversation plus Zimmerman’s response. What we don’t have is who threw the first punch.
I haven’t convicted either of them and have posted scenarios favoring both Martin and Zimmerman based on what I’ve read and in the order the information came to light. You are not looking at this objectively at all.
Nothing, but what you’re saying doesn’t contradict anything I’ve said. So you’re just arguing with me for no good reason.
I haven’t seen you address the fact that the homicide detective reportedly wanted to press charges against Zimmerman on day 1, but didn’t because the prosecutor told him no. Seems to me that this detective would have a good idea what makes an arrest lawful or not–certainly more than you do–but hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you need to lecture that guy on the importance of lawful arrests rather than me. Clearly he has it all wrong and could stand to learn a thing from a pro like yourself.
I clearly stated “police report”, not “EMT report”.
“According to the Sanford police report, George Zimmerman, 28, a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, is found armed with a handgun, standing over Martin. He has a bloody nose and a wound in the back of his head.”
It’s not relevant to the case beyond the emotional level. The homicide detective is not a lawyer and the chief lawyer who represents the district decided otherwise. It doesn’t mean either is right or wrong but the relevant legal opinion is that of the lawyer.
The person to argue with is the lawyer and not the officer.
All the evidence we have seen points to Martin being the aggressor. The injuries to Zimmerman (that we do know exist, although we don’t know how serious they are), and various witnesses, including Martin’s girlfriend, point to him initiating contact and being on top of Zimmerman in the fight. That’s without including the most important piece of evidence, that is, Zimmerman’s statement.
Now, none of this evidence is particularly strong. It would not be enough, for example, to arrest Martin for assault had he lived. It is, however, the only evidence we’ve seen. There is certainly much evidence that we haven’t seen, and it’s possible that it shows a completely different story. The fact that the person charged with prosecuting the case doesn’t think it’s strong enough doesn’t currently point to that, though.
So, being objective, I have no reason to think Zimmerman attacked Martin, and a small amount of reason to think the opposite. I also have the knowledge that the vast amount of evidence I’ve not seen will be examined in great detail to see whether it is sufficient to bring charges against Zimmerman. I’m quite content to see that justice is, in fact, being done, against the wishes of people like yourself, who want to lynch Zimmerman.
We have a police report that says the guy was bleeding from his nose and head. This is not synonymous with injury; it just means he had blood near his nose and head. Note that the police report failed to note specific wounds. Nothing about scratches, abrasions, or lacerations were mentioned. Just blood. Blood that could very well be Martin’s.
We have a video taken shortly after the incident that shows no apparent lesions on his nose or head, and no evidence of blood on his clothes. No bandages, either, which is what you’d expect to see if he had a gash on his head. As DrDeth adamantly pointed out, you don’t have to bandage a wound* if it’s been sutured*! (Because it’s closed and doesn’t need to be covered, duh, but let’s not get bogged down in obvious shit.) But we’re supposed to believe EMT would have left a open head wound totally undressed. Right. An open head wound that magically is invisible on camera. Right, again.
The cops should have taken pictures of Zimmerman’s injuries, if they were serious about evidence collection. But the police report mentions nothing about accompanying exhibits. Funny, right? The police report mentions nothing about being notified by EMT that Z potentially had a concussion either. They just whisked that bad boy off to the station without a care, even though he could’ve had all kinds of embarrassing complications on them once in custody.
A day after the shooting took place, yes. No bruises were noted in the police report, though. Wouldn’t we expect the cops to be better at documenting such clues than neighbors? And also, how would a neighbor be able to discern a real bruise from a fake one or one that is self-inflicted? Why suddenly do we put stock in neighbors’ ability to diagnose a man with a medical condition, but we dismiss them when they report other things? Like that it was Martin screaming for help or that Zimmerman appeared uninjured after the shot went off.
So what if Martin was on top during a snapshot of the fight? Anyone who has been in a wrestling match knows that just because you might be on top one second doesn’t mean you’re winning.
We don’t even know if there was punching at all. The funeral director said there was no evidence Martin had injuries to his hands consistent with punches.
I am judging you by what you just posted. Matter-of-factly, you stated that Martin had the upper hand in a fight with Zimmerman. A fight, oddly enough, that resulted in him losing his life. The problem is, no evidence that has seen the light of day that supports that Martin even raised a fist against Zimmerman, let alone had the upper hand.
You can read the actual report yourself. The totality of Zimmerman’s “injuries” are summarized in one sentence in this 8 page document. It’s so understanded that it reads like an off-hand aside. The cops could have bracketed in parenthesis, for as much attention it’s given.
“Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and back of the head.”
That’s it. Nothing about bruises, lacerations, abrasions, scratches, or gashes. Nothing about any specific wounds. From this 12-word sentence, we’re supposed to conclude the man’s nose was broken, his head was beaten into a sidewalk, and that the only way to stop the person who was doing all this beating was to shoot him dead. Right.
I repeat, no evidence has to come to light that Martin even raised a fist against Zimmerman, let alone had the upper hand in their fight.
You with the face, you cannot simply pretend evidence doesn’t exist because you don’t like what it shows. You don’t like the possibility that Martin attacked Zimmerman? Tough. It may well be what happened. You don’t like that the law allows Zimmerman to shoot and kill an attacker? Tough, it does. You may be able to get that law changed, but that’s irrelevant right now.You don’t like the fact that Zimmerman is as much entitled to the full protection of the law as anyone else? Tough. He is, whether innocent or guilty, whether walking free, arrested, out on bail, or in prison for murder.
I know what you’re really bothered by, though. You want a nice, neat story, with a clear cut good guy and bad guy. Sadly for you, whatever the outcome of this case is, we can be pretty sure that neither of them are particularly good guys, and that the end result is likely to be to no-one’s complete satisfaction.
To be fair, what the police documented, it does sound like there were possible injuries. Especially their documenting “bleeding FROM the nose and back of the head”. The police can not document Z had a broken nose as only a DR can make that determination.
Possible injuries, yes. I’m not saying Z wasn’t bleeding from the nose, it’s very well possible he was. But if he was truly bleeding from the head, it’s not corroborated by the video. Head wounds bleed a lot, and it would have been bandaged.
Yes it is.
The video was grainy and as I explained earlier in the thread you don’t need a pool of blood to indicate head trauma. And as I pointed out earlier, athletes die all the time from being struck with a ball. No blood at all.
he was at the station for 5 hrs. Did you have the report on that? The reason police continued to question Zimmerman was to ascertain what happened.
Bruising manifests itself (gets worse) overtime. The police noted what they saw at the time of the incident.
The neighbors didn’t report a wrestling match, just that Martin was on top. And the injuries didn’t indicate they were rolling around.
The funeral director isn’t a coroner and shouldn’t make rash statements like that to the public. He or she is fanning the flames of public sentiment. You’re a prime example of the outcome. It’s true that Martin could have kicked him or head butted Zimmerman. But the injuries to Zimmerman are consistent with his version of what happened. You keep operating under the premise that severe injuries require lots of blood or that head trauma requires damage to the person creating it. I’ve personally seen people knocked out with one punch and then pummeled. The aggressor showed no signs of injury to his hands. And just to be clear, Zimmerman said he was getting pummeled and felt his life was in danger. The act of shooting Martin is to stop him from what was deemed a life threatening act. It’s not like Martin would be giving a count down as to when he was going to stop so Zimmerman could judge how much of a beating he could take.
You can judge me to your heart’s content. IMO you’re putting emotion before reason.
they do? Cite? The real danger in such a fight is brain trauma and that is internal.