I can’t think of anything more democratic than a bunch of citizens making their concerns known to a democratically elected official. If this official caters to their wishes simply because he wants to keep his job, we must consider this a cost of living in a society set up like this. There’s no getting around it unless you want to block people’s 1st amendment right.
That said, this whole tangent presumes that “angry blacks” had anything to do with the grand jury decision. Call me crazy, but I’m thinking those incriminating phone logs of Martin’s girlfriend had a lot more to do with this. Didn’t Martin Hyde himself seem to think this info could be game-changing, at least as of this morning?
But hey, let me not get in the way of some good old fashioned teeth gnashing about Al Sharpton. It’s been at least a week and two days since we’ve had some of that.
I personally think race has nothing to do with this case. I think Zimmerman would have behaved the same way if Martin was white, hispanic, asian, native american or whatever else, I think age has a lot more to do with his decision making than race. But that is just my opinion, in any event it shouldn’t be hard to prove or disprove if his actions were motivated by racism. After all, he make something like 46 calls to the police in the months leading up to this incident. By looking at those cases any history of racial prejudice should be pretty apparent. In mean if every time he calls the cops it is to report a “suspicious” black person than that would be a pretty good indicator that he had racist motivations. On the other hand, if those calls show no consistent pattern of reporting certain ethnic groups than I think it is unfair to accuse him of being a racist without any proof.
And I was arguing that, based on what I know, my opinion is that he should be charged.
It sounds to me like I’m not allowed to care about people unless they’re famous. Well, if you want to follow that criteria, Trayvon Martin is of societal importance right now - a lot of people know his name, and his case is causing a lot of talk about the usefulness or validity of Stand Your Ground laws. So even though he’s not a pop singer, I’m going to care about his case, even though you think I shouldn’t have the right to.
No, we shouldn’t have mob rule, people shouldn’t be pulling him out of jail, and prosecutors shouldn’t convict him because they’re afraid of public opinion. But if I think a story shows some injustice in the legal system, why shouldn’t I make my voice heard and complain about it?
Also, in regards to those 46 calls that he made to the police over the past few months. In all of those incidents did he ever confront one of the people he was reporting? If so, that would be a good indication that he has displayed a pattern of confrontation that would definitely be relevant in this issue. On the other hand, if in all of those other incidents he never once forced a confrontation with one of the people he was reporting I have a hard time believing that this one time he decided he was going to start a fight. I mean, 46 previous incidents is a large enough number to establish a pattern of behavior. Perhaps the investigators have been looking into these cases and this is part of the reason they have gone to the grand jury? Once again, I guess we will never know until the official story comes out.
SYG was passed because of a vocal segment of the population that is pro-gun, pro-vigilante behavior.
“Mob rule” is in the eye of the beholder. Its a pejorative that people use when democracy goes against this wishes. On one hand, you have people pushing for laws that make it easier to kill people with impunity. And on the other hand, you have other people pushing for more investigation of a potential murder incident. They are really no different from one another; it all boils down to influencing elected officials to do what you want.
The only problem is when this pressure causes flawed decisions to be made. A strong case can be made that SYG fits the bill. I mean, who knew that if OJ had killed Nicole and Ron in FL in the year 2012, he could have fucked up the prosecution’s case simply by asserting self-defense? I didn’t know this. Did you?
Pulling up a hoodie, when somebody looks at you. What do you thinking that is going to accomplish? Do you think it makes you invisible? Also keep in mind that Martin didn’t know that Zimmerman wasn’t a plainclothes cop or private security. If Martin thought Zimmerman was a mugger or something, then he should have been calling 911 or at least his father. What good does calling his girlfriend do?
BTW, you really should re-think your behavior. Acting like that is just sending out fear signals to potential predators. Actually that may be consistent. From a criminal’s point of view, police officers are their predators.
I’m becoming curious about this. What level of contributions to society make a person a “somebody”, meaning that we are allowed to care about an injustice committed against that person?
The problem is that people are making these assumptions of injustice without knowing the full details of what actually happened. That is the similarity to “mob rule” here.
I don’t know, that seems kind of a natural reaction to me. If someone is staring at me in a public place, for example, I might turn my head to face the other way because sometimes it bugs me when people stare at me.
What I am saying is: if no more evidence were being gathered, and all the evidence I had was what I have available to me now, I would hope that such a case fits the criteria for charging him. If there is an investigation going on, to obtain more evidence, I have no argument with that. Get more evidence to build a stronger case.
What I would disagree with would be if someone said “this is the evidence we have now (the stuff I’ve read in newspaper articles so far), this is insufficient evidence to overcome a claim of self-defense, it’s not worth bringing to trial.”
Then give me more details, and I’ll revise my opinion based on those details. But to tell me “you are allowed to read newspaper articles but are forbidden to draw any conclusions about what you read” seems a silly restriction to me.
Dude, you’re crying because the state of Florida, one month after a potential murder has taken place, has made the fantastically rash decision to present this case to a grand jury.
And for the last hour, you’ve actually be insisting that Martin was a nobody, which means concerns over his death represent reacreational outrage.
But I’m unable to look at this rationally. Yup, you have me convinced.
I have to admit, I have a hard time with the argument that since Martin was “nobody”, what happened to him doesn’t matter. That even though it appears that he did nothing wrong and was a victim of homicide (since even Zimmerman isn’t claiming it was an accident), his parents are “irrational and stupid” for trying to make the system work the way we think it’s supposed (suspicious killing with a smoking gun - arrest - trial - a “fair” determination of innocence or guilt). And yes, I think that Zimmerman’s comments just on his 911 call are enough to make this killing suspicious. I want the “nobodies” to have the same treatment that the rich and “politically important” do…and hopefully this brings attention to the “13-15” people who were killed that didn’t get justice either. That “angry black mob” (talk about your “recreational fit” - I’ll bet that “mob” has a fair number of people who are neither angry nor black) want the system to do the job it’s supposed to - investigate a possible crime instead of blowing it off. That our legal system is an evolving one, that does react to public opinion to what appears to be injustice. And a change from the “angry white mob” of yesterday who wasn’t satisfied with an arrest and just went straight to lynchings. My impression is that the Sanford police had blown this off and wasn’t going to do anything about it until the media became involved.
OK. I’m telling you, though, that in my opinion you’re incorrect. And in my opinion, I have a tad bit more experience with the criminal justice system than you do.
My guess as to what happened, Zimmerman probably tried to physically restrain Trayvon, after pursuing unnecessarily pursuing him, Trayvon resisted called out for help and in the struggle hit Zimmerman who then shot and killed Trayvon. There was clearly a struggle initiated and accelerated by Zimmerman. Trayvon was the one who was standing his ground and Zimmerman was completely outside the law in both trying to restrain Trayvon and then of course shooting him. I actually have no doubt that Zimmerman thinks he was acting in self-defense. I also have no doubt that that is because he is a deranged racist lunatic.
