He says he was jumped him on the street near his vehicle.
But Martin was shot on the walkway behind a house on Twin Trees Ln. Not on a street. He was found exactly in the area one would expect to find him if he were walking home and trying to evade a pursuer at the same time.
Isnt it asking us to swallow a lot to believe that an unarmed kid would have managed to coerce or chase a gun-toting Zimmerman away from his truck, away from the street, and behind these houses?
I find it more believable that Zimmerman chased Martin back there after the start of the altercation (but less believable than the theory that it started on the walkway due to Zimmerman following Martin there) , but what implications would this have on SYG?It seems like chasing after someone is going beyond the concept of simply not retreating. It’s engaging in behavior that unnecessarily escalates harm.
I point you to this line “Any media reenactments of the shooting incident are purely speculation. To date the Sanford
Police Department has not released any rendition of the events of the evening to anyone other than the Office of the State Attorney. The renditions we have seen are not consistent with the evidence in this case."
What am I making up? There are only two potential scenarios to reconcile Zimmermans claim about where the altercation started and where the altercation ended.
He says it started it on the street. Facts in evidence shows that it ended behind some houses less than 100 ft from his home.
So at some point in time, either Martin chased Zimmerman back there or Zimmerman chased Martin there.
Oh I forgot another possibility. They took a stroll back there together, like 2 chummy pals, and then started fighting. I think we should ignore this one for now.
If you with the face is making stuff up now, apparently she isn’t the only one:
Will someone please address you’s question? She asked very politely and non-snarkily. Her confusion is quite reasonable. I too would appreciate an answer from the detached, dispassionate voices here.
The only thing we know is where the body was found, we don’t know where he was shot. If you are claiming, as fact, that Zimmerman chased Martin anywhere, you are making stuff up. Speculation is one thing, although it’s only useful if it’s based on the facts we know, but that is not what ywtf is doing. She is pulling stuff out of thin air and claiming it as fact. Some of it is possible, in that we do not have evidence that disproves it. If it does turn out to be true, it will be pure luck that ywtf was correct as there is no way she can know.
I’d like to see any evidence that there actually was a chase, to be honest. Simply saying that two people where at one point, and at some later time were at another point, is not evidence of that.
I’ve said before here, and I’ll say again, following is not necessarily chasing. Evidence that Zimmerman followed Martin is not evidence of any threat, or any wrongdoing.
Zimmerman claims he was attacked in the street, next to his car and that was when he felt in danger of his life. This is stated in the excerpt from the article.
If Zimmerman felt in danger of his life in the location where Martin allegedly attacked him, then that’s where he would be standing his ground. That would be when and where he would be justified in shooting Martin.
That he shot upon being attacked is the logical conclusion of the description of his statement. Note that it does not mention a chase initiated by either Zimmerman or Martin. Zimmerman is attacked, he’s scared, and then fires the weapon.
Now you can blame the article for compelling the reader to conclude that Zimmerman’s claiming he shot Martin in the street, when maybe that is not his claim at all. But it is not the only article that describes Zimmerman’s claim in this fashion, and as I said, it is a reasonable conclusion to make based on how the statement is described. So you’re out of line for accusing you with the face of making anything up.
We don’t need enough evidence to convict Zimmerman of a crime, which you seem to believe. If that were the case, no suspects would ever be arrested during the course of criminal investigations. The only thing needed to charge Zimmerman is the existence of something sufficiently weird about his statement to justify doubt of his self-defense claim. The explanation for how Zimmerman’s life can flash before his eyes far away from where Martin would eventually lose his is where the credibilty of his story rests. And it is perfectly reasonable to be curious about how someone can be afraid in one location and then shoot in another.
Another discrepancy in his story–one that should be convincing everyone that there is sufficient weirdness in this guy’s claim to doubt his story and bring charges against him:
Let’s ignore for the fact that Zimmerman sounds like he’s chasing Martin on the 911 tape. When the dispatcher asks him if he’s chasing Martin, Zimmerman replies in the affirmative. This has never been denied by anyone.
But this does not jibe with his claim that he only got out of his truck to look only at the street sign.
I also wonder why, if Zimmerman stopped to look at the street name, he hung up on the 911 dispatcher. Why would he get out to look for the street name if he wasn’t planning on informing the 911 dispatcher of his location? He does not even tell the dispatcher that this is what he is doing. No, “Hang on a sec. I gotta see what street I’m on.” So even if he didn’t know what intersection he was on (why couldn’t he just look out of the window?), what was he planning on doing with that information? He’d already directed the police to meet him at another location, correct?
The only way what you say can mean anything is if it’s impossible that they travelled that distance in the course of a fight, or that it’s impossible that Zimmerman shot Martin where he said he did, and Martin staggered or crawled the short distance to where he was found.
If Zimmerman claimed either of those things in his statement to the police, and there was no evidence at the scene to contradict him, he should not have been arrested.
If no evidence has turned up since to contradict those things, he should still not be arrested.
If there does turn out to be evidence that Zimmerman started the fight, or that he chased Martin as he fled regardless of who started the fight, or simply evidence that his statement is unreliable, then he should be arrested.
I’ve finally realised what’s bothering me most about the people shrilly demanding Zimmerman be arrested, evidence be damned (apart from the basic disregard for the law). The way I see it there are two options for what happened here. A guilty man is still alive, who killed an innocent boy, or an innocent man is still alive, who killed a criminal who assaulted him. What bothers me greatly is that people are trying to twist the facts to make it look like an innocent person must have been killed, as though that is somehow better than the other.
Not that I consider death to be a just punishment for an assault, and the situation is tragic either way, but the death of a guilty person is the lesser of two evils. Why are you so determined that Martin must be the innocent party here?
What about the 911 tape where the person said there was a fight going on in their yard, a scream and the sound of gunfire. Location seems to be narrowed down pretty close.
What bothers me are people who seem to think there needs to be overwhelming proof and evidence to be merely suspicious. That the only rational approach to this thing is to wait for more evidence to roll in…when that’s all we’ve been doing for the past week. (The family for multiple weeks.)
Zimmerman clearly sounds like he’s moving in rapid fashion towards Martin on the 911 tape. His response to the dispatcher’s question supports this. And yet one must be “shrill” for simply believing that Zimmerman pursued Martin.
Witnesses report that the two duked it out in a backyard. Witnesses report the presence of this fight before the gunshot goes off, as evidenced by the 911 calls. Martin’s body was found in said backyard. And yet one must be “shrill” for finding Zimmerman’s claim that the real fighting–totally initiated by the now dead person–happened out in the street. Where there are no documented signs of a struggle or blood spillage. Where no witnesses report seeing or hearing the two scuffle.
One must be crazy for thinking Zimmerman had a motive to shoot Martin (evidence on the 911 tape). One has to be irrational to think that Martin had no motive to kill Zimmerman beyond self-defense. That is what I’m hearing from you. That people are being unreasonable by weighing the known facts against Zimmerman’s claim and then making a judgment.
That bullshit is what frustrates me the most about this thread.
Weighing known facts against Zimmerman’s claim isn’t a problem. Making assumptions about what is possible from those facts, weighing those against Zimmerman’s claim, and deciding that he must be lying, and therefore must be guilty of murder, is a fucking big problem. I just hope none of the people doing it are involved in law enforcement at all.
It does give me some hope that all the people involved with the law in this thread don’t appear to be doing that.
