Own your words, sir.
Which is it? Should you not be beaten to death because it’s wrong, or is it merely unlikely and thus not worth discussing? What you wrote supports both.
I am mostly saying it was Zimmerman’s behavior that allowed for a fight to happen to begin with. That in and of itself makes him morally responsible for most of the repercussions.
But to answer your direct question, I just tend to find that people looking for trouble, with a modest history of illegality, racism, and violence, and a who lie about their finances in court, tend to be less believable. It just strikes as fairly unlikely that this dirtbag just happened to meet another guy looking for a fight with a stranger.
The question is when said confrontation began in earnest. You can argue from a legal perspective it began when the first person threw the punch, but that moment was only possible because Zimmerman followed him.
Why didn’t Zimmerman just yell to him as soon as he saw him, explaining who he was, and why he was talking to him? He had 100 different ways to avoid what might become an ugly situation, yet he picked the one most likely to lead to something bad happening. That is indefensible to me.
Why would any reasonable person do that though? If Martin was intent on beating him up, why didn’t he confront Zimmerman after he immediately noticed him. This idea that he just up and decides to turn the tables on Zimmerman seems far fetched.
I disagree. Such responses happen all the time, and regardless of how you would act, are foreseeable to most people.
That’s the point. You are implying people don’t fight, and that it’s unreasonable to expect them to. It isn’t.
Ok then, by your own logic, Martin over reached. If was on top of him slamming Zimmerman’s head into the concrete. Martin wasn’t being forced to continue the fight. Why not get up and run?
And again your analogies, er, hypotheticals are poor. If someone was running straight for you, the fact that they were running toward you would be a threat. If someone broke into your house, they would already present a threat. Someone following you into an apartment building is not a threat. While I’m sure Zimmerman’s pursuit of Martin threatened him, if he stopped and because to walk back to his vehicle, the threat would be extinguished and Martin would then because the threat if he confronted Zimmerman.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/12/155918/more-evidence-released-in-trayvon.html#.UeRSa20ddEZ
After interviewing nearly three dozen people in the George Zimmerman murder case, the FBI found no evidence that racial bias was a motivating factor in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, records released Thursday show.
Nothing about “court of law” there…
Federal agents interviewed Zimmerman’s neighbors and co-workers, but none said Zimmerman had expressed racial animus at any time prior to the Feb. 26 shooting of Martin, a black teen, in a confrontation at a Sanford housing complex. As Sanford police investigated the circumstances of Martin’s death, the FBI opened a parallel probe to determine if Martin’s civil rights had been violated.
Several co-workers said they had never seen Zimmerman display any prejudice or racial bias.
No, I am saying that he was a speed demon in the past, and that there is both evidence of his speeding in this case, and that said speeding was what allowed the accident to happen.
Did you read the link:
If your standard of evidence is that he has to basically tell the operator he is following him because he is Black, I don’t think anyone would ever be convicted.
What is a “punk looking kid”? Either way, I can’t address some hypothetical about what he would have done if he wasn’t himself. I think the guy, as he actual is, would not have followed Martin had he been a White kid. Can you prove such a thing? No, but the evidence suggests that race is a major condition for him deciding to engage.
Okay, how does that address the comment you quoted? I specifically mentioned prudence as something people were not arguing. You seem to agree. Where is the beef here?
Care to cite any of those things?
I am probably going to catch a rash of sh*t over this but when people try and provide an example to make their point they always go to the diametrically opposed end in hopes of scoring points but its BS. To compare a black male youth - who clearly have a higher propensity for crime - to a “white girl” is just self serving.
Let me give you just a few better examples… if I saw a ANY OF THE FOLLOWING acting as Trayvon did, on a rainy dark night in an area that had recently had multiple break-ins, then I would be very suspicious and would act no different (among the group, not saying my actions would be same as GZ just my alertness):
- Tattooed up muscular WHITE guy jogging pants and tank top
- Skinny tattooed up, long haired stoner guy in a Megadeth jacket
- Hispanic biker type with leathers and a chain wallet
- Strung out looking white guy or girl
- ANY MALE KID/Young Adult between the ages of 16-21
Now let me give you a few examples where I can definitely say I would act differently and have a different alert level:
- Little old or man lady in walker regardless of race
- Little old lady or man with a dog on lease regardless of race
- Pretty middle aged woman with umbrella regardless of race
- The aforementioned “white girl”
Who in the RIGHT MIND can honestly say that you/we must treat every person, every age, every gender, every race along with every choice of attire the SAME?
That is madness and this case highlighted so much that is wrong with the VERY GROUP that seem to feel the most oppressed. :smack:
Because once a fight starts, you don’t always have a measured response. He may have overreacted, but this would not have happened were it not for Zimmerman. That is the point.
You cannot prove someone is actually running towards you as opposed to running past you. That is a judgment call.
How would Martin know that?
“Evidence” means, statements that can be used in a court of law to substantiate the claim that racial bias was a motivating factor in the shooting. It doesn’t mean there was no person or persons who accused Zimmerman of racism. We have at least two people on record of doing so.
I’m not arguing from a legal standpoint. That argument has been had. The testimony states that Zimmerman stopped following Martin and at some point the confrontation resumed. It absolutely depends on who restarted the confrontation. But lets say the confrontation never stoped. Martin could have stopped the confrontation too. He could have identified himself, stated his father lived in the neighborhood, when he had Zimmerman pinned to the ground, stop slamming his head in the ground and run for help. The responses you advocate esculate a situation to violence and leads to actual laws being broken. Also, I have not implied people don’t fight. I don’t believe that is what most people reflexively do and in the hypotheticals you provide, they generally shouldn’t. I believe most people flee, or phsically attack enough to give them the opportunity to flee.
Also by your logic and how you perceive Zimmerman, Martin was a delinquent, drug user and a racist as well.
Yep. What you do is you kill them; then you’re a “hero”. Just like Zimmerman.
You called out Trayvon for a thug even though he was being stalked by a lunatic with a gun. That you didn’t think Zimmerman was is racist. And you ignored the racial angle Zimmerman portrayed Trayvon as and think race wasn’t a factor. That race card, when Trayvon was being stalked simply because he was black and wearing something Zimmerman didn’t like, is apt. It was due to race that Zimmerman followed him and due to race that Martin’s clothing was being used against him
Our apologies. We just assumed that since you were so ardent in your background of the case, we didn’t have to cite it seeing as it was common knowledge along with the fact that it was not SYG, the issues with Zimmerman’s previous run-ins with the law, etc.
I guess in your careful and unbiased following of the case you must have missed the attempts of the prosecution to bring up (futilely) character issues of Trayvon.
http://blog.richardhornsby.com/2013/05/trayvon-martin-character-evidence-or-character-assassination/
Are those two people’s statements not “evidence”? Is the FBI incompetent?
Well ok, but that bases the assumption that Zimmerman is lying, lied on multiple occasions, lied while taking a lie detector and lied while under oath, when he said that he stopped pursuing Martin and Martin then confronted him. Unfortunately, what ever happened between Zimmerman hanging up with 911 and their fight is unknowned so kinda useless to assume that it was because of Zimmerman that the fight was started since we don’t know what actually started the fight.
I believe I am a pretty good just at someone that is running by my and someone that is about to bull rush me and as far as I’m concerned, if they are playing a game of chicken, that is just as good as bull rushing me.
Also, I can’t know what Martin did or didn’t know. I try not to deal to much in vague hypotheticals. All I can use to judge is with the evidence available and that’s Zimmerman’s testimony and you have already heard that.
Actually, I was giving you/others the benefit of the doubt in asking what specific evidence you were referring to that substantiates those claims.
No, it is not evidence of the question the FBI was attempting to answer. But, the FBI is often incompetent regardless of what happened here.
What case was that? I must have missed it due to all the press the Zimmerman case has been getting.
Ok, but 30 claimed otherwise. I don’t know why 7 of 9 phone calls that you use as evidence of Zimmerman’s racial profiling is evidence of his racist views, but the FBI’s findings that out of 30 people only 2 claim that he holds racist views and that the FBI found no evidence of racial bias does nothing to convince you otherwise.
We know Zimmerman has lied about matters related to this case. His actions are part of what got his wife charged with perjury. I agree its a bit unfair to speculate who threw then first punch. That’s partially why I would argue his actions immediately beforehand are more important and consequential to the outcome here.
Either way, self defense cases where the other side cannot testify on account of being killed are inherently hard to prove. But I don’t think it’s fair to deem the killer’s statements as real evidence.
Also, are you say someone running at you playing chicken is the same as actually trying to attack? That you feel fine defending yourself physically in either case?
The FBI stated there was no evidence that the crime was motivated by race; not that Zimmerman isn’t a racist. Either way, it is shocking that one’s intimates, coworkers and the like would defend him/her? Would it be a shock that someone would not be openly racist at work in general?
Let’s take an another example. Do you think Zimmerman’s dad is racist? Do you think he thinks he is racist? Do you think his friends would tell the FBI he is a racist?
There’s pretty much nothing less to discuss at this point.