George Zimmerman Trial to Start in June

[Rick]

Reminiscent of Little Stevie and "I ain't gonna play Sun City" without any real merit...

[dgs49]

I have yet to hear any public person mention that the Martin person was engaged in an unprovoked felonious assault when he was shot.

Being asked what you are doing in a neighborhood where you do not live, while wandering around in the dark, is NOT an excuse for aggravated assault.

And "stand your ground" has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with this case. NOTHING.

Our beloved President proves yet again that he is more of an "African American" than an American. His conduct in this, and his failure to do anything to ease the tensions is a disgrace.

[Scooter]

I have yet to hear any public person mention that the Martin person was engaged in an unprovoked felonious assault when he was shot.

Because there is no evidence that he was engaged in any such thing.

No one knows who assaulted whom first here. Which is precisely why a jury could not find Zimmerman guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. It certainly should not be enough to convict Martin.

[dgs49]

I like how morons throw out expressions like, "no evidence." How about eyewitness testimony? How about using your own deductive reasoning powers? Under what conceivable circumstances would Z have initiated a physical altercation?

Are you really this stupid and gullible?

[Scooter]

Translation:

As usual, I have absolutely no way to substantiate any of the dumbass claims I make, so I'll just double down because I enjoy making myself look like an idiot.

[Econoline]

Actually, if you compare Zimmerman's arrest record with Martin's, you'd have to conclude that Zimmerman was the one who was much more likely to initiate violence. Just sayin'

[dgs49]

Yes, Saint TrayVonn was a poster-child of meekness and humility.

I heard an "advocate" for the Martin family say last night that "all the evidence points to the fact the Zimmerman chased down Trayvon and started the physical altercation..."

As a wise man once said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

If the African American community had hired a public relations firm to make itself look collectively, catatonically stupid, they could not have done a better job of it than the "Black" "leaders" have already done.

Rest assured that you will never see the promised civil suit against Z, and it won't be because he has nothing against which to execute a judgment. It is because Saint TrayVonn would be exposed for the whole world to see.

Are we collectively aware that Martin's family is getting a million dollar settlement from the homeowner's association?

Didn't think so.

[Joe Guy]

I like how morons throw out expressions like, "no evidence."

I guess the defense lawyers were morons. They demonstrated there was no evidence to support the accusation that Zimmerman "profiled" tracked and assaulted Martin with intent to kill him.

How about eyewitness testimony?

There were no eyewitnesses to the fight.

How about using your own deductive reasoning powers? Under what conceivable circumstances would Z have initiated a physical altercation?

The accusation was that Zimmerman spotted Martin and followed him with the intention of shooting him. And that the reason he followed Trayvon was because he was a black stranger (to him) in the area. The accusation was not proven but it certainly wouldn't be the first time anyone had ever done something like that.

[Econoline]

Not having followed the trial as closely as some others (and having been on a jury in a felony trial and so having had to take the concept of "reasonable doubt" seriously) I'm willing to accept that the prosecution simply did not make its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But....

How about eyewitness testimony? How about using your own deductive reasoning powers? Under what conceivable circumstances would Z have initiated a physical altercation?

Uhhh...excuse me? Exactly whose "eyewitness testimony"? George Zimmerman's? And as for the circumstances under which Z would have initiated a physical altercation: How about the circumstance of racial profiling? The circumstance of being a bit of a bully? The circumstance of being a bit of a hothead with a history of violence? (See link to his arrest record above.) The circumstance of being a cop wannabe a couple of rungs below the typical rent-a-cop (who at least has to convince someone to hire him and pay him to do his bit)? The circumstance of feeling that he could get away with anything because he was the one with the gun?

And, finally, concerning the use of deductive reasoning... (Actually this part is not directed at Dave, who is demonstrably much too much of a racist to be able to approach this with any honesty, and I don't even expect any replies from any others here--I would just hope that people could do a little bit of honest self-reflection on this.) As a thought experiment, imagine exactly the same situation with the races reversed. A skinny, unarmed, part-white, part-Latino 17-year-old kid wandering after dark in a predominately African-American neighborhood. A larger, 28-year-old black man with a gun and a history of violence follows him, engages him in some sort of confrontation which has no witnesses other than the two participants, and then shoots and kills the kid. The black man is arrested and claims he killed the teenager in self-defense.

You don't have to post an answer here, but please, please, just be honest with yourself: would you be inclined to believe the black man's claim that he killed in self-defense--or not? That is all.




ETA: Oh, yeah (as Columbo might say)....just one more thing...

Racial profiling in action:

[Econoline]

Oops, cross-posted with Joe.

Oh, well, I think there are enough differences in our posts to let mine stand as is.

[Lord Jim]

I'd like to clarify a couple of things...

First of all while it's true that there was no witness testimony as to who threw the first punch, (except for Zimmerman's statements to the police) there was a very credible eye witness (a witness who the prosecution put on; one of the many witnesses that blew up in their face) to the fight after it started. A witness who put "the lighter skinned guy in the red jacket" on the bottom receiving multiple blows from the guy in the hoodie on top. (Which of course also matches with all the physical evidence; Zimmerman's broken nose, the cuts and abrasions on the back of his head, and the lack of injuries to Martin, except for skinned knuckles.)

Here are three reasons why I find it extremely unlikely that Zimmerman was the one who initiated the physical altercation:

1. Before the altercation begins, Zimmerman calls the police; he knows they are en-route; (for all he knows there could be a squad car just a car a couple of streets over on the way.) Why would a guy who has called the cops and knows they could be there any minute, start a fist fight? It makes no logical sense.

2. In order to believe that the man with the loaded gun would start the fight, it's also necessary to believe that it was his intent to use it all along and to buy into the theory that Zimmerman hunted Martin down with the intent of creating a provocation that would give him the excuse to shoot.. As I discussed earlier in detail, no one who was carrying out such a dastardly plot would wait until his "prey" had broken his nose, and had him pinned to the ground bashing his head into the sidewalk, and then scream for help for 45 seconds* before finally pulling out his gun. Again, it just makes no logical sense.

3. There was testimony that during one of the six interviews that Zimmerman gave to multiple investigators, (without asking for a lawyer) one of the investigators told him (falsely, just to gauge his reaction; a common and accepted police interrogation technique) that someone had video taped the entire incident. Zimmerman's immediate reaction was relief, he said, "Thank God. I was hoping somebody was video taping." That really doesn't sound to me (nor did it to the experienced investigator) as the reaction of somebody who was worried about what the tape might show.

*I think the odds are also overwhelming that it had to be Zimmerman screaming for help. The reason is the things one has to believe in order to believe it was Martin:

If the screaming took place during the time Martin was administering the beat down to Zimmerman (and again, the evidence that this was how the physical altercation unfolded is overwhelming; even the prosecution abandoned the theory that Zimmerman was on top as the evidence came in.) then in order to believe that Martin was the one screaming, you have to believe that the guy who was delivering the ass-kicking was screaming for help, rather than the guy who's ass was being kicked....

Again, there's that "makes no logical sense" problem...

Or the other theory that makes Martin the screamer (I've seen The Liar Sharpton among others advance this one) has the screaming for help starting after the beat down is over, and Zimmerman has produced the gun. Here's what you have to believe in order to buy that scenario:

We know from the audio recording to 911, that the time between when the screaming began and the shot, is about 45 seconds. So by this theory, Zimmerman produces the gun and Martin, rather than making any attempt to get off Zimmerman or get away, for forty five seconds just continues to lean over Zimmerman (we know that when the shot was fired Martin was leaning over because of the forensic evidence establishing the distance between the clothing, which was in contact with the gun, and the bullet wound.)

And not only does Martin just sit there with a gun pointed at him for 45 seconds making no attempt to get away, he never yells any thing like, "Don't shoot!" or "He has a gun!" or "He's going to shoot me!" which one might think would be logical things to yell in that situation...

And also you have to believe that Zimmerman, having pulled out his gun, then lies on his back pointing it at Martin for 45 seconds while Martin screams for help, before he pulls the trigger....

Not seeing a whole lot of logical sense in that hypothetical either...

[RayThom]

... (in defense of black criminals everywhere, and pre-Trayvon,) "were you there... where's the eye-witnesses... where's the video tape... where's your proof?"

Isn't it funny how things can so quickly change when an argument changes complexion so profoundly. I feel your ruminations above are completely sound, if not completely correct. (But it's obvious, of course, that you are not outraged enough to think clearly.) Then again, we've been on the same page since February of last year.

Yep, Zimmerman is innocent of everything other than unmitigated stupidity. He'll now have much time alone trying to figure it all out. And twenty years from now George will probably be "rediscovered" by the media working as a custodian in an Albanian seniors home.

[Econoline]

Jim, there's some good (IMO) commentary on some of your points here.

Look I have watched my share of CSI but I am no expert on forensic evidence. However I will say that rain is not very good at washing away blood that ha seeped into clothing or become encrusted on hands.

It might wash away blood on grass and concrete but, as somebody who has washed blood off my hands a fair number of times, I can assure you that it takes a substantial amount of scrubbing to get them clean. And even then, according to CSI's Gil Grissom, you would still find trace amounts that could be detected by forensics.

So the idea that Trayvon Martin was pummeling Zimmerman, and then showed virtually NO trauma or blood on his hands as a result, is the end of the case for me.

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[...]let me just tell you that IF Zimmerman's story about his gun being in the BACK waistband of his pants, and his story about Trayvon Martin being on top of him while hitting him are both true, and I have my doubts about both, then Trayvon Martin would alive today. Period!

Because as out of shape as Zimmerman was, and as aggressive as he swears Trayvon was being, he could NEVER have brought his ass up high enough to get his gun. Nope, did not happen.

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Now let's talk injuries.

I probably do not have to tell most of you that the head bleeds profusely when it is injured, even slightly. I cannot tell you the number of times I thought some child's brain was falling out their head after a fall only to clean it up and see small cut causing all of the fuss.

And as for nosebleeds? Please, I once broke a man's nose and had to throw away the shirt I was wearing because it was doused in so much blood.

And that was MY shirt, not his.

But where was Zimmerman's blood on Trayvon? Not one tiny bit.

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Here is what I think happened.

Zimmerman was upset that this black kid was walking around, because it made Zimmerman feel fearful in some way. In response, and because he knew he was armed, he decided to follow Trayvon. At some point he very well might have lost Trayvon, and then when Trrayvon reappeared he was startled. If he looked at all fearful, Trayvon, who may have been a little frightened himself, became emboldened and approached Zimmerman. A scuffle probably took place, and Zimmerman, feeling outclassed and in a panic, shot that young man to death.

I think most of that scenario matches the facts pretty closely don't you?

Now, as to the gun.

No gun, no approach by Zimmerman. No gun, no confrontation. No gun, no young man's death.

The gun gave a cowardly man the courage to follow Trayvon in the dark. The gun gave him the confidence to engage with Trayvon instead of running away when surprised by him, And the gun gave him the power to steal the life of that mother's child away from her.

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Here let me tell you a short story.

Years ago there was a bear mauling in the interior of Alaska.

The guy that was mauled had a sidearm with him. He was warned by some hikers that there was a large brown bear up ahead, but the gun gave him confidence and he did not do the intelligent thing and turn around.

When the bear burst from the underbrush, the man was terrified, fumbled for his weapon but was too slow, and the bear ripped away part of his scalp and chewed him up pretty good before wandering off with bits of dumb ass between his teeth.

You see that gun gave the man a sense of invulnerability, as if just having it made him too bad ass to be fucked with. And also gave him the confidence that if he WERE fucked with he would regain dominance by virtue of his powerful weapon.

Without that gun he would have turned around. There would have been NO attack, NO mauling, and NO man with half his scalp ripped off walking among us today.
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/ ... .html#more

Now for my own theory.

Personally, I think that that Zimmerman got out of his truck and went looking for Martin with his gun already drawn. (As the piece I quoted points out, if he had the gun in the BACK waistband of his pants as he said, and Martin was on top of him, he couldn't have reached the gun at that point.) Then either Zimmerman surprised Martin, Martin surprised Zimmerman, or they both surprised each other. In any event, when Martin thought he was about to be shot, he lunged at Zimmerman, knocked him down, and got on top of him in a desperate (but futile) attempt to knock the gun out of his hand or to get the gun away from him by whatever means he could. It was at this point that he started yelling for help, in the hope that if he couldn't get the gun away from Zimmerman maybe someone else would intervene before Zimmerman shot him; then Zimmerman shot Martin and the screaming stopped. I think that would account for everything that happened, wouldn't it?




P.S. BTW...another interesting hypothetical would be, what if Martin had been armed too? If Zimmerman had shot an armed black teenager, it would've been seen as an open-and-shut case of self-defense, much less ambiguous than whatever did happen. But if Trayvon Martin had shot an armed man, how many people would have seen that as self-defense, and if tried in court, what would the verdict have been for Martin? How about if Martin had succeeded in getting the gun from Zimmerman and then shot him with his own gun?

[Crackpot]

Jim it is very possible that Zimmerman accosted Martin to "prevent him from fleeing" at which point he would have been the one initiating aggression since he had no right to detain Martin. Problem is we just don't know.

[Jarlaxle]

... (in defense of black criminals everywhere, and pre-Trayvon,) "were you there... where's the eye-witnesses... where's the video tape... where's your proof?"

Isn't it funny how things can so quickly change when an argument changes complexion so profoundly. I feel your ruminations above are completely sound, if not completely correct. (But it's obvious, of course, that you are not outraged enough to think clearly.) Then again, we've been on the same page since February of last year.

Yep, Zimmerman is innocent of everything other than unmitigated stupidity. He'll now have much time alone trying to figure it all out. And twenty years from now George will probably be "rediscovered" by the media working as a custodian in an Albanian seniors home.

Honestly, I doubt he'll survive 5 years unless he changes his identity completely or leaves the country. Too many thugs will listen to the race-pimps and decide "justice for Trayvon" consists of murdering Zimmerman in cold blood.

[Econoline]

That's probably why Ray predicted Z would be found working in an Albanian seniors home...that might be the only way he could survive twenty years.

ETA:

"The biggest irony is that George Zimmerman will never be able to go out in public without a hoodie ever again."
-- Chris Rock

[oldr_n_wsr]

my biggest problem in all of this is that there was no positive ID of who was screaming for help. We have the technology that can identify a single person talking in a crowded room with tons of background noise, but we can't get a positive ID of who did the screaming in this case? We had to rely on the parents/friends to say whos voice was on the tape. Something don't add up.

[dales]

Unless they are given their "pound of flesh", the howling mobs will not be silenced.

[dgs49]

O&W, under what conceivable set of circumstances would Master Martin have been screaming for help? Try as I might, I can't imagine. As Jimmy says, it is conceivable that he would be shouting, "Don't Shoot, you nasty-ass Cracker!" but "HELP!" just doesn't work.

The only logical explanation of all the evidence is basically as follows: Z followed M and accosted him - asked him what he was doing sneaking around in the dark in this gated community. M sized him up and decided that he could beat the crap out of him (he was apparently unarmed and out of shape). M attacked Z and was in the process of beating the snot out of him when Z managed to get his hands on his gun and shoot M.

As I have stated elsewhere, had M simply responded to the questions truthfully, "I'm visiting my father, who lives in the next block," the entire episode would have ended peacefully and M would still be alive. In the WORST case, Z would not have believed him and he would have been asked to stick around until the police arrived. If he (M) had then run away, he would also have survived. It was the attack on Z that resulted in M's death.

While one can understand the "Black" uproar about this case if one ONLY looks at the grossest facts: Z shot a black kid and was not punished; the underlying rationale must be that M was justified in attacking Z because Z had NO RIGHT TO ASK THE QUESTIONS.

Which is, in a civilized society, bullshit. If you are walking around in the dark in a strange neighborhood, you have to accept the possibility that you will be accosted and asked to account for yourself. I don't care what your age or ethnicity is, these are reasonable questions, and to respond with physical violence is bullshit. And whatever bad things follow the attack, they are on YOU, not the person you attack.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Personally I am in the Lord Jim camp as he stated his views on the case much more concise and clear than I could.
I just have the question of, that with today's technology (prosecuters and defenders alike) at their disposal, how they didn't have the voice on the call professionaly analyzed. It's just preplexing to me.