|
This is a pretty interesting case all the way around.
Initially my thought was that this ******* chased the kid down, accosted him, then when the fight started, shot him, and the only real question was, is it manslaughter or murder?
However, let's get one thing out of the way first. The handling by the police department in this town was utterly incompetent. There is no way a shooting death should be closed as a case in such a cavalier fashion. Some idiots have tried to claim "it's the south, he was a black kid" as the reason, but that contains its own seed of bigotry. It seems likely that the PD simply didn't know what to do so rather than get any advice they just ruled it self defense and washed their hands of the matter in an appallingly blase fashion.
Now as to the case, it seems that events went something like this:
Zimmerman sees Martin, decides for whatever reason that he's suspicious and calls the police.
He follows Martin while on the phone.
The dispatcher figures this out, tells him not to.
He does it anyhow, still talking
The dispatcher asks if he wants to speak to an officer, he says yes, they agree on a spot
He indicates he's going to hang up and (key) asks if the cop can call him and find out where he is when it's time to meet.
At some point afterwards, he gets out of his truck (according to him, to check the street name) and either confronts Martin or Martin confronts him.
There is a struggle
Martin is shot
Witnesses hear the shooting, appear, and see Zimmerman and the dead Martin
The questions seem to be
1) Why did he follow Martin?
2) Why did he get out of the truck?
3) Who started the fight?
4) Did Martin get Zimmerman down, if so, was he then beating Zimmerman?
5) At what point did Zimmerman produce the gun?
6) Did Martin ever become aware of the gun, and if so, at what point, and how long after that did Zimmerman fire?
It appears there's one, mostly anonymous eyewitness claiming Martin was on top of Zimmerman beating him. There are at least 2 other witnesses claiming to have heard the altercation and then seen Zimmerman over Martin afterwards.
Right now, it looks like it will essentially test "stand your ground." Was Zimmerman in a place he had a right to be in? Did Martin assault him first? It's not against the law to follow a suspicious person; notice that the dispatcher says "we don't need you to do that" not "you can't do that".
It also seems like the "ZOMG RACIST! crowd" is engaged in the usual "it's racist not to railroad Zimmerman because a black teen died." Zimmerman was a jackass and had no good reason for following Martin but he wasn't breaking the law. The only place he might have been was in getting out of the truck and confronting him, but even then if he didn't threaten Martin, didn't brandish his gun, and didn't attack or restrain Martin he probably didn't break the law their either. Zimmerman is claiming to have gotten out to look at a street sign, and while this seems a bit odd at first glance, not every street corner has one where you can see it easily, especially if you're also following someone, and not everyone knows every street even in their own neighborhood, and he'd already told the police he'd tell them where he was when they called back.
The other problem facing the "racist" crowd is that most of the scenarios wherein Martin "pleads for his life" involve Zimmerman producing the gun, then diddling around for quite a while before eventually shooting Martin, or even more implausibly, Martin pleading, then struggling with Zimmerman for the gun, and Zimmerman only finally getting around to shooting him when he's losing the struggle.
I've not come to any conclusions as to what actually happened as yet, but I have seen the two female witnesses and quite frankly I don't think they're credible. They're making assumptions about who was the one crying for help (I doubt they know what either man sounds like and contrary to what one woman said, Martin was not a "little boy") and talking more about what they "believe in their hearts" than anything substantive.
Regardless of what did happen, getting reasonable doubt against Zimmerman for murder will be a huge hill to climb. Then we'll be told this is "institutional racism", that a black teen was killed and his killer not incarcerated because we don't just automatically convict the killers of black teens like a racially tolerant society would. If he gets manslaughter we'll hear about slaps on the wrist. Martin seemed like a good kid, and Zimmerman was an *******, but teenagers aren't known for good judgement. If, indeed, he did get Zimmerman down and was beating him, it was arguably self-defense and definitely wasn't murder, but none of that matters because the real issue is how to keep the circular argument going. It was racism that caused him to be killed; any claim otherwise is just more racism.
_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
