Trayvon Martin shooting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/28/trayvon-martin-police-video_n_1386764.html

 

In a sick way, this is actually becoming humorous. Martins family whines about a smear campaign as evidence surfaces that Martin wasn't they sweet, innocent kid they would like to portray him to be, yet the Martin faction has no qualms about slamming Zimmerman.

Let the investigation run its course.

 

The back and forth paints two starkly different accounts. It will take a very thorough investigation to unravel what actually occurred. I saw the police surveillance video by the way, Zimmerman's story about being attacked by Martin and suffering injuries just doesn't seem credible after looking at him on that tape. The recording is unusually clear for surveillance video.

I don't think Zimmerman should have stalked Martin. It was creepy. Any reasonable person would have been frightened. Neither Zimmerman nor Martin had clean records. In the end we have a violent confrontation between two people who are both prone to such confrontations. Zimmerman may have found a more socially acceptable outlet for his proclivity toward violence, but that doesn't change his nature. If he'd managed to fulfill his law enforcement fantasies and had become a LEO, there would be little or no possibility of holding him responsible for Martin's death.

We'll have to wait for the investigation to play out, and even then I doubt the two parties will agree about what happened.

 

At Lew Rockwell's site -- hardly a bastion of leftism, as you all know -- there's a comprehensive, nuanced piece about all this. Something for everyone in it:

Trayvon Martin and the Cult of Government Supremacy
by William Norman Grigg

 

I combed through the call logs (of the 46 calls over less than a year to 911) pertaining to Zimmerman's neighborhood See Something, Say Something assholery. I already had the Sanford police report--had it last week, in fact, before anyone did. I had a hunch that one of the employees in the City would feel guilty about how this is going down and leak it to the media, so I combed through the comment sections at various Orlando media, and sure enough, there it was: someone put up a link to the official pdf. We have a Sunshine Law here, as you know, a much-admired Sunshine Law. I KNEW it had to be somewhere. And sure enough…BINGO. The link was taken down later, but I caught it, and Tweeted it to Charles Blow (of the New York Times), and a few other journalists who've been on this case, whom I trust. It's everywhere. I also have the parents' REAL address, but have only shared that with Charles, privately. There is no need to make that public.

Anyway, going by that report, I looked at all the officers, especially the ones who handled Zimmerman himself. Then I cross referenced it against the 46 call logs, a few of which were resolved without the cops having to respond; most of which had Sanford cops go out, meet with Zimmerman, and take care of the problem, whatever that was. The very cop who cuffed Zimmerman and took him in to the station that night, Timothy Smith, was also the responding officer on the two most recent 911 calls from Zimmerman, in late January '12 and early February '12. BINGO again. He knew him.


I sent all that information to Charles Blow, and he re-tweeted it to the world. It doesn't prove anything criminal, of course, but it is yet another piece of the puzzle--another link establishing the unholy alliance, if you will, between Zimmerman and the local Police. Add that to the fact that cuffing someone in FL only happens when that person IS UNDER ARREST. You can't "un-arrest" a person. You charge him, and then the charges turn into jail, then bail, then a trial or plea of some sort.

What the (expletive deleted) happened? Well, Zimmerman went from being taken in by the cop he knew to having the f*cking police chief as well as the State Attorney himself show up in the wee hours of the morning at the Sanford PD and, presto, he was released. No charges all of a sudden. And he got to take his gun home. Along with his concealed permit.

I am not letting this go. No-one with a conscience and a soul is letting it go. Florida police are out of control, and it's high time those fascist vermin were exposed and taken down.

 

Simply not true. You can be detained without being arrested. Happens all the time.

Like almost everyone else, you're jumping to conclusions based on who you think he knows or is associated with. Ones assumptions don't warrant conclusions.

That's quite likely true, but this is the wrong time and possibly the wrong case to make that point.

Let the process take its course. There will be plenty of time after the grand jury to rectify things, if things need to be recified. If one grand jury returns a no bill, another one can return an indictment. That does not constitute double jeopardy.

If Zimmerman does turn out to be culpable, the more people politicize the situation, the less likely it it that he can receive a fair trial, and the greater the odds that he will simply walk.

 

Trayvon Martin case: Mayor says police resisted release of 911 tapes

 

Here's a piece of evidence I've been waiting for. I was counting on voice analysis of the 911 calls, specifically analysis of whose screams were in the background pleading for help, Zimmerman's or Martin's. I didn't expect this piece of the puzzle to come out this early.

As many of us surmised, the screams have been deemed unlikely to have been Zimmerman's:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...pe-george-zimmerman-experts-article-1.1054067

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/09/trayvon-martin-special-prosecutor-grand-jury

 

Seems Zimmerman believes he is going to be charged as he has set up a website to accept donations:

http://therealgeorgezimmerman.com/

 

Trayvon Martin: Zimmerman attorneys withdraw, say they've lost contact with him

 

Wonder if he fled or offed himself to avoid facing trial?

 

NBC: George Zimmerman to be charged in Trayvon Martin case

 

"Let me tell you, the things that's about to happen, to these honkeys, these crackers, these pigs, these pink people, these ---- people. It has been long overdue. My prize right now this evening ... is gonna be the bounty, the arrest, dead or alive, for George Zimmerman. You feel me?" Michelle Williams

 

Zimmerman is in custody.

 

Second degree murder charges.....

 

I support the "stand your ground" laws. What I had a problem with from the very beginning with Zimmerman, was that it was never a "stand your ground" issue--he turned and followed that young man who had every right to be there in that neighborhood. He followed that kid despite being explicitly told not to by the police. He brought all this on himself and it was his action that precipitated whatever transpired between him and the kid he shot.

He's been bailed out by his connections in the past, and almost got bailed out again this time, IMO, undeservedly.