Zimmerman Martin Case

[pentax542000]

People seem to be trying to paint as bad a picture of Trayvon Martin as they can, in an attempt to justify George Zimmerman's actions. And using it to suggest that anyone protesting or being uncomfortable about the outcome is somehow misguided.

It doesn't make a ha'porth of difference whether Trayvon Martin was a little angel or a bit of a rascal or (like most teeenager lads) somewhere inbetween. The real nub of the matter is that Zimmerman clearly targetted Martin because he was a black kid in a white neighbourhood, which to Zimmerman automatically made him suspicious. If he'd been white then none of this would have happened. No amount of waffling is going to hide that fact.

 

[jhk0503]

http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/10235

A friend of mine wrote this article and it's gone quasi-viral. He writes from the perspective of a black person who has had to "perform" in order to keep safe and in peoples good books and I think he writes about what Zimmerman meant to him very eloquently.

I'll share this and probably just drop out of the conversation. I'm already emotionally exhausted due to this matter but I think this piece is a nice contribution on race, fear and stereotyping in relation to the Zimmerman trial.

 

[funmansk]

It could have already been in his home. Purchase of cough syrup in a lot of US states requires you to have an ID card which is scanned to track how much you buy. I'm not defending either side here - I just find it awfully convenient that a young man who has shown abuse of it in the past only buys the two specific ingredients needed for making purple.



As I mentioned before though, legally you cannot use a deceased person's image without the consent of the family. If you do then you could be facing a civil suit. I just don't understand the need to trademark what is already protected.

 

[LaRuesLady]

From what I saw, his social media interactions showed intent, but he was unable to get the cough syrup.

Anyway, it doesn't matter if he was planning to get high from codeine, as Zimmerman had no knowledge of Martin's social media messages.



His family didn't trademark his image, they trademarked two slogans that came into popular use, AFAIK. It seems more likely to me that they did that to stop people exploiting the memory of their dead son than to cash-in.

Like I said, Beyonce didn't use his image.

But again, even if their motive is to make money, it doesn't have any bearing on the case.

 

[AlliB]

No, hopefully the neigborhood watch warriors will learn a thing or 2 about conflict de-escalation, proper boundaries and some self preservation.
Regardless of whether zimmerman was in the right or not, this could have been prevented.
But it doesn't surprise me at all that you see lack of groundfighting on zimmermans part as the only problem.

 

[scorpio_2008_pk]

They should all be fired.

As for the other quotes, they're all subjective as they really don't know what the police did or were doing at the time. I've had people complain to me many times about how long it took me to get there. Sorry but when we're short handed your scraped SUV might have to take a backseat to the violent domestic where the man is slamming a car door on his girlfriends head.

 

[periergos]

Actually it doesn't make any difference to me. I just saw 47MM getting flack for his comments and just wanted to show they're not unfounded.



Both were neither saint nor sinner, they both just made some very bad choices.

The community where this occurred, Retreat at Twin Lakes, is only 49% white according to sources and 20% black. Hardly a "white neighborhood."

 

[lahalia]

That conversation was from 2011 it seems.

 

[superdupalove]

But that's the only one we have on record, no?

 

[fitzpimlings]

Yep. Still shows he had the motivation and knowledge at one point though.

Maybe I just was no fun as a kid, but I don't believe in coincidences.

 

[cypress91722]

Fair enough, but the point is still moot in regards to the case.

 

[suraj]

Agreed. This all just stems back to some disagreement earlier, really.

 

[CoaCoa]

There's absolutely no evidence that race is the reason Zimmerman was suspicious of Martin. There's no doubt age and clothing came into play, but as a teenager, I also remember people being suspicious of me, following me around stores and such, and I'm white. (For the record, I never jumped any of these people, broke their nose, or slammed their head against pavement). There's no evidence that Zimmerman would not have followed a white teen in a hoodie had been wandering through the neighborhood.

Early media reports are to blame for this, because they spliced together different parts of the 911 call to make it seem that Zimmerman was complaining about "black punks" in his neighborhood. In fact, in the unadulterated 911 call, he only makes reference to Martin's race once, and that's when the 911 dispatcher asks for a physical description including race.

Only one person involved in this exchange ever used a racial slur, and that was Trayvon Martin, who referred to Zimmerman as a "cracker" in a text-message to a friend prior to the altercation.

Also, Zimmerman is Latino. Not exactly the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant stereotype of a racist distrustful of African-Americans.

What you state as certainty and fact is really just speculation not based on anything but the fact that the deceased was African-American.

 

[hardtokeep]

a few things. the only person that even knows what happened is george zimmerman. the being jumped, slammed, etc. we have to take his word for. we have no idea what was said or how it went down. for all we know, zimmerman said any number of things to set martin off. maybe even threatened him or pulled the gun on him. seriously, the guy was mounted and somehow managed to reach under and pull his gun out? seems more likely (to me) that he was already threatening martin with it.

and i just think your thoughts about the race in this matter are way off the mark. this is america. maybe you don't get it because you're white, like me. but african americans are clearly targeted by our system and non-blacks. if you don't believe that, you're not paying attention. look at the crime statistics. let me let you in on something: african americans do not use drugs more than white people; african americans do not perform illegal acts more than white people (of the same income level); african americans do not have a higher homicide rate (again, controlled for income) than whites do. but look at statistics of cases and prison population. then tell me the system is not tilted against kids like martin.

it is perfectly ok in new york city, for instance, to "stop and frisk" african american males that are just walking down the street. we have no idea what that does to african american mentality or existence.

seriously, you're going to try to convince us that zimmerman would have targeted any person walking down the street that night? that, to me, is a ridiculous assertion knowing what we know about racism in america. i could care less whether zimmerman was half latino.

i'm saying all this with a lot of respect for you. i just think you're wrong regarding a lot of things about this.

 

[Blu]

"This is America," you say, and the system is racist. But Zimmerman is not "the system." He's not the New York legislature (or even a New Yorker). He's one man, and a racial minority at that. Arguing that the justice system's sentencing has a disproportionate impact on African-Americans or that New York has a law that's imposed in a racially-discriminatory way does NOT mean every single person who lives here in America is racist. It does not prove that one man, a Latino in Florida, is racist. And people are stating that Zimmerman must be a racist SOLELY because (1) he's American, and (2) he was involved in an altercation with an African-American young man. I'm not discounting the possibility that Zimmerman might have been racist, but I take severe issue with stating it as fact when there's zero supporting evidence, and plenty of evidence that Zimmerman himself is not racist.

Slate, a liberal and anti-firearm publication, ran a piece after the trial admitting that there was no evidence of racism by Zimmerman and much of the impressions people had of the incident were due to poor reporting early on and were not backed up by evidence at trial:



http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2013/07/trayvon_martin_verdict_racism_hate_crimes_prosecution_and_other_overreactions.html

Also relevant as to Zimmerman himself (not America overall, not the American justice system, but Zimmerman the individual), the FBI has done an investigation and found no evidence of racism:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/12/justice/florida-teen-shooting

As for the confrontation and your assertion that Zimmerman started the physical part of the altercation, consider the physical evidence. Zimmerman had injuries to his face and to the back of his head. He did not have injuries to his hands or arms. Martin had injuries to his knuckles, the gunshot wound (which forensic examiners stated was consistent with being fired at someone standing over a grounded target, since the sweatshirt shirt was 2-4 inches away from the skin at the time the gun was fired), and no other significant injuries. If Zimmerman had swung first, wouldn't Martin have a busted-up nose or the like? If Zimmerman had been holding the gun on Martin before the physical altercation, do you (1) think Martin would have rushed him (not many people run at a gun), and if so (2) do you think Martin would have concentrated his blows solely at Zimmerman's head instead of trying to wrestle the gun away? The fact is, Zimmerman's story is the most consistent with the physical evidence.

As for the argument about it being impossible to draw a gun when someone is on the mount, you're assuming that Martin had a UFC-perfect mount and that the holster was exactly at three-o-clock. Neither of these are safe assumptions. If an untrained individual is straddling another person while hitting them in the head, their mount is not going to look like a BJJ black belt's, and easily could leave room for someone to pull a handgun.

Ask yourself one question: if Zimmerman was planning on murdering a black man, just shooting Martin because he was black, do you really think he'd have called the police BEFORE he did this? Of course not.

 

[babypig07]

Look at some of my other posts here and on "I have a question" thread.

I am not anti TM or Pro GZ, I am simply putting out there info I have been receiving from others since the verdict

 

[landonb]

http://m.policemag.com/news/3446/pittsburgh-officer-fought-for-her-life-during-arrest

This female officer was mounted by a robbery suspect and beaten severely until she finally managed to draw her firearm and shoot him.



Don't be ridiculous. If they have reasonable suspicion that someone may be carrying a weapon, they can stop and frisk anyone, not just black males.

 

[DMoney28]

they could "stop and frisk" anyone. you're right about that. but they don't, police target minorities. any sober look at the statistics of who actually gets "stopped and frisked" would show that.

first of all, 9 out of 10 are totally innocent, people walking down the street. almost 90% are "people of color": 55-60% black, 25-30% latino, only roughly 10% white. and mostly 18-24 year-old-males. there were over 500,000 s&f's in nyc last year alone.

kuma, as an leo, how can you look at those statistics and not think that this is institutionalized racism?

i'm assuming you've also seen what the racial composition of our prison population is. how can you look at that breakdown and not think that this country is extremely racist, institutionally? do you honestly think that black people use more drugs than white people? or are more violent than white people?

 

[sodaman]

cant we keep from pulling the race card here? This isn't the 50's anymore.

 

[BrokenPearls]

Since Zimmerman was not a NYPD officer (in fact, he lived over a thousand miles away from New York City), why do you keep using whatever the NYPD does to try to prove that Zimmerman is racist?