George Zimmerman makes initial court appearance in Trayvon Martin shooting, will plead not guilty

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catharina said:
Of course.
Yet since the fact exists and is recent history for Sanford PD,
it’s much easier to understand why Trayvon’s folks made a fuss
and asked for further investigation.
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So we are to sacrifice someone at the altar of alleged racism?
 
SwizzleStick said:
My son turned 14 in late January. He towers over me and is also taller and bigger than his dad, but he has stubble on his baby face because he has shaved a few times, mostly to get rid of his side burns. I’m sure the police would see him as an adult. They would be wrong, but I could see how they, and many others, could make that mistake.
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I’m sure the police are familiar with the vagaries of age determination. He was in a gated complex - they could have found his dad that night had they tried.
 
seekerz said:
Then you would be mistaken.

I heard not a single soul on any medium advocating violence - and I’m a news junkie; so unless you have a source…🤷
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Michelle Williams, Tampa Chief of Staff to the New Black Panther Party:
“…if you are having any doubt about getting suited, booted, and armed up for this race war that we’re in that has never ended, let me tell you somethin…the thing that’s about to happen these honkies, these crackers, these pigs, these people, these motherf*er…it has been long overdue.”
“It’s time to wake up, I don’t know how else…**.**It’s in me to fight. It’s in me to raise up soldiers. It’s in me that every time my feet touch the ground the state of Florida- these crackers- they scared.”
“I’m kinda pissed off right now that the state of Florida ain’t on fire. This could not have happened in L.A. because them brothers up there are not scared to riot. This could not have happened in St. Petersburg Florida, where the black man over there are ain’t scared to kill a cracker.”
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‘It’s a disgrace George Zimmerman hasn’t been tied to a car and shot’: Mike Tyson
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And that is just the two most recent examples.
Please be honest. Any ‘news junkie’ will have seen these, they have been highlighted in several news agencies.
 
"Baptist leader criticizes Trayvon Martin support

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm condemns the response of many black leaders to the Trayvon Martin case as “shameful.” Some black pastors within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination say Richard Land’s comments are setting back an effort to broaden the faith’s appeal beyond its traditional white, Southern base."…

Blue excerpt from: houmatoday.com/article/20120414/APN/1204140686?Title=Baptist-leader-criticizes-Trayvon-Martin-support
 
And, now for something completely different. And, I do mean different.

"Artist creates Zimmerman portrait with Skittles

DENVER (AP) — A Denver artist has created a portrait of Florida shooting suspect George Zimmerman using more than 12,000 Skittles — the candy that 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was carrying when Zimmerman fatally shot him."…

Blue excerpt from: news.yahoo.com/artist-creates-zimmerman-portrait-skittles-034916286.html
 
vz71 said:
Sure.
The finding is that there is insufficient evidence to proceed with criminal prosecution.

What exactly is the problem with that?
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That, is just words on a page (or out of the mouth, as the case may be) to any parent. The problem is, they need the actual explanation as in “What evidence do you have that you consider insufficient and why is it insufficient?” A child is dead; he was doing nothing wrong other than what his shooter alleges. This is most definitely not a “move along, nothing to see here” moment.

No worries, though. I’m sure police departments and prosecutors everywhere are a little more careful today as a result of all that has transpired. When I was a little girl, I used to hear grown-ups say: “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
 
vz71 said:
So we are to sacrifice someone at the altar of alleged racism?
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Life (as in actually breathing in an out) takes priority over quality of life everyday, at least in the Catholic faith. That ‘someone’ has a fair chance to defend himself in a court of law - it’s not like he’s being drawn and quartered in the town’s square or anything. 🤷

BTW, alleging racial profiling is not = to alleging racism.
 
vz71 said:
And that is just the two most recent examples.
Please be honest. Any ‘news junkie’ will have seen these, they have been highlighted in several news agencies.
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I listen to news, not to trash.
 
SwizzleStick said:
"Baptist leader criticizes Trayvon Martin support

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm condemns the response of many black leaders to the Trayvon Martin case as “shameful.” Some black pastors within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination say Richard Land’s comments are setting back an effort to broaden the faith’s appeal beyond its traditional white, Southern base."…

Blue excerpt from: houmatoday.com/article/20120414/APN/1204140686?Title=Baptist-leader-criticizes-Trayvon-Martin-support
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This pastor needs to read his bible. Thank God I’m Catholic.
but he also defended the idea that people are justified in seeing young black men as threatening: A black man is “statistically more likely to do you harm than a white man.”
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“Is it tragic that people react that way? Yes. Is it unfair? Yes? But it is understandable,” he said.
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Justifying racial profiling AND with the same breath criticizing black pastors for racializing the issue AND bringing Obama into it. Talk about forked tongues…

BUT this is in no way, shape or form about race…it’s just about them pesky ‘young black men’ who seem sooo threatening. I wonder, what is the statistical significance of Mr pastor locating his brain anytime soon.
 
seekerz said:
This question has been addressed multiple times: the police can get around lack of ID when a person is dead in a home or a car; why should they need it when someone is dead inside a gated housing complex? Unless they need police dogs to track their paths to their desks, the police generally can find ways to do simple things like knock on doors…
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Knocking on doors to find the parents of a person found dead in a struggle within a gated community is not something the police would do. They are preoccupied with taking the shooter into custody, processing the crime scene, etc. It makes complete sense that Martin’s father didn’t find out until he called the next morning.
 
seekerz said:
What is money compared to taking someone’s life? The error MUST always be on the side of life. Elderly people can murder people too; there’s no age limit to criminality. I’d say the law should simply prevent suits in cases where it can be shown by law enforcement (not just by one person’s word) that the person killed was committing a crime or threatening the killer’s life.
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OK. Someone comes up to you and sticks a gun or knife in your face, and asks for your money.

How do you know he won’t hurt you after he gets the money? What will he do if you don’t have any money? Suppose all you have is your ATM card, is he going to ungently drag you to an ATM machine to take money out for him?

Now imagine that you are elderly. All the mugger has to do is to give you a push and you are in serious danger of breaking a hip or other bone, maybe one in your back. The elderly, of whom there are many in Florida, are much more vulnerable than younger people.

All that being said, I used the word attacker, and I used it for a reason, so as to reduce the ambiguity involved in a mere mugging.

Even the Catholic Church says that people have a right to self defense. If someone attacks a person, the attacker has the intention of committing physical harm to the other person. The other person has the right of self defense.

And under certain circumstances, the other person has the right of self-defense even before the attacker hits him. Like if a thug breaks into your house. A person cannot always wait to find out if the other person’s intentions are deadly before using self-defense, because when you find out, it’s too late to do anything.

And one last thought: you have just gotten your Social Security check. It’s all you have to live on til the end of the month. Some guy comes and wants it… well, that money is what is keeping you alive for the next month, so, yeah, it’s just money, but to you, it’s your food and medicine for the next month, so it’s not “just money,” it actually *is *your life.
 
rlg94086 said:
Knocking on doors to find the parents of a person found dead in a struggle within a gated community is not something the police would do. They are preoccupied with taking the shooter into custody, processing the crime scene, etc. It makes complete sense that Martin’s father didn’t find out until he called the next morning.
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It doesn’t make ‘complete sense’ to me. It’s just COLD, stone COLD.
 
SwizzleStick said:
I would think notification should and generally does happen as soon as possible, but the investigation would take priority, securing the scene, gathering evidence and all that. If Martin (or any person killed) has identification, I’m sure notification comes quickly, but he didn’t, so there was a delay.
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That is common sense. If they can identify quickly, they would identify quickly. It would make no sense to first spend the time knocking on doors to see if anyone is missing a son, rather than processing a crime scene.
 
St_Francis said:
OK. Someone comes up to you and sticks a gun or knife in your face, and asks for your money.

How do you know he won’t hurt you after he gets the money? What will he do if you don’t have any money? Suppose all you have is your ATM card, is he going to ungently drag you to an ATM machine to take money out for him?

Now imagine that you are elderly. All the mugger has to do is to give you a push and you are in serious danger of breaking a hip or other bone, maybe one in your back. The elderly, of whom there are many in Florida, are much more vulnerable than younger people.

All that being said, I used the word attacker, and I used it for a reason, so as to reduce the ambiguity involved in a mere mugging.

Even the Catholic Church says that people have a right to self defense. If someone attacks a person, the attacker has the intention of committing physical harm to the other person. The other person has the right of self defense.

And under certain circumstances, the other person has the right of self-defense even before the attacker hits him. Like if a thug breaks into your house. A person cannot always wait to find out if the other person’s intentions are deadly before using self-defense, because when you find out, it’s too late to do anything.

And one last thought: you have just gotten your Social Security check. It’s all you have to live on til the end of the month. Some guy comes and wants it… well, that money is what is keeping you alive for the next month, so, yeah, it’s just money, but to you, it’s your food and medicine for the next month, so it’s not “just money,” it actually *is *your life.
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That was not at all the context of the comment about money. The poster I was responding to; don’t remember who now - specifically lamented the cost to people who defend themselves and then are sued over the death or injury so caused. My stance was that that does not justify allowing them to kill without consequences, as life is greater than money. Self defense can be allowed, and financial security protected, without Stand Your Ground laws as they are currently framed.
 
rlg94086 said:
That is common sense. If they can identify quickly, they would identify quickly. It would make no sense to first spend the time knocking on doors to see if anyone is missing a son, rather than processing a crime scene.
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Your statement contradicts itself: if identification must be done quickly and the victim has no visible ID, it stands to reason that they should go knock on doors that very night.
 
SwizzleStick said:
My son turned 14 in late January. He towers over me and is also taller and bigger than his dad, but he has stubble on his baby face because he has shaved a few times, mostly to get rid of his side burns. I’m sure the police would see him as an adult. They would be wrong, but I could see how they, and many others, could make that mistake.
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My wife is 5’2", so my kids tend to tower over her at a young age. 🙂

Even if they did identify a child, they wouldn’t start knocking on every door to find their parents. They would process the crime scene, including knocking on doors for witnesses and people who may know who the victim is, but that is different. If the child lived near by and/or witnesses could ID him, I’m sure they would have done it that night.
 
rlg94086 said:
My wife is 5’2", so my kids tend to tower over her at a young age. 🙂

Even if they did identify a child, they wouldn’t start knocking on every door to find their parents. They would process the crime scene, including knocking on doors for witnesses and people who may know who the victim is, but that is different. If the child lived near by and/or witnesses could ID him, I’m sure they would have done it that night.
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He did live nearby and there were people at his address who could ID him.
 
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