Open Thread on Zimmerman Trial

[MaryT777]

I think it is quite clear that Zimmerman was not near his truck when the altercation occurred. However, what he was doing at that moment: following, which implies a continued proximity to a moving person whom one mostly has in sight? or searching, which implies one has no clue where the person is? Or in terms of evidence, he may even have been standing still, listening, no?

Since what we have here is merely Serino’s interpretation, we actually do not have *evidence *of which direction Zimmerman was going in, or what he was doing.

I don’t have an exact quote because I don’t have a transcript, but Rachel Jeantel’s trstimony was reported in many sources like this one, which says: “Jeantel said she told Martin to run but that he responded that he was almost home.”

We don’t know the time for his saying that, bit we do have the time for Zimmerman’s call. Zimmerman said at 7:11:13 that Martin had started to run. Zimmerman’s phone call did not end until 7:13:41, just over 2 minutes later, and he did not mention seeing Martin in the interim.

I would suggest that Martin was 100 to 150 yards from home at the point where he started running, and could easily have made it home before the Zimmerman’s phone call ended.

And again, there is no evidence of where Martin was, which direction he was taking, etc., at that time.

Martin has every right to walk home at any pace in any direction. Having someone follow you like a “suspect” is not necessary.
npatrol:

 

[Elizabeth502]

Martin has every right to walk home at any pace in any direction. Having someone follow you like a “suspect” is not necessary.
npatrol:

I completely agree. No one should be harrassed, and, if not behaving suspiciously (including toward anyone else), should not be the object of anyone’s intrusion, let alone obsession.

The problem is the objective knowledge of the events, their context, their sequence,and their dialogue. It is just as wrong for the American press (and its readers) to make assumptions about Martin’s innocence and Zimmerman’s guilt as it was for Z to have been inappropriately zealous about a role which was a volunteer position in the first place.

Further, none of us should take actions on the basis of personal stereotypes, but the reality is that stereotypes influence all kinds of behaviors and responses. For example (taking it out of race), you/we may notice that if our appearance is especially disheveled and we happen to be inside a pricey store, we may be watched carefully. I know this has happened to me – a white person in a high-class store which I wasn’t “dressed for” and originally had no intention of patronizing; I ended up there. That tends not to be a problem unless my behavior, as well as my appearance in that setting, raises suspicion.

Again, I’m not saying that Martin “shouldn’t have been” where he was, but that clusters of behaviors/words, etc. can miscommunicate. That doesn’t excuse deadly over-reaction, merely provides the possibility that the victim could have been rather lacking in prudence and self-control, which could have accumulated and led to confrontation.

 

[MaryT777]

I completely agree. No one should be harrassed, and, if not behaving suspiciously (including toward anyone else), should not be the object of anyone’s intrusion, let alone obsession.

The problem is the objective knowledge of the events, their context, their sequence,and their dialogue. It is just as wrong for the American press (and its readers) to make assumptions about Martin’s innocence and Zimmerman’s guilt as it was for Z to have been inappropriately zealous about a role which was a volunteer position in the first place.

Further, none of us should take actions on the basis of personal stereotypes, but the reality is that stereotypes influence all kinds of behaviors and responses. For example (taking it out of race), you/we may notice that if our appearance is especially disheveled and we happen to be inside a pricey store, we may be watched carefully. I know this has happened to me – a white person in a high-class store which I wasn’t “dressed for” and originally had no intention of patronizing; I ended up there. That tends not to be a problem unless my behavior, as well as my appearance in that setting, raises suspicion.

Again, I’m not saying that Martin “shouldn’t have been” where he was, but that clusters of behaviors/words, etc. can miscommunicate. That doesn’t excuse deadly over-reaction, merely provides the possibility that the victim could have been rather lacking in prudence and self-control, which could have accumulated and led to confrontation.

The VICTIM could have been lacking in prudence and self control which led to the confrontation? Is this for REAL?
Oh geez,
No comment.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

I recalled this from earlier reading, but it seems clear from this that Zimmmerman walked further away from his truck looking for an address, and thus could have been walking back when the incident occurred.

That is what I am saying doesn’t make any sense at all. He told the dispatcher that he wanted to meet the police where is truck was parked at the mailboxes. There is no reason why he would need to look for an address after telling the dispatcher where he wanted to meet police and ending the call. There was no need for him to go so far from his truck to find an address anyway because there are numerous buildings facing the street between his truck and where the fight occurred. He wasn’t looking for an address; he was pursuing Martin.

So why did this incident occur so close to Zimmerman’s truck and so far from Martin’s father’s fiancee’s apartment? Why was *Martin *at that point?

The incident occurred closer to Martin’s father’s fiancee’s residence than it did to Zimmerman’s truck.

 

[St_Francis]

That is what I am saying doesn’t make any sense at all. He told the dispatcher that he wanted to meet the police where is truck was parked at the mailboxes. There is no reason why he would need to look for an address after telling the dispatcher where he wanted to meet police and ending the call. There was no need for him to go so far from his truck to find an address anyway because there are numerous buildings facing the street between his truck and where the fight occurred. He wasn’t looking for an address; he was pursuing Martin.

We have no evidence that he was following Martin; he might have been looking for Martin.

The incident occurred closer to Martin’s father’s fiancee’s residence than it did to Zimmerman’s truck.

I have seen many maps of this case, and not one single one shows that. I referred back and forth at a map when I wrote my description.

Obviously you have looked at a map I have not seen. Maybe you could link it.

 

[Elizabeth502]

The VICTIM could have been lacking in prudence and self control which led to the confrontation? Is this for REAL?
Oh geez,
No comment.

Is your failure to follow the argument of others that lack of prudence does not justify over-reaction “for REAL?”

Hint: No one’s “blaming the victim,” but you are definitely setting up apparently favorite straw men of yours on which to place posters and then burn them.

(No comment.)

 

[vz71]

There was no need for him to go so far from his truck to find an address anyway because there are numerous buildings facing the street between his truck and where the fight occurred. He wasn’t looking for an address; he was pursuing Martin.

There was one building.

The incident occurred closer to Martin’s father’s fiancee’s residence than it did to Zimmerman’s truck.

Untrue. A cursory look at a map reveals this.

 

[Yerusalyim]

Martin has every right to walk home at any pace in any direction. Having someone follow you like a “suspect” is not necessary.
npatrol:

Nor is it illegal.

 

[MaryT777]

I think it is quite clear that Zimmerman was not near his truck when the altercation occurred. However, what he was doing at that moment: following, which implies a continued proximity to a moving person whom one mostly has in sight? or searching, which implies one has no clue where the person is? Or in terms of evidence, he may even have been standing still, listening, no?

Since what we have here is merely Serino’s interpretation, we actually do not have *evidence *of which direction Zimmerman was going in, or what he was doing.

I don’t have an exact quote because I don’t have a transcript, but Rachel Jeantel’s trstimony was reported in many sources like this one, which says: “Jeantel said she told Martin to run but that he responded that he was almost home.”

We don’t know the time for his saying that, bit we do have the time for Zimmerman’s call. Zimmerman said at 7:11:13 that Martin had started to run. Zimmerman’s phone call did not end until 7:13:41, just over 2 minutes later, and he did not mention seeing Martin in the interim.

I would suggest that Martin was 100 to 150 yards from home at the point where he started running, and could easily have made it home before the Zimmerman’s phone call ended.

And again, there is no evidence of where Martin was, which direction he was taking, etc., at that time.

"MERELY…Serino’s interpretation? Who do you believe witness wise gave a better interpretation?

 

[St_Francis]

"MERELY…Serino’s interpretation? Who do you believe witness wise gave a better interpretation?

That is not the question; the question is the difference between interpretaion and fact. I am not saying even that Zimmerman’s statements are more correct; I am merely saying that given what we do actually know, we don’t know, and what Carlin suggested was a fact was actually an interpretation.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

There was one building.

I see 5 buildings of multiple residences between his truck and the spot where the incident occurred. In addition to the clubhouse to the left, the address of which he had already provided.

We have no evidence that he was following Martin; he might have been looking for Martin.

He told the dispatcher that he was following Martin.

 

[MaryT777]

I see 5 buildings of multiple residences between his truck and the spot where the incident occurred. In addition to the clubhouse to the left, the address of which he had already provided.

http://bcclist.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-path.jpg

He told the dispatcher that he was following Martin.

Yes his own words. He was following Martin. That is creepy having someone follow you around because in THEIR OPINION you look “suspect.”

 

[St_Francis]

I see 5 buildings of multiple residences between his truck and the spot where the incident occurred. In addition to the clubhouse to the left, the address of which he had already provided.

http://bcclist.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-path.jpg

And two more-recent maps from the same site show the truck in a different place, about where the vast majority of maps show the truck to have been.

He told the dispatcher that he was following Martin.

And then he told the dispatcher that Martin had disappeared; at which point he was no longer following but looking for.

 

[St_Francis]

My problem with answering the poll

I never was able to answer the poll, and it kind of lingered in the back of my mind. I have read CAF threads, news articles and the comments, and threads on other forums. I think I have been exposed to information and opinions from a lot of different sides.

And this is my conclusion: the problem with this case is that it is presented as needing a bad guy.

This is a very American thing to do, btw. If a problem occurs, we want answers, we want to assign blame, we want to keep it from happening again or at least find out how to avoid its happening to us.

To simply say that something was the result of accident, not the fault of any particular person, etc., is not reassuring to us and doesn’t fit our national psyche.

In this case, if Zimmerman is found guilty, then he will be the bad guy, and Martin will be the good-guy victim of a bad guy.

Conversely, if Zimmerman is found not guilty, then Martin will be the bad guy, and Zimmerman the good-guy victim.

Think about it… isn’t that what you have seen in people’s comments?

There are those who are somewhat remote from the people involved who take a more logistical view, like chess players, but they are not whom I am talking about.

What I would like to suggest is that *they can both be good guys. *

Yes, I think that this could be a simple matter of two people wandering around in the dark and rainy night, each with no thought of doing anything wrong, but in ignorance of the other’s motives, reacting in a dangerous way.

Let’s look at Trayvon Martin. He is a kid walking home from the store in the rain, talking on a headset telephone. He’s not paying a lot of attention to what’s going on around him, he’s wandering, occasionally ducking under shelter.

He sees a man in a truck watching him. This makes him nervous. He walks towards the truck to see if the man will ask for directions or anything like that, but he doesn’t. In fact, the man looks scary, serious, angry, as he talks on his phone and stares at Trayvon.

Trayvon decides this guy is too creepy and takes off for home. He hears the man get out of his truck and runs to hide. He think he might not want to go home because the man might follow him there and put his family in danger, or maybe he just gets muddled with all the similar-looking sections of buildings.

In the meantime, we have George Zimmerman, a man with a strong urge to help people. The last time he called about someone he had seen, the dispatcher had asked him, after the stranger he was reporting had disappeared, if Zimmerman could, in Zimmerman’s words, “get to where he could see.”

So this time, Zimmerman is not trying necessarily to follow, but to see where to point the police, to “get to where he could see.”

And on his search, Zimmerman somehow startles or is mistaken for seeing Martin, who is hiding. Martin therefore comes out and confronts Zimmerman, who reaches to get his cell phone.

Martin sees that motion and thinks that Zimmerman is reaching for a gun, so he hits Zimmerman and tries to scare him as he hits him.

Zimmerman fears for his life and actually reaches for his gun, with the very sad results.

So, do you see how this could have happened with *neither *of them being a bad guy? How this could have simply been a horrific series of misperceptions and fear-generated decisions?

I truly believe that if we were not looking at this case in a dichotomous way, if we just tried to put ourselves in *both * men’s shoes and tried to understand better *what happened *rather than *who’s at fault, *that we could come to a better place both in this case and in this nation.

But division and fear-mongering on both sides is instead leading us to a worse place.

 

[vz71]

It appears there are multiple maps floating around. I was mistaken as to where the truck was parked.

However, I note with interest “Zimmerman’s assumed path”
Really? We do not know his path?

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

And two more-recent maps from the same site show the truck in a different place, about where the vast majority of maps show the truck to have been…

The location of Zimmerman’s truck in the map I posted is exactly where Zimmerman told the dispatcher it was. Next to the mailboxes (the small building next to the clubhouse).

And then he told the dispatcher that Martin had disappeared; at which point he was no longer following but looking for.

So you agree that he was, in fact, not looking for an address but pursuing Martin?

 

[MaryT777]

The location of Zimmerman’s truck in the map I posted is exactly where Zimmerman told the dispatcher it was. Next to mailboxes (the small building next to the clubhouse).

So you agree that he was, in fact, not looking for an address but pursuing Martin?

I agree.

 

[estesbob]

The location of Zimmerman’s truck in the map I posted is exactly where Zimmerman told the dispatcher it was. Next to the mailboxes (the small building next to the clubhouse).

So you agree that he was, in fact, not looking for an address but pursuing Martin?

So why do you believe Zimmerman shot Martin?

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

So why do you believe Zimmerman shot Martin?

I believe Zimmerman confronted Martin with the intention to force him back to the mailboxes so he could present a burglary suspect to the police. I believe Zimmerman tried to abduct Martin and, when Martin fought back, Zimmerman shot him. Then fabricated a story about being jumped by a suspicious black kid.

 

[Elizabeth502]

To simply say that something was the result of accident, not the fault of any particular person, etc., is not reassuring to us and doesn’t fit our national psyche.

Or it could have been a result of missteps and very bad judgment and a lot of impulsiveness and disregard for consequences by both parties. Not everyone shares the national penchant (also visible on this thread) for assigning blame and living in black-and-white (in this case both literally and figuratively).

What is perhaps even more true about “the national psyche” is that controversy sells and intrigues, particularly when it involves race, politics, or sex. If this had been a white-on-white tragedy instead of white-black (and there have been lots of such tragedies; fewer of them make the headlines), one-twentieth of the interest would be apparent.