Trayvon Martin: 'Shoot first' law under scrutiny

[Bubba_Switzler]

Juries aren’t speculating. It is obvious that you aren’t an attorney with some knowledge of mens rea and actus reus.

Juries are not constrained in how they may come to a decision. All a judge can do is instruct them to rely on the evidence or vacate their decision if he disagrees with it.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I say, let’s see what will the investigation yield. Was it Zimmerman who hit first, or was it Martin?

People should be prepared for the possiiblity that there is nothing new to investigate beyond the evidence that the police and DA had available.

 

[L_piperatus]

People should be prepared for the possiiblity that there is nothing new to investigate beyond the evidence that the police and DA had available.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. And the lynch mob will go ballistic…

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. And the lynch mob will go ballistic…

It may end up looking something like this:

http://www.paranormalknowledge.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/la-riots.jpg

 

[Lujack]

It may end up looking something like this:

http://www.paranormalknowledge.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/la-riots.jpg

And now we’ve hit the blatant racism.

May we note that George Zimmerman actually shot a human being dead…and with the exception of the extreme fringe that is the New Black Panther Party, all anyone has done is call for him to be arrested and brought to trial?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Here is some blatant racism for you:

When at the beginning of March, Allen Coon, a thirteen-year-old boy, was set on fire by two black teenagers who told him, “You get what you deserve, white boy,” this did not prove to be an occasion for national soul-searching. But the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain after a scuffle between the two men has led to hysterical media coverage, state and federal investigations, civil rights marches, lynching threats from the Black Panthers and a statement from Obama urging Americans to search their souls for some unspecified reason.

The latter took time out from the trivial business of nominating a World Bank president to interfere in a local law enforcement matter and join his good friend Al Sharpton, who specializes in racist rhetoric, in throwing some racebaiting gasoline on the flames.

To Obama, the significance of the whole event was that Trayvon Martin looked like his hypothetical son, which presumably Allen Coon did not.

frontpagemag.com/2012/03/26/trayvon-martin-and-the-politics-of-racial-guilt/

 

[Lujack]

Here is some blatant racism for you:

frontpagemag.com/2012/03/26/trayvon-martin-and-the-politics-of-racial-guilt/

This issue is being discussed in a different thread. I’ll restate it again, though-Allen Coon is alive. Trayvon Martin is dead. No one is defending Allen Coon’s attackers and the police are searching for them. People are rushing to defend George Zimmerman and the police let him walk.

One has nothing to do with the other, unless someone is intentionally trying to trivialize Trayvon Martin’s death, or to play the always-fun “Black people are more racist than white people! No white person can ever be racist because of [X bad thing that a black person has done to a white person]!” game.

I guess Chris Rock was wrong when he asked “What do you to do to be racist? Shoot Medgar Evers?” because even if you do shoot somebody, it still isn’t enough.

 

[ringil]

Gosh, this thread is really shaping up well!!

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

No one is defending Allen Coon’s attackers and the police are searching for them. People are rushing to defend George Zimmerman and the police let him walk.

The police and DA made a decision after reviewing the evidence. As I noted from my first post in this thread, I didn’t understand why until the existence of a witness was revealed who coroborated Zimmerman at which point their decision made perfect sense.

One has nothing to do with the other, unless someone is intentionally trying to trivialize Trayvon Martin’s death, or to play the always-fun "Black people are more racist than white people!

The point of the article was to draw an interesting comparsion in what draws the attention of the president and the mob.

 

[pnewton]

The problem is that if you brandish a pistol with the intent to scare the other party, you can be arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. If it ever gets to the point where you think you need to use deadly force, you had better use it. You either keep your strap in its skin and take your beating, or you draw and fire. There is little middle ground.

It was a concealed weapon. I do not agree that it one must shoot if they pull a weapon, any more than I believe police should shoot everyone they meet because their weapon is not concealed.

Again, if you start a fist fight, you can’t shoot the winner just because you are losing. If you are stupid enough to put yourself in such a tough position, you can’t shoot an unarmed person just to extract yourself.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

It was a concealed weapon. I do not agree that it one must shoot if they pull a weapon, any more than I believe police should shoot everyone they meet because their weapon is not concealed.

A police officer operates under a completely different set of laws than a civilian with a concealed weapon. The other option of course, is to open carry, but as it has been pointed out ad nauseam, this isn’t the wild west.

 

[Lujack]

The police and DA made a decision after reviewing the evidence. As I noted from my first post in this thread, I didn’t understand why until the existence of a witness was revealed who coroborated Zimmerman at which point their decision made perfect sense.

Except that there is a witness who who presents a different story.

The point of the article was to draw an interesting comparsion in what draws the attention of the president and the mob.

And “those people” in the mob are inherently prone to violence, too, I’m sure.

 

[ringil]

It may end up looking something like this:

http://www.paranormalknowledge.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/la-riots.jpg

Mobs are scary. I don’t want guys like him on the loose, that’s for sure!

 

[SamH]

Again, if you start a fist fight, you can’t shoot the winner just because you are losing. If you are stupid enough to put yourself in such a tough position, you can’t shoot an unarmed person just to extract yourself.

You are assuming that Zimmerman started the fist fight.

 

[L_piperatus]

And now we’ve hit the blatant racism.

May we note that George Zimmerman actually shot a human being dead…and with the exception of the extreme fringe that is the New Black Panther Party, all anyone has done is call for him to be arrested and brought to trial?

Here is some blatant racism for you:

frontpagemag.com/2012/03/26/trayvon-martin-and-the-politics-of-racial-guilt/

Yeah…

Here’s some more blatant racism -** that “racist” George Zimmerman mentoring African-American kids???** I’m afraid the race-baiters picked the wrong culprit this time.

Quote from newsmax.com/NewsWidget/Obama-Trayvon-Martin-race/2012/03/26/id/433848?promo_code=E700-1&utm_source=Horowitz&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1 :

Now let’s say the shooter had been black and the victim had been white.

Picture President Bush telling the press, “Blacks are more than seven times more likely to commit murder than non-blacks. Blacks need to do some soul-searching to figure out why. You know, if I had a son, he would look like the victim of that shooting.”

As it happens, while Martin expressed fear that Zimmerman was following him, **there is no evidence that the shooting was racially motivated. Quite the contrary, George Zimmerman, the neighborhood-watch volunteer who shot Martin, has served with his wife as a mentor to African-American youth.

“He and his wife were mentors to a single mother with two, a 14-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter,” Craig Sonner, Zimmerman’s lawyer, said on “CBS This Morning.” “They were mentors to them, took them every couple of weeks. What that program included was every other week, going for two or three hours going to the mall, to the science center, going to lunch, playing basketball, doing those types of things.”**

“Obama is supposedly a constitutional lawyer but pronounces guilt before indictment and trial,” says John L. Martin, a former FBI agent who headed Justice Department espionage prosecutions for nearly 25 years. As a young agent, Martin was one of the lead investigators of the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964.

“There is no such thing as a presumption of innocence,” Martin says. “Instead, Obama accuses all non-black humanity of what may be the wrongful acts of one individual. There is no such thing as individual responsibility or individual accountability. We are all responsible for pulling the trigger.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Obama Blames America for Shooting Tragedy

 

[maryjk]

I’m going out on a limb here…I think someone has already implied that I am a racist for even commenting on black on white issue threads, so…

Since we bring up ‘state of mind’ - I’ve been reading reports that Martin’s facebook page has comments where his friends are hitting him up for ‘plants’.

Being the urbanized chick I am I can take an educated guess that they’re talkin’ about weed. Is it possible that Martin was a small time drug user and may have been high at the time of the meeting with Zimmerman? Could this have attributed to Zimmerman thinking this kid was acting suspiciously?

Now that’s a claim with absolutely no evidence behind it whatsoever.

There isn’t a shred of evidence for that.

Similarly, it’s just as possible that Zimmerman could have been asking the kid to perform homosexual acts on him.

If folks on the Forum are speculating, those two possibilities are equally possible.

I was watching the news at lunch and they were claiming that the reason for the 10 day suspension was due to finding an empty bag of weed in his backpack.

 

[mlund]

More details come out: articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-account-20120326_1_arizona-iced-tea-suv-unarmed-black-teenager

Also, warning on the transcribed offensive language, but some of this is trash, and some of it is interesting: wagist.com/2012/dan-linehan/was-trayvon-martin-a-drug-dealer

It’s interesting to see the contrast between the media narrative of a 12-year old innocent being run down by a crazy white dude brandishing a gun who murdered him and the evidence of a young man a just shy of 18 years who was apparently mixed up with people into drugs and violence and beat a man screaming for help into the ground prior to being shot - but that’s only a reflection on the problems with sensationalism and narrative. It doesn’t have any bearing on the real criminal case.

(Well, maybe the implication that Trayvon had previously attacked a bus driver would factor into giving credibility to the account that he swung on Mr. Zimmerman, but that would have to be substantiated with something more than hearsay.)

According to his account (the only one in evidence):

Mr. Zimmerman said he lost site of Mr. Martin, started to walk back to his vehicle, and then Mr. Martin approached and confronted him, asking, “Have you got a problem?” When Mr. Zimmerman answered in the negative Trayvon said something to the effect of “You do now” and punched him in the face, knocked him down, and then got on top of him and started beating his head against the pavement.

According to the only accounts in evidence:

1.) Mr. Zimmerman did not brandish a gun at Mr. Martin.
2.) Mr. Zimmerman did not lay hands on Mr. Martin.
3.) Mr. Zimmerman did not make violent motions to Mr. Martin.
4.) Mr. Zimmerman did not make threats toward Mr. Martin.
5.) Mr. Martin confronted Mr. Zimmerman for following him and attacked him violently
6.) Mr. Zimmerman screamed for help and Mr. Martin continued to beat him against the concrete.
7.) Mr. Zimmerman drew his concealed pistol and shot Mr. Martin in the struggle.

Witness testimony confirms 6.
Basic forensics confirms 7.

Furthermore multiple hours of interrogation of a distraught Mr. Zimmerman after the incident did not produce any inconsistencies in his account of the attack and shooting. No witness testimony or forensic evidence has been presented to the contrary of Mr. Zimmerman’s account. I can see why it would be very hard for a District Attorney (and now the special prosecutor) to go forward with a case based on the available evidence.

I was watching the news at lunch and they were claiming that the reason for the 10 day suspension was due to finding an empty bag of weed in his backpack.

What I read indicated that Mr. Martin had been suspended for the drug violation, but it did not clearly indicate that it was the same suspension as the 10 day won he was serving for apparently trespassing in a restricted area of the campus. It is entirely possible he was suspended different times for separate offenses.

• Marty Lund

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I can see why it would be very hard for a District Attorney (and now the special prosecutor) to go forward with a case based on the available evidence.

Thanks for the summary, well done.

 

[SamH]

Originally Posted by** Rich Olszewski **

There isn’t a shred of evidence for that.

Similarly, it’s just as possible that Zimmerman could have been asking the kid to perform homosexual acts on him.

Are you are claiming Trayvon was a violent homophobe or that attacking a person that is homosexual is OK (as long as they aren’t armed)?

 

[pnewton]

You are assuming that Zimmerman started the fist fight.

If by started, you mean the first punch, I do not really care. Having seen many a fight, they usually escalate to the first punch. I do know from Zimmerman’s own words that he chased Martin down, cussing at him under his breath.