With the George Zimmerman trial drawing near, his attorney is flaunting information about Trayvon Martin as a pothead, a possible thief and a gun lover. It’s questionable whether that information will ever make it into evidence at trial and the assistant state attorney has filed a motion for a gag order to prevent attorneys from discussing the case with reporters. But you’d never know any of that from watching Megyn Kelly’s interview with Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara on Thursday (5/23/13). To the contrary, she seemed determined to work in as much dirt on Martin as she could before she was ordered not to.
Kelly, an attorney herself, sounded more like a lawyer questioning her own client on direct examination than an interviewer. In other words, her questions were designed to elicit O’Mara’s talking points and ignore the other side. So she asked questions like, “What is the most significant piece of information” O’Mara wanted to put forth against Martin and commented, “It looks like you’re also going to use some of these text messages from Trayvon’s phone to show that he was a potentially violent guy who had some past violent episodes. What do the texts show in your view?” She also made a point of showing some of the photos O’Mara wanted displayed, such as a photo of a marijuana plant and a gun.
Kelly feigned objectivity by asking, “How is this relevant?” but it was really just an opportunity for O’Mara to answer that Martin was high the night he got shot by Zimmerman and was a “chronic user” of pot. But as Kelly surely knows, the issue is not whether Martin was high or loved guns but whether Zimmerman acted in self defense when he shot and killed the unarmed Martin.
Somehow, she never got around to bringing that up. In fact, it was O’Mara who kept qualifying his “evidence” by saying that it may not be admitted in court. But that was no problem for Kelly! She never even asked why not.
Martin was armed. He improvised by using the concrete sidewalk as his weapon.
2. There are a lot of progressives who want hate-speech disallowed on the air-waves. Look how Ann Culter has trouble getting to even talk in Canada. When I read about that you would not believe all the progressives commenting (about 99% of the progressives who put comments at the end of those stories) who were wishing they could shut Ann Culter up here in America too. You are full of it dude. True progressives are like me – we are sick of the Ann Culters, Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, and their ilk. We are the kinds of people who got Don Imus fired from the airwaves job that he had at the time he called those African American women inappropriate names and we wanted him off the airwaves period.
Martin was not unarmed. Martin used the concrete sidewalk as a deadly weapon. Open up your eyes. It is not OK to kill someone just because the person is watching another person. You are the brainwashed left rather than the intelligent thinking left. You knee-jerk support any position that any left wing group asserts, but what if some left-wing group is occasionally wrong? This time it’s the African Americans and they are understandably upset about the TM situation but the fact of the matter is that Martin got too violent with insufficient justification because he tried to kill Zimmerman just because Zimmerman was watching him. Sometimes you have to tell the people you are partners with that they are wrong, and this is one of those times. Martin is the one who escalated the situation to lethal violence and he did not have sufficient reason to do so because it is not appropriate to escalate a situation to lethal force just because a person is watching you. Open up your eyes.
And I notice that you don’t care that the Martin defenders are impolite to the people who disapprove of Martin’s behavior. Hey, I disapprove of Martin’s behavior. I think it was wrong for him to to kill Zimmerman just because Zimmerman was watching Martin. If you disagree with me then you are saying that it is OK to try to kill someone just because the person is watching you and if you think that then you should be ashamed of yourself.
And the Martin defenders are saying some very rude and impolite things about the Zimmerman defenders so it’s obvious that you just want to prevent negative comments about Martin. You’re trying to censor the people who support Zimmerman. Kevin Koster = censorship.
Frankly, I’m also suprised at your statements that you want to see various pundits removed from the airwaves or see channels like Fox News shut down. I don’t share that opinion, even though I completely disagree with most of what gets aired on Fox News and even though I find the comments by Limbaugh and Hannity to be noxious. As far as I’m concerned, they should have complete freedom to say whatever opinion they have – short of advocating violence or murder. If it’s just a matter of saying “rah rah” for their candidate, or even for lying on the air about various issues, they do have the right to do it. And we have the right to point out the lies and correct the record. And years from now, when they try to rewrite the history or respin what they said, we can bring up the video or audio clip, repeat the correction and keep the record clean.
It’s not a matter of defending Martin to point out that he was unarmed and committing no crime when he was confronted by Zimmerman. And it doesn’t matter even what issues Martin was going through as a teenager in school. What matters here is that Zimmerman chose to instigate a confrontation with him, even after being told not to do so. And after shooting Martin to death, Zimmerman has created a story that doesn’t match with the various witness accounts we have. Which means there’s very good reason to put Zimmerman on trial, and a very good reason why his defense attorneys are trying to stall the trial before their client faces a prison sentence.
As I noted before, you are acting on the assumption that everything George Zimmerman has said is true. This assumption is not shared by the investigators, the police or the prosecutor in the matter. There are too many many witness accounts that paint a different picture of what happened, and too many contradictions within Zimmerman’s own versions of his story. Among the disputed assertions by Zimmerman is the idea that Trayvon Martin was slamming Zimmerman’s head into the sidewalk or trying to kill him. Other witnesses described a fight that Zimmerman was losing – a description that matches Zimmerman’s injuries. Those witnesses also described an argument before the fight, which degenerated into Zimmerman losing the fight, at which point he shot Martin to death. Zimmerman’s account of suddenly being attacked by Martin doesn’t match with the witnesses. Which means his account is quite suspect – and which is why he is about to be tried for murder and will likely face some significant jail time.
You seem to be hung up on the notion of “watching” people. But you’re ignoring the facts of the case, and you’re ignoring people who are trying to educate you in this matter. There was nothing illegal about Zimmerman watching Martin walk down the street. There was nothing wrong with Zimmerman being concerned and calling the police. I may have issues with his profiling of Martin, but if he honestly felt something was fishy, he absolutely had the right to call the real police and let them know. Where Zimmerman went wrong here wasn’t because he was just “watching” Martin. It was because he left his vehicle and followed and stalked Martin, even after being told by the dispatcher to stop. He took the law into his own hands and initiated a confrontation which resulted in his killing a 17 year old boy who had nothing in his pockets but the food he had just bought at the store. Had Zimmerman behaved as he had been instructed by the dispatcher, there would have been no confrontation and thus no murder. It’s honestly not hard to understand this, and it puzzles me why you are having so much trouble with the concept.
Perhaps the best approach you could take here would be to really take some time and study this case and learn more of the facts. I would also recommend that you apologize to the people you have demanded leave the country, as I’m sure you’ll agree that was inappropriate. And it would do you a world of good to apologize to the Martin family for the comments about him that you have made here. I look forward to reading your retractions, and hopefully some better reasoning.
I personally believe that it’s time to make institutionalized discrimination (against minorities and women) a crime punishable by jail time. I believe it’s time to make overt blatant employment discrimination against minorities and women a crime punishable by jail time. I believe it’s time to make all discrimination against minorities by key industries (government, housing, banking, credit, employment, etc) a crime punishable by jail time. I also think that profiling, which Mr. Zimmerman may have very well done, should be illegal, but IT was not illegal on the night Mr. Zimmerman shot Mr. Martin. It was not illegal on the night that Mr. Zimmerman may very well have been profiling Mr. Martin. I think that guy Don Imus, and any other racist hate-monger, should be denied the right to voice his extreme right-wing poison on the airwaves by denying him a license to talk on the public airwaves.
I get angry when I hear Sarah Palin talk; I despise Hannity’s spin and rationalization. I think that Rush Limbaugh should have his license to talk on the public airwaves revoked. I think that in order to talk on the public airwaves your speech should not be allowed to contain any of the following:
1. Hate speech
2. Racist speech
3 Blatant lies
4. False anti-government propoganda.
I think Fox News should be shut down because it violates some of these 4 principles. I think George Bush should be prosecuted for lying about weapons of mass destruction as a justification for starting a needless and illegal war.
I’m telling everyone here my political positions on racial and political issues so you are all aware that some of us progressive liberal democrats disagree with the Martin defenders. I am a lifelong and total democrat who absolutely, totally, 100% disagrees with the Martin defenders. I feel like the Martin defenders do not care about right and wrong. It IS wrong to attempt to murder someone just because the person is watching someone. The whackjob thuggish leftwing that says it’s OK to try to kill someone just because the person is watching someone is wrong, wrong, wrong. They lack the intelligence to realize that they are advocating that we turn our society into a society that allows lethal force just because one person watching another person. What a violent society they would create if they get their way. I hope that the jury in the Zimmerman trial has the wisdom and intelligence to find Zimmerman not guilty of murder. Zimmerman was simply defending his own life.
Once again, Kevin, I’ve admired your thoroughness, courtesy and patience in responding to the “troll du jour”. This thread has given me a chance to catch up with the facts on this tragic event.
I’d heard that tape of the 911 call minutes after the event, both on FNC and CNN. The versions were identical. It was already clear to me then, that Zimmerman had flat-out disobeyed a direct order to stand down. That’s not how a law-abiding citizen would/should behave in my book.
Although the trolls are not one bit interested in the facts, I remain grateful to them for a thread that provides a nutshell of what will come out during the trial where the emphasis will be on facts not faith in Saint Zimmerman (aka the accused).
You have, sadly, not presented us with facts or truth. You have presented us with your opinions, which have come from only looking at part of the picture – the part with which you already agree. I have been trying to show you the other parts you’re refusing to admit are there. Without the full picture, your portrait of this incident is only two dimensional. Your version of the events is only including part of the testimony. You’re holding back the parts that don’t fit your opinion. I have read the various documents involved here, and I’m beginning to wonder if you have actually taken the time to study them.
I have provided you with the exact words from the dispatcher telling Zimmerman to stand down. You assume that Zimmerman is free to simply ignore that. I made the point to you that Zimmerman, a man who wanted to be in law enforcement, would know this right away. You don’t seem to understand this fact and instead want to engage in name-calling. The police in the area noted that the entire fight and killing were “avoidable” – and it’s clear that the dispatcher was trying to avoid just such a confrontation. Zimmerman clearly ignored the instruction, and we have seen the unfortunate results. I don’t know any other way to show you the facts than what I have already done. The facts speak for themselves and my point stands. Zimmerman was told NOT to follow Trayvon, and he continued doing so. Just because he didn’t know where Martin was at one moment doesn’t mean he wasn’t following him. Zimmerman was actively looking for Martin, who he found very quickly afterward, approached and confronted. This is all part of the testimony of Witness 8, whose recollections you only seem to want to hear if they fit your narrative.
You ask about the location of the fight and Zimmerman’s killing of Martin. The obvious answer is that Trayvon, who had run away from the car, didn’t make it that far – just far enough to be out of sight of Zimmerman before he was winded and had to stop. You think that Zimmerman was “calm, cool and collective”. That’s your opinion. It’s not difficult to hear the tension in Zimmerman’s voice – he’s clearly agitated, as demonstrated by his saying that “This kid could be anywhere” and repeating basic information several times. You also expect people to believe Zimmerman’s excuse for following Martin – that he didn’t know the addresses in a small area of which he had declared himself the Neighborhood Watch Captain. That’s a big reach, and the police and prosecutor didn’t buy it.
Regarding Witness 8, you have neatly avoided the point of what I was saying. You are using an appellation for her that we see on right wing websites and blogs that try to dismiss her statements, including making offensive racial characterizations about her way of speaking. I never asked you to say her real name. I pointed out that you were using a name for her that comes from suspect origins. And it sounds like you’re now admitting you’re one of the bloggers whose accounts I was reading. If that’s the case, that’s truly unfortunate.
You have ignored the point I made regarding Witness 8’s description of hearing Martin say he was right by his dad’s place. You seem not to understand that it’s entirely possible in the dark and in the rain for Martin to have fled even at a shorter distance and not be visible from the area by Zimmerman’s car. Zimmerman then closed the distance and confronted Martin, resulting in the fight and his shooting of Martin. Your opinion about what happened assumes, again, that everything that Zimmerman said about the situation was the truth. Except that he was noted by the police and the prosecutor as having repeatedly contradicted himself. And the testimony of Witness 8, which can easily be verified by her phone records, shows the incident unfolding as we understand it to have occurred – that Martin was followed by Zimmerman, who took a moment to look for him after he hung up on the dispatcher and then found him. This is not hard to figure out, and calling Martin a “thug” will not change the facts of the matter.
You then have taken a new tact and said that you think Martin would have called the police. Why? He was on the phone with his girlfriend, both of them were scared, and he certainly wasn’t thinking clearly. The fact that he was telling her he was closer to his father’s place than he really was is a major indication of this. You then mount another unfortunate ad hominem attack on Martin, saying you think “he got what he deserved.” That is not up to you to decide, and frankly, it’s a deeply revolting statement. Please consider withdrawing it and apologizing, as that would be the proper moral course of action here.
You then try to parse the idea of whether Zimmerman instigated this situation. You don’t seem to understand that the confrontation would not have happened had Zimmerman done what he was told and stayed at his car and waited for the real police to arrive. That’s how he instigated it – by stalking and following Martin and then confronting him, as Witness 8’s testimony reveals. You assume that Trayvon “jumped” Zimmerman, which again assumes that Zimmerman’s account is accurate. We cannot assume that. The evidence from the 911 call and from Witness 8’s testimony clearly shows his account cannot be accurate.
You assume that someone is playing the “race card” to note that Zimmerman was profiling Martin based on what he was wearing and what he looked like. I never mentioned Martin’s race. I said he was wearing a hoodie, which is what Zimmerman noted. Please don’t put words in my mouth. You also seem to not understand the moral of this situation. I agree with you that part of self defense means not taking the law into your hands. Absolutely right. If Zimmerman just wanted to protect his neighborhood as a Neighborhood Watch Captain, the best thing he could have done would have been to stay away from Martin and let the real police handle it, if there was actually a problem. And if he were to talk to Martin, the best thing he could do would have been to identify himself and not do what Witness 8 tells us he did – to verbally challenge Martin before engaging in a fistfight with him.
I’m honestly not sure what you were trying to prove by including a quote of O’Mara badly blowing his questioning of Dale Gilbreath. It’s clear that O’Mara is desperately badgering his witness about semantics and is being schooled on the matter. Quoting a moment like that only points out the embarrassment of it.
You again repeat the canard that Trayvon made it home, when all you have to prove that is the notion that he was telling Witness 8 he was “right by” the place. Except that her testimony immediately proceeds to say that Zimmerman confronted him at that location – which means “right by” didn’t mean he was on his doorstep. Not sure how to make that any clearer.
You then demand that I show the statements where Zimmerman contradicted himself. Okay. Detective Serino found the major contradiction that Zimmerman said he didn’t know the local street names when he’d been living there for 3 years and had appointed himself the Neighborhood Watch Captain. Zimmerman’s answer that he had ADD and a bad memory doesn’t really wash, when his discussion with the dispatcher, while excited, is quite precise. Zimmerman also said that he never identified himself as a Neighborhood Watch captain because he “didn’t want to confront” Martin, even though that’s exactly what he did. Dale Gilbreath found contradictions in Zimmerman’s account of the fight, including the idea that Martin was slamming Zimmerman’s head against the pavement. And that’s only a few of the contradictions. We could go into all of them, but we’d be here all day.
Your idea that Zimmerman’s version stands is strange – he’s being prosecuted because it DOES NOT stand. Sanford PD didn’t need to arrest him that night for his account to be questioned. Not every killing immediately results in an arrest. Sometimes these things take time, and given that Zimmerman was cooperating, they had no reason to immediately take him in. It was only after more work was done on the case and more evidence was collected that it became clear that Zimmerman would be prosecuted for this crime. You ask me to “prove” a contrary version of events from your unproven opinion. That’s a strange request. The whole matter will be adjudicated in court, once the trial begins. I again note that Zimmerman’s attorneys have asked for even more time to prepare, which shouldn’t be necessary if your opinion about this matter is correct and it’s so obvious to everyone. I think it’s more likely that Zimmerman’s attorneys are concerned about how this is going to go, and they want to stall as long as possible. The issue of Zimmerman’s weight and stockiness is crucial here. He was built much more solidly than Treyvon, who he outweighed by 40 pounds. It’s therefore understandable why Treyvon was scared of him.
Your repeated assertions of calling people “liar” when you don’t agree with them are an unfortunate method of debating. Sounds more like you are unable to debate simply on the facts, which is, again, unfortunate. Please work on this – you will find that it helps not to call people names when having a discussion with them.
Your comment about Zimmerman flying makes no sense at all. Zimmerman was running after Treyvon, then slowed down as he couldn’t see anything. From what it sounds like on the call, he stopped shortly after saying “Okay” and didn’t resume his pursuit and search until after he hung up. No flight necessary unless you had another idea about that.
Your strange comment about Witness 8’s phone records is perplexing. The timing of all of the phone calls will of course be evidence at Zimmerman’s murder trial. Because that is what establishes the full record of when all of this happened. This will include Zimmerman and Martin’s phones, the records of the 911 calls by everyone involved, and the phone calls with Witness 8. Just because you don’t see it in what you’re currently allowed to see as a member of the public who isn’t personally involved in this case does not mean it’s not going to be in the record. Those are almost automatic exhibits in a trial like this. Or if you’re saying that the timing of the phone calls is not in the Discovery materials and you know all those materials intimately, I need to ask if you’re actually on Zimmerman’s defense team. If you’re not, and you’re not in the DA’s office, then you have no way of knowing this kind of thing.
You again dismiss anything you can out of Witness 8’s testimony, choosing only to rely on the one line you want. But even if we were to have it your way and discount everything of what she says because of when she was at the hospital or whatever parts she misunderstood or confused, then you don’t have your line about how Treyvon made it to the house. You can’t have it both ways. I see this as a situation of a young, scared girl whose boyfriend was just violently killed. Not everybody reacts to these things dispassionately. Her testimony paints a very clear picture of what she was hearing over the phone – you just choose to ignore the parts you don’t like. The attorneys on both sides of this case don’t have that luxury.
Your assertion that Zimmerman didn’t break any laws by disobeying an instruction to back off, and then by instigating a confrontation that resulted in a shooting, falls apart on its face. The fact that there were fatal consequences to Zimmerman’s misbehavior here means that all of it will wind up being part of the discussion at trial. Will he be called out specifically for blowing off the instruction? Probably not – but it will go right to the heart of the issue of his conduct here, and it will likely play a role in his sentencing.
Finally, you once again cite the texts that O’Mara is trying to use to assassinate Martin’s character before the trial begins. It doesn’t matter if that material was provided to O’Mara by the prosecution – they would need to provide that material anyway as part of normal discovery. Having worked in litigation, I can tell you that with assurance. So trying to then say that this was prosecution materials is a bit disingenuous. And it doesn’t matter what he was texting, as we’ve already repeatedly established. Treyvon could have been texting about anything and it wouldn’t change the fact that he was shot to death by George Zimmerman while he was unarmed and walking home with nothing in his pockets but food he had just purchased. And if you think that teenagers don’t text about all kinds of things, particularly when they’re trying to act “cool”, you haven’t been around many of them. I didn’t say I approve of talking about getting high or about guns being great or all that nonsense – I just recognize that teenagers are teenagers.
George Zimmerman is in a serious bind here. When that trial finally starts, he will be forced to explain the multiple contradictions between his various stories, and the accounts of several witnesses. He will be forced to explain exactly how it is that his version of the incident doesn’t include the argument before the fight that the other accounts mention. If his explanations don’t impress the court, and so far they have not impressed the investigators who brought the case against him, he’ll be looking at serious jail time. A harsh lesson for him to learn, but it will at least give some years to figure out the wrongness of his actions and it may bring peace to the family of the young man he shot to death.
Funny — my post was directed toward Russell DeMented, not you, Hairy.
Did you forget to change screen names?
Anyway — I know this isn’t gonna penetrate your teabag soaked brain, but . . .
Watching someone is not illegal. Monitoring someone’s activity is not illegal — PROVIDED YOU HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO.
Zimmerman didn’t.
And claiming he felt “threatened” by an unarmed teenager that he continued to follow after being told to STOP DOING SO by a person IN AUTHORITY {the dispatcher} does not pass the smell test.
Why this simple fact cannot penetrate the rightwingnut brain remains a mystery to me . . .
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if you want to continue arguing your case and our readers want to debate you, fine. But please do so without calling us names. You will be banned if you don’t stop it.
Zimmerman found guilty — Faux declares he was found guilty due to the legitimate media declaring him guilty before the trial, biased jury, pressure from minority groups demanding a white man’s scalp, the NBPP and Pres. Obama. Faux wins.
Zimmerman found not guilty — the jury saw thru the influence of the media and did the right thing, another black thug beating on a helpless white man gets his just desserts and thanks to the 2nd Amendment, white men can defend themselves when confronted by evil dark people wanting to do them hard. Faux wins.
Megyn Kelly is an embarrassment to the media. Goebbles would have held her in high regard.
http://a.abcnews.com/images/News/abc_george_Zimmerman_injury_video_thg_120402_wg.jpg
So Right Wing sites started photoshopping injuries on?
http://fandaily.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/George-Zimmerman-Head-Injury.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/18/article-2146070-13263D1B000005DC-565_634x477.jpg
http://www.gadailynews.com/files.php?file=assets-2012/article_2146070_1326528C000005DC_739_634x586_376736499.jpg
Not only do the injuries not show up in legit news footage, but the Fox Crowd cant even keep their story straight. I remember when a group on FB held a contest for who could find the most phony “Zimmerman injury pics.” The winner turned up pics where the wounds weren’t the same, they were in different places, some of them had a mark missing…
But God forbid that get in their way defending guns, racism and vigilante justice. As another poster said on this thread= If Zimmerman was black,these same people would be addicted to the idea of a lynch mob.
You cite “new evidence” that somehow shows Trayvon Martin was “a typical street thug” who was somehow trying to “pick on” Zimmerman. What in the world are you talking about? If you’re citing the text messages, they’re irrelevant and they don’t show he was a thug. They show he was fairly typical of teenagers I’ve encountered all my life – wanting to sound cool, wanting to use all the usual catchphrases, probably smoking pot. Are you saying that this means he deserved to be shot to death? The rest of your statement assumes that all of Zimmerman’s statements about the incident are true, in spite of his contradictions. It does not appear that anyone else outside the right wing spectrum, least of all the prosecutor, believes that to be the case.
And then, to make things interesting, you try to respond to the facts I’ve presented here with a citation of JACK CASHILL? You’re not serious about that, are you? Cashill is a World Net Daily writer, known for his frequent attacks on President Obama where he calls him a fraud. I wouldn’t rely on that idea if I were you, if you want anyone to take your citations seriously.
Please take some time to actually study this case, if you truly care about it. Don’t worry about the various right wing pundits and their opinions about who they think Trayvon Martin was. Just look at the facts and the testimony. And please try not to throw more aspersions at Trayvon Martin’s family. It’s an offensive tactic and one that is shocking to behold from people who present themselves as upholding good family values.
You say that Zimmerman was not told to stand down? Are you kidding? I’ve listened to that conversation. The dispatcher is very clear with Zimmerman. Zimmerman says “These XXXholes, they always get away!” and then cries “He’s running!” as we can hear him leaving his car and chasing after him. The dispatcher asks if Zimmerman is following Martin, and Zimmerman says “Yeah!”. The dispatcher says “We don’t need you to do that.” Zimmerman responds “Ok” but clearly is continuing his pursuit. He then stops and notes that he doesn’t know where Martin is, gives a little more information, asks to be called and then hangs up. If you know anything about this situation, you know that when a dispatcher says “We don’t need you to do that” in specific response to an action you are taking, this is a clear instruction to back off. It’s a polite instruction but a clear one. Zimmerman chose to ignore it. At the moment that you allege he was totally calm, he actually sounds fairly wired. He’s concerned as he’s run away from his car into the dark and now doesn’t know where Martin is. We should also keep in mind that Zimmerman wanted to be in law enforcement and eventually become a judge. Are you seriously asking anyone to believe that Zimmerman didn’t understand that he was being told to back off?
Regarding Witness 8, it’s interesting that you continue to use the designation of “Dee Dee”, one commonly used for her on right wing blogs that make fairly offensive characterizations of her. I’m familiar with her testimony. She says she was on the phone with Martin and that she told him to run to his dad’s house. He did so, but not directly, saying he was going to go around the other side to go to the back entrance. He was clearly trying to evade Zimmerman. We should keep in mind that Zimmerman had stopped his car and was watching Martin at one point. Both Witness 8’s testimony and Zimmerman’s agree that Martin approached Zimmerman’s now-parked car, they made eye contact and continued talking on their respective cell phones. Martin then turned and moved away quickly. Witness 8’s testimony confirms what we hear from Zimmerman’s 911 call – that Martin temporarily evaded Zimmerman and thought he had lost him. But then he saw that Zimmerman had found him again and was walking up to him. Witness 8 told Trayvon to run, but he was out of breath. She then heard the beginning of their confrontation, starting with Trayvon asking “Why are you following me?” and an angry response of “What are you doing around here?” She says she didn’t hear much after that other than a bump of some kind and a voice saying “Get off, get off”. She says that she didn’t hear anything else, and that they were having cell reception problems – due either to the rain or to whatever issues Martin was having with his cell provider. I’m really not sure how you can think that Witness 8’s testimony is any help to you here. If anything, it confirms that Zimmerman followed Martin after being told to stop, and that he persisted in instigating a confrontation. Had Zimmerman stayed in his car, as he was told to do, the rest of this situation never would have happened.
You seem very caught up on why Martin was 70 yards away from the townhouse. You keep forgetting that Martin was trying to get away from Zimmerman and was likely trying to not let a stalker know where he lived. If he was taking a long way around to the back, or if he was trying to take a different route to get away from Zimmerman, it makes sense that he wouldn’t be right outside his front door when Zimmerman killed him. You seem caught up on whether people think Trayvon Martin was “an innocent angel”. That’s irrelevant. Martin could have been an A student or an F student. He could have been a pothead, or he could have been a teetotaler, and that wouldn’t change the fact that George Zimmerman profiled him, stalked him, chased him, confronted him and then killed him. You seem to want to help the right wing media assassinate Martin’s character by calling him “quite the stoner”. But you forget that this is irrelevant. Let’s say he was a pothead. So what? Does this mean he deserves to be stalked and killed?
You seem to think that the moral of this story is “don’t attack someone or you may be shot”. That’s unfortunate, because you’re assuming that the entire situation was instigated by Trayvon Martin, when all sides agree that the situation was instigated by Zimmerman. Had Zimmerman left Martin alone, or if he’d just called the police and let them do their job if he was suspicious, or if he’d identified himself, saying “I’m the Neighborhood Watch Guy on this block”, the entire fight would never have happened. Zimmerman instead chose to take the law into his own hands and confront someone on the basis of racial profiling. The moral of this killing is actually “don’t take the law into your own hands, particularly when all you have is a hunch based on someone wearing a hoodie”. A second moral is “don’t assume that just because someone is wearing a hoodie they must be a criminal.” And in case you haven’t heard, self defense is not applicable when you instigate the confrontation. If you stalk someone, confront them, shove them and get into a fight with them, you can’t then say that you were just defending yourself from them if you get a black eye or a bloody nose.
You say that you’ve been looking over all the legal documents in this case, and yet you ignore the information on them that doesn’t support your unflinching belief in Zimmerman’s veracity. You assume Zimmerman is telling the truth because you’re ignoring his contradictory statements, and you’re ignoring the admissions he’s made when cornered on them. You assume that Zimmerman’s version of how the gun was fired is correct when he’s been caught in contradictory testimony all over the place here. Why should we assume that Zimmerman is telling the truth about what happened with the gun? How do we know that Zimmerman wasn’t reaching for the gun while Martin was trying to knock it away from him? And you forget that Zimmerman was heavier and stockier than Martin, and had a legal record of violence, while Martin just had a record of juvenile delinquency. You then tell everyone else here that they are engaging in “ad hominem attacks” when you’ve been making offensive comments like “You lose” or “You’re a liar”. Do you not understand how your posts will read to other people?
You’ve made a big deal out of Witness 8’s statement that Trayvon Martin said he wouldn’t run because he “was right by his house”. You assume this means that he actually made it to his house or was close by at the time that the confrontation happened. You’re also conveniently leaving out the rest of what she said. She said that he had run away trying to get to the back entrance and then she heard him clearly breathing hard and tired before he told her that Zimmerman had found him again. At this point, he didn’t run, but instead stayed there until Zimmerman caught up to him, at which point the confrontation happened. Which means that since the confrontation happened where he was killed, he was actually 70 yards away from his father’s place. Which means he may have told her he was closer to his door than he actually was. Or he may have thought he was closer, or thought that since he was close enough to see it, he was “right by” it. Who knows? But this statement does not mean that he somehow went home and then came back to go after Zimmerman. All the accounts, including Zimmerman’s, agree that he momentarily eluded Zimmerman and Zimmerman continued to look for him. Things diverge here – because Zimmerman would have us believe that Martin was hiding and waiting to attack him somewhere when Witness 8’s testimony shows that he was actually approached by Zimmerman who then confronted him. And the kicker here is that the police have already been able to put her cell phone records together with the timing on the various 911 calls about the fight. Which means Zimmerman’s account can’t be correct, at least not on that part of it. Which also means that you’re relying on false testimony by Zimmerman here. Would you care to reconsider that idea?
You state several opinions of yours as facts when they are nothing of the sort. You say that Martin made it back to the residence, when no evidence shows that and you’re choosing to rely on a single line of the testimony of a witness you otherwise want to ignore. You don’t want to listen to the parts where she talks about how Zimmerman approached and confronted him. You don’t want to listen to the parts about Martin running away. You just want to use a single line because you think it will support your conclusion. That’s specious reasoning, and I suspect you already know that.
You say that Zimmerman committed no crime before he was battered, but you forget that he disobeyed police instructions and instigated a confrontation that resulted in his killing a 17 year old boy. Had Zimmerman done what the police asked him to do, there would never have been any issue of him being battered. You say that Martin wasn’t “hit, grabbed or struck in any way”. You don’t know that – you only know that he didn’t have bruising. You don’t know that Zimmerman didn’t swing at him and/or grab him. We do know that the guys wound up on the grass and pavement in a fight, and that Zimmerman, the bigger and stronger of the two at 200 lbs, was clearly losing. You say that witnesses corroborate Zimmerman’s account. Some of them do, some of them don’t. You say that Zimmerman was going back to his vehicle. Really? Says who? Zimmerman? Who has already contradicted himself multiple times here and will say what he needs to say in order to avoid being sentenced to a jail term for murder here? You say that Trayvon Martin didn’t try to go home. On what basis do you draw that idea? It’s clear that he was trying to avoid a stalker and not bring the stalker to his front door. You say that Zimmerman didn’t stalk Martin. You can’t be serious on that one. How else would you describe Zimmerman leaving his vehicle and following Martin on foot after being told not to do so. You say that Zimmerman didn’t start the fight. Really? If he’d stayed in his car as he’d been instructed, he would not have been in the altercation that he initiated.
Once again, I need to ask you to really think about what you’re doing here. Do you really think it’s a good and moral thing to defend the murder of a 17 year old boy just because his stalker thought he might have been a criminal? Do you really think it’s good and moral to make nasty comments about a 17 year old who died in a circumstance like this. You really should take a moment and think about it. I repeat my question to you, and it’s a serious one: Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?
As you know, this wasn’t just a situation of Zimmerman “watching/monitoring” Martin. This was a situation where Zimmerman appointed himself the Neighborhood Watch guy for the area and then took it upon himself to follow a black teenager because he thought he looked suspicious. Even after being told not to do so, he continued, chasing after Martin when Martin tried to get away from him. When he caught up with him, Martin finally challenged him, asking why he was following him. Zimmerman responded by demanding to know what Martin was doing in the neighborhood. We don’t have the exact timeline of what followed, but it’s clear that a fight developed between a teenager who was frightened and threatened by a man following him, and a self-appointed neighborhood protector who had just said extremely angry words like “these XXXholes, they always get away” and “XXXing punks!” We should also remember that Zimmerman had a violent history before this incident, while Martin had delinquency issues, they weren’t violent matters. So it’s not hard to understand what happened here – Zimmerman initiated a confrontation with Martin, frustrated that Martin was fleeing and was going to “get away” with something. Martin responded, and the situation degenerated from there. From the sounds of it, Zimmerman wound up on the losing end of the fight, which he then ended by shooting Martin to death.
You say that Martin was trying to kill Zimmerman. You have no proof of such a thing and you weren’t there to see what happened to provide us anything other than the evidence at hand. The evidence shows that there was a confrontation, in which Zimmerman pulled a gun and shot the teenager. You say that Martin was repeatedly slamming Zimmerman’s head into the sidewalk. You don’t know that – Zimmerman’s injuries are consistent with him being in a struggle with Martin, falling onto the grass and sidewalk and then being punched. You say that someone objecting to Zimmerman shooting Martin somehow automatically thinks it would be okay to try to kill someone just for watching you. That’s a ridiculous supposition. There is no evidence that Martin was trying to kill Zimmerman – only Zimmerman’s compromised and contradictory testimony. And given Zimmerman’s history, it makes sense that he would not want to present himself as an aggressor here. You are presenting a false dilemma here, and an irrelevant one.
George Zimmerman was not doing “his job” when he profiled Trayvon Martin, stalked him, continued his pursuit after being told to stop, and then initiated a confrontation that led into a fight and then a fatal shooting. Zimmerman had no business doing those things – he was a self-appointed Neighborhood Watch guy who was overly gung ho, and yet he admitted that when he confronted Martin, he never identified himself as Neighborhood Watch. And let’s keep in mind that Zimmerman was stockier and heavier than Martin by 40 pounds. Zimmerman was 5’8 and 200 lbs. Martin was 5’11 and about 160 lbs. The notion that Martin was somehow towering over Zimmerman and intimidating him is ridiculous. Zimmerman clearly thought he could win in a physical confrontation and got surprised. Zimmerman’s unfortunate response here has resulted in his killing an unarmed teenager who would never have had any issue with Zimmerman had he not engaged in stalking, pursuit and confrontation.
As I noted to Harry Ball, it is quite offensive to hear someone try to use this matter as a political soapbox, and it’s even more noxious to hear pundits and bloggers try to paint Martin as a criminal who somehow deserved to be murdered. Let’s please remember that he committed no crime, was unarmed and was simply walking back to the residence when Zimmerman set the tragic situation in motion. And let’s not have any more of this hypocritical moral tone about telling someone you wish they would leave America. Please show a little respect for the victim here and for his family. That would be the moral thing to do.
EARTH TO RUSSELL DEMENTED:
There’s just one, teensy, weensy problem . . . Zimmerman WAS NOT AND IS NOT A PRIVATE DETECTIVE, UNDERCOVER COP, SOCIOLOGIST, MARKET RESEARCHER, PROCESS SERVER, ETC.
He was and is just a racist paranoid idiot with a gun . . . and had NO legal authority to watch/monitor Trayvon Martin, or anyone else . . .
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As Average American Patriot pointed out, you have things completely turned around here. The victim IS THE DEAD BOY, who was shot by the over-eager prejudiced fool who lacked the brains to just stay in his car as requested by the 911 operator and not try to create a situation out of NOTHING.
Now we have a dead teenager, who you and others seem thrilled about, perhaps because he was BLACK, and you and your other RW idiot friends are doing whatever you can to create the most ridiculous logical games to excuse the act of killing Trayvon and trying to make Zimmerman look like an innocent actor of self-defense.
Well, you might be able to fool your idiot friends into believing that, but you will not have that much luck here with us.
This is what happens when idiots and fools carry guns.
Since Zimmerman was watching/monitoring Martin that made it OK for Martin to be rude to Zimmerman but it did not make it OK for Martin to try to kill Zimmerman just because Zimmerman was watching/monitoring Martin. And Martin did try to kill Zimmerman when Martin was slamming Zimmerman’s head into a concrete sidewalk. Slamming a person’s head into a concrete sidewalk is similar to bashing someone’s head with a concrete baseball bat and that could kill a person. Slamming someone’s head with a wood baseball bat can kill a person so slamming someone’s head with a concrete bat can DEFINITELY kill a person.
Ellen do you think it was OK for Martin repeatedly slam Zimmerman’s head into a concrete sidewalk just because Zimmerman was watching Martin? You come off as if you think it was OK for Martin to try to kill Zimmerman just because Zimmerman was watching Martin. If you do believe that then you are not a very civilized/moral human being. It is NOT OK to try to kill someone just because the person is watching you/
We have people in our society (private detectives, undercover cops, sociologists, market-researchers, process servers, etc, etc, etc) who’s job it is to watch people, are you saying that it’s OK to kill them even though the person is just doing their job and has’t touched you? If you believe that you are morally justified in using deadly force on another person just because that person watches you then I wish you would leave America because you are not a civilized human being and you are not good for America.
This alleged “evidence” would just prove that the kid had “the munchies” and had just scored some skittles and was on his way home to eat them.
We’re talking about “pot,” not PCP. Perhaps if Zimmerman had imbibed in some of that “pot” he would have been less apt to intentionally stalk and kill an innocent kid on his way home from the store to watch the rest of the game.
At least that’s what the evidence shows.
For example, we may be sure that he has no idea that liberal thought created the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and all other treatises of intellectualized growth in governmental rights for those who did not have such rights before people like Locke, Paine, de Montesquieu, and others wrote them. That people like Levin have bastardized these thoughts for their own purposes and those of their sponsors is hardly surprising, but to the eclipsed thoughts of a Harry Ball, it will not register. He’s a drone, and the only drones he will sanction are those he’s programmed to believe are correct and proper. That thought should evolve over the years and the blacks should have rights hardly would occur to him even though the original Republicans fought for these rights (for their own purposes of political power).
Trayvon Martin may have had issues. I am sure Harry Ball considers himself a paragon of virtue and all other conservative thinkers to be perfect and capable of telling Jesus a thing or two, but we know better.
He and the other imperfectly-thinking drones will never be able to think themselves out of that proverbial paper bag. That would be too much for the likes of the Harry Balls of America.
Can’t for the life of me understand why anybody would even try to condone that sort of behavior. Zimmerman did not behave like a law-abiding citizen. He was out for blood and he got caught by his own stupidity.
To add injury to insult, your comments are almost completely false on their face. Zimmerman was told to back off and DID NOT comply. After the admonition, he can be heard running after Trayvon Martin, during a time at which it’s been acknowledged that Trayvon had tried to change streets to get away from Zimmerman. Your fictional account of what Witness 8 said gets her story almost 90 degrees wrong. She didn’t say he made it home – she said she told him to run home, but before he could do so, Zimmerman caught up to him and the confrontation ensued. Your version of events assumes that everything Zimmerman has said is true, even though he’s repeatedly contradicted himself. Zimmerman has been forced to admit he wasn’t just looking for a street sign in an area he knew quite well – he has admitted he was following Martin after being told to desist. Prosecutors dispute Zimmerman’s account of how the fight played out, so I wouldn’t rely on the version of it you’ve just presented. And I note that Zimmerman’s defense has just asked for the trial to be pushed back – something that shouldn’t be necessary if everything is as open and shut as you describe.
But all of this is irrelevant. It won’t bring Trayvon Martin back from the dead, and it won’t bring any peace to his parents. If anything, your participation in the right wing attack on his character is the kind of thing that will only fester in people’s memories long after this trial is concluded. As Joseph Welch once said, Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no decency?
I also sent some text messages, and probably gave the bird at least once.
I guess I need murdered also..
The only things these peeks at a young man’s life before he was murdered show us, is it would of BEHOOVED him to of been packing that pistol he was showing off.. Could of very well saved his life from the gun toting, night prowling Zimmerman..