The Trayvon Martin family attorney, Benjamin Crump, answered back Geraldo Rivera’s latest comments about Trayvon Martin during an appearance tonight on Geraldo At Large. You may recall that Rivera appeared on the O’Reilly Factor Friday night and announced that he thought it was reasonable for George Zimmerman to have racially profiled Martin based on his size, race and hoodie “thugwear.” Tonight, Crump compared Rivera’s comments to a justification for rape based on the victim wearing a short skirt. “You can’t have that in America. You just can’t.”
Rivera said the reason he mentioned the hoodie on O’Reilly was because the surveillance video at the 7-11 where Martin bought his candy and iced tea shortly before he died showed “such a contrast - what – you know, Trayvon really looked like that night, as opposed to the little boy pictures that were released initially. That’s the only reason. If he had taken that damn hood off his head, if he and Zimmerman had only spoken… don’t you think that that could have avoided this awful tragedy?” In other words, Rivera was saying Martin looked dangerous.
Crump got right to what Rivera meant. He said, “Geraldo, two points: First of all, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, one of the richest men in the world, wears a hoodie every day. And so you mean to tell me if Mark Zuckerberg was walking through the gated community, he could be profiled and killed by George Zimmerman? You know, him and Trayvon both wore the same uniform – a hoodie and jeans. What’s the difference between the two?”
Rivera answered, “The difference is in the eye of George Zimmerman… Isn’t that the only subjective, you know, viewpoint? … Isn’t that what counts? I mean, I understand the reference and people can make fun of me all they want.” In fact, Rivera had defended, if not justified, Zimmerman's profiling of Martin:
Trayvon Martin looks just like the people who had been burglarizing and victimizing that neighborhood for the last six months. He was exactly the person that George Zimmerman, the property owner, feared. He looked just like the others.
… Profiling is based on, on a reasonable comparison. It may be profiling, Bill, but if he looks just like everybody else that committed the crimes in my neighborhood, that’s the person I’m going to focus my suspicions on.
Crump went on to liken Rivera’s comments to justifying a rape because a woman’s skirt was too short. “You can’t have that in America, you just can’t.” He added, You can’t profile people and act on it. It would be one thing if you profile and call the police and let the police deal with it, but you can’t act on it. Because then, you give a license to everybody to say if a black man is walking in his neighborhood, going to the store with a hoodie up, you can shoot him. And you cant do that. It’s wrong anywhere. There’s no justification for that, and the last thing I will say is this, Geraldo. You’re going to—you’re embarrassing your son again by making these statements.”
Video available via Mediaite.
There is also no evidence that Zimmerman closed the distance with Trayvon. Keep dreaming up more Santa nonsense.
The other thing that gets me about Geraldo’s comments is that he made his point, that he thinks minority kids shouldn’t wear hoodies. But to keep harping on it as if that was an act of provocation equivalent to Zimmerman ignoring the admonition of the 911 operator not to follow Trayvon is well, disgusting and inexcusable.
After I did this I limited the really loud parts so they didn’t hurt your ear, and brought up the screams in between silence so you could hear at least that much better. It doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t mean anything, but it is about as close as you will get to hearing what is going on without actually compromising the audio by doing any forensics work on it.. once you start eliminating frequencies it all becomes suspect.. this way all has been dons is to limit the volume so it is not too loud, and to bring up the quieter parts.. think of a guy with a volume knob making it a bit easier for you. And again, at a speed much easier to digest.
Here it is..
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11548279
Make of it what you will.. you’ll hear things better and easier…. and that still isn’t all that great… but still much better.
Zimmerman had a right to be suspicious of someone walking behind houses in clothing that disguised their features. Period.
If Zimmerman was looking for Jewish offenders, the right light could have him not even give Zuck a second thought.
Jerry’s embarrassing himself, too:
http://static.globalgrind.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_images_540/images/2012_march/geraldo_0.jpg
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The difference(s) are as follows:
Zuckerberg is
1. White
2. Jewish
3. stinking rich, and
4. did I mention, White?
.
My question is… why? He’s already shown that it’s not good for him- it’s not even boosting his ratings anything worth noting. He has to have a direction for this, or he would have quit when he realized that it’s hurting more than helping.
