Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

meghan mccain tweeting at toure is gonna solve this whole thing

oh wow and i got in a minor twitter fight with this guy.... who proceeded to change his avatar to a picture of me in what i can only assume is meant to be blackface

https://twitter.com/#!/TreborRocker

nice work, max

oh wow and i got in a minor twitter fight with this guy.... who proceeded to change his avatar to a picture of me in what i can only assume is meant to be blackface

https://twitter.com/#!/TreborRocker

― max, Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:20 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh my god

Ha. Just came here to post a big textual thumbs up to max's piece. Gonna go spread that love around.

Yeah, max u kick ass! Forgive me if I don't have the fortitude to read the comments, though.

don't worry it's all about serial killers rmde

internet right wing reactions to this remind me of reactions to the DeOnte Rawlings case. mercifully that link doesn't contain the comments, but there were an insane amount of the "if your name was DeOnte you had it coming" variety iirc.

that post headline really undersells the facts, btw; it basically seems like some offduty cops shot a 14 year old boy and then covered it up.

46 911 calls in the last year or since January 1? Repots conflict. Either way, odds are pretty good that Zimmerman made more than a few of those calls INSIDE A GODDAMN GATED COMMUNITY and is too off-center to realize the irony.

(And of course -- great work, Max.)

max, the voice in yr. piece reminds me of a junot diaz short story. intentional?

not really, though i am a fan.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/06/11/070611on_audio_danticat

ha! yeah, i totally see that. this was initially going to be a bit more bloggy "how to" but it needed to be angry instead of sarcastic

46 911 calls in the last year or since January 1? Repots conflict. Either way, odds are pretty good that Zimmerman made more than a few of those calls INSIDE A GODDAMN GATED COMMUNITY and is too off-center to realize the irony.

wondering what % of those calls were irt the troubling presence of black youth

46 911 calls in the last year or since January 1? Repots conflict. Either way, odds are pretty good that Zimmerman made more than a few of those calls INSIDE A GODDAMN GATED COMMUNITY and is too off-center to realize the irony.

on CNN this morning, they were making a big point of the fact (?) that it was 46 calls since 2001; i.e., over an 11-year period. not sure what to believe at this point.

Ha, legislators who wrote stand-your-ground do not want their nice little law sullied by the case:

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/03/stand-your-ground-fathers-trayvon-martins-shooter-should-likely-be-arrested-doesnt-deserve-immunity.html

bizarre speculation even in that article:

Still, there’s a chance Zimmerman could avoid an arrest or a conviction if he were charged because the law gives broad protections to those who claim they had reason to be afraid and to use deadly force.

There’s a chance, for instance, that Zimmerman decided to stop following Trayvon after he was told by a police dispatcher “Okay, we don't need you to do that.” After that, Trayvon could have changed course and confronted Zimmerman.

It’s unclear. Only Zimmerman appears to know.

wtf?

The "stand your ground" law seems deeply and fundamentally misconceived to me. The traditional "duty to retreat" outside of one's own home, which was overturned by this law, is needed exactly to prevent situations like this. It's a cop-out to say, "Oh we didn't mean to cover cases like this" when it's exactly cases like this that made the old precedent necessary.

I think concealed carry itself is the bigger issue, because how you interpret "stand your ground" laws is a very after-the-fact thing, where the fact is often death. I don't think people walking around with a hardon and a handgun are doing elaborate analysis in the moment of whether they have an adequate self-defense justification.

I'm not a fan of concealed carry either.

well really concealed carry or open carry. Any liberal carry law.

Bottom line: you shouldn't be able to walk around with a concealed weapon goading people into taking a swing at you, and when one does you can legally shoot them.

word

I mean those legislators are technically right, it really doesn't sound like this dude has a plausible claim even under that law, but it sounds like the problem in fact in florida is that this law gets used to excuse all kinds of bullshit

I really can't believe I live in a country where some gun jack-off's wet-dream fantasies got passed into actual legislation

you really can't?

bizarre speculation even in that article:

...wtf?

i don't think the speculation is all that bizarre. the reporter's talking about the circumstances under which the law might protect zimmerman, and given that we don't yet have all the facts (and more importantly, haven't heard the arguments presented by zimmerman's still-hypothetical defense team), it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate.

I should stop self-deluding and put in my application for overseas citizenship, huh xp

where is martin's phone?

/semirhetorical

i don't think the speculation is all that bizarre. the reporter's talking about the circumstances under which the law might protect zimmerman, and given that we don't yet have all the facts (and more importantly, haven't heard the arguments presented by zimmerman's still-hypothetical defense team), it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate.

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 3:57 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's not bizarre in the same way that the glove just didn't happen to fit O.J's hand was not bizarre

yeah, exactly. it's not at all bizarre given the way descriptions of events tend to change once the legal implications become fully understood.

don't think the speculation is all that bizarre. the reporter's talking about the circumstances under which the law might protect zimmerman, and given that we don't yet have all the facts (and more importantly, haven't heard the arguments presented by zimmerman's still-hypothetical defense team), it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate.

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 3:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess? But nothing about the circumstances to me suggests that explanation as a possibility. Teenager scared that he is being followed in a gated community where he doesn't live decides to turn and confront the guy he is afraid he is being followed by and then attacks with sufficient force that self-defense homicide is justified? Why?

xpost oic

But I mean if the article said "the defense may ARGUE that..." it would sound a little less weird

agreed

yeah, exactly. it's not at all bizarre given the way descriptions of events tend to change once the legal implications become fully understood.

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 4:03 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

no my point was that it IS bizarre insofar as it is completely fucking insane

right I mean the way I read it the article is actually saying "if he didn't do it, here's how it happened" not "here is some bullshit the defense might concoct."

What *is* insane, and what all this armchair lawyering is obscuring, is the fat that there is no defense because ZIMMERMAN HAS NOT BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME.

There’s a chance, for instance, that Zimmerman decided to stop following Trayvon after he was told by a police dispatcher “Okay, we don't need you to do that.” After that, Trayvon could have changed course and confronted Zimmerman.

It’s unclear. Only Zimmerman appears to know.

love this "well we'll never REALLY know what happened that night..." argument when there were like at least 3-5 witnesses plus Trayvon's girlfriend on the phone

love this "well we'll never REALLY know what happened that night..." argument when there were like at least 3-5 witnesses plus Trayvon's girlfriend on the phone

but that's the thing. we don't know yet who saw what, exactly. so far as i've been able to tell, there aren't any direct witnesses to the shooting other than zimmerman himself. obviously we haven't heard all the evidence yet, so who knows what'll shake out...

right I mean the way I read it the article is actually saying "if he didn't do it, here's how it happened"

i read it more as, "the law does protect zimmerman if this happened", but i agree that it was a bit o_0 as written

actual self defense: http://www.theroot.com/views/freed-prison-still-pain

So wait, why did Zimmerman have blood and grass stains on his back? I don't get that part

I can't really say much that hasn't already been said. This story is circulating heavily in the community, and even the "DURR IF YOU'D HEARD THE FIRST HALF OF THE RECORDING" dipshits are finding sympathy in this case. This could get very ugly, fast (not that it isn't already, but we've barely seen how bad things can get if Zimmerman isn't brought to justice. The people of Sanford are angrier than I've seen them in a long time.

Jeb Bush called the Stand Your Ground law "common sense" when he passed it. I would like to hear his thoughts on the law now, given what it has wrought over the last few years. I'm sure he would find a way to pass the buck and blame somebody else or assert "lack of evidence" in all of the cases cited earlier in the thread where the law was applied.

If Zimmerman is not charged, then I propose someone follow him everywhere on foot for a week, and when he finally yells at them "LEAVE ME ALONE", they shoot him and claim they were "standing their ground" and that he threatened them with the volume of his voice.

(Note I don't really believe in vigilante justice, I'm just really angry and flustered over this whole case. When my state wonders why it is so heavily criticized in the media, it should look no further than cases like this).

love this "well we'll never REALLY know what happened that night..." argument when there were like at least 3-5 witnesses plus Trayvon's girlfriend on the phone

― Lester the Unlikely (crüt), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 3:42 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

totally. Not to mention that even had Trayvon done what the writer says, people do tend to turn around and get ornery when you unnecessarily follow them and make them feel endangered, but that shouldn't give you the right to SHOOT them....but thanks to Florida's ambiguously worded law, there you go.

Not that I believe it anyway. Yes, the evidence is circumstantial, but there is plenty of it to suggest that Trayvon was guilty of being Black in Sanford in the vicinity of a guy who thought he was Seth Rogen in Observe and Report.

I would like Zimmermann to be interviewed to explain why he yelled "HELP!" on tape. which conveniently cuts out after the gun shots (sadly, I did listen to the recordings, and those of you who abstained...will be glad you did).

Did he like, get attacked, start screaming help, and then think "OH DURR WAIT, I HAVE A GUN!"?