lot of coursing going on there...
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Friday, 20 April 2012 19:37 (twelve years ago) link
"used it as an excuse"?
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 April 2012 20:21 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, you can't pick a fight and then claim self defense.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 April 2012 20:21 (twelve years ago) link
depends what you mean by "pick a fight"
― Matt Armstrong, Friday, 20 April 2012 20:26 (twelve years ago) link
How about, following and confronting a guy walking innocently through your neighborhood?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 April 2012 20:31 (twelve years ago) link
Has Zimmerman or anyone ever said exactly why he was following him?
iirc the 911 call has him mentioning a pattern of break-ins in the neighborhood, and that martin was 'walking and looking around' and 'acting suspicious.' not verbatim but something like that.
― zubaz fupa (elmo argonaut), Friday, 20 April 2012 20:36 (twelve years ago) link
he was 'acting really crazy'
― heavy is the head that eats the crayons (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 April 2012 20:37 (twelve years ago) link
(ie "being black")
acting suspicious = running away from law enforcement super george
― the late great, Friday, 20 April 2012 20:40 (twelve years ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, April 20, 2012 8:31 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I think you can follow and confront someone and still maintain the potential for self-defense.
― Matt Armstrong, Friday, 20 April 2012 20:54 (twelve years ago) link
trial's gonna hinge on that
― heavy is the head that eats the crayons (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 April 2012 20:59 (twelve years ago) link
yup
― pleural eff u son (k3vin k.), Friday, 20 April 2012 21:36 (twelve years ago) link
thrid
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Friday, 20 April 2012 21:39 (twelve years ago) link
was being more than a little prejudicial there, i admit
ABC says he asked a neighbor to take the photo and the info they showed was that it was taken about three minutes after the gunshots heard on 911.
ok this sounds pretty rational for GZ to have done in retrospect, but it's also insane. THREE minutes after he shoots someone, he asks a neighbor to take a picture of his head? at that exact point in time, how the hell is he acting like he needs to secure evidence to get him off the hook? there's a dead body on the ground and he treats it like a minor car accident. it seems off to me.
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Friday, 20 April 2012 21:54 (twelve years ago) link
have to admit that if i shot somebody, the possible consequences would loom large in my mind from like second one
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Friday, 20 April 2012 22:02 (twelve years ago) link
<I>at that exact point in time, how the hell is he acting like he needs to secure evidence to get him off the hook?</I>
Well, that's because he's just shot someone. And has probably seen enough TV about this situation to think "catalogue the evidence"
xp yeah
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 20 April 2012 22:04 (twelve years ago) link
And if it's literally three minutes later, I wonder if the photographer witnessed some of the altercation before the gunshot?
― nickn, Friday, 20 April 2012 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
Plus the guy was there taking photos
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Friday, 20 April 2012 22:31 (twelve years ago) link
of course a single photo proves nothing. but it does support his story more than contradict it. it's at least consistent with the idea that he was attacked and pushed down.
Pushed down, yes. Attacked is a step too far. Again, he could have been pushed down as a result of Martin defending himself.
― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Friday, 20 April 2012 23:34 (twelve years ago) link
sure, but i was just saying "consistent with", not "provides support for"
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Saturday, 21 April 2012 00:05 (twelve years ago) link
definitely doesn't exonerate zimmerman
this too. i thought all the neighbors were hiding indoors?
it just seems entirely implausible that, that quickly after it all happened, GZ was in a lucid enough state to think about getting the back of his head photo'd. i don't think most people would be able to even make that sort of connection (i'm in trouble --> need evidence --> back of head is bloody --> let's take a picture) so quickly afterward especially when there's a dead body on the ground right there. and especially when supposedly dealing with serious head trauma. it just smells bullshitty to me
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Saturday, 21 April 2012 05:08 (twelve years ago) link
So you guys have a lot of experience killing, huh?
― Three Word Username, Saturday, 21 April 2012 05:14 (twelve years ago) link
no but i majored in it
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Saturday, 21 April 2012 05:23 (twelve years ago) link
worth remembering that prosecution knew of this picture before they brought the charges they did
― thistle supporter (mcoll), Saturday, 21 April 2012 05:28 (twelve years ago) link
i.e. they've accounted for this evidence that seems consistent with Zimmerman's potentially-exonerating story
― thistle supporter (mcoll), Saturday, 21 April 2012 05:29 (twelve years ago) link
"So you guys have a lot of experience killing, huh?"
No, but I've seen Blood Simple.
― nickn, Saturday, 21 April 2012 07:22 (twelve years ago) link
^ good movie
― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Saturday, 21 April 2012 09:12 (twelve years ago) link
lol TWU
― I need new, hip khakis (DJP), Saturday, 21 April 2012 13:57 (twelve years ago) link
I imagine any self-appointed neighborhood watch dude who carries a gun and follows potential neer-do-wells would maintain the presence of mind to take a picture of his own bloody head post-shooting. ZImmerman staying out of this powder-keg investigation by proxy for as long as he did seems to have worked to his advantage, since no one knows what happened better than he does, and there's a certain smug confidence to his appearances this far. Apparently the prosecutors were taken by surprise at the hearing by requests for evidence justifying the charge, and couldn't offer anything more than what's already in the public record, which does bode well for their team. Wouldn't be surprised if this got messy (messier) fast, especially as it inches toward the distinct possibility of exoneration.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 21 April 2012 14:10 (twelve years ago) link
i think when you kill somebody time slows down. so 3 minutes is more like 6 minutes.
― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Saturday, 21 April 2012 14:15 (twelve years ago) link
awesome, next time i'm late for work i'm gonna kill like fifteen people
― boy, was that Dan Fielding hungry for some cake! (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 22 April 2012 02:03 (twelve years ago) link
I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son. I thought he was a little bit younger than I was, and I did not know if he was armed or not.
― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Sunday, 22 April 2012 08:47 (twelve years ago) link
Sincerely, william carlos psychopath.
― s.clover, Sunday, 22 April 2012 15:04 (twelve years ago) link
I thought a cornerstone of his defense was "he was hitting my head against the ground and I thought I was going to die"; it seems slightly odd for his apology to not mention anything about an immediate need to defend himself, but instead to offer a lukewarm "I didn't know if he was armed so I shot him"
― I need new, hip khakis (DJP), Sunday, 22 April 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link
his transparent thought process there is "this is a black teenager, he is likely armed" and its kind of blowing my mind
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 22 April 2012 20:07 (twelve years ago) link
Per the newly apologetic GZ, I wonder what the consensual age of getting shot is? Like, at what point would murdering someone not deserve an apology? "He was 20, he knew what he was getting into in this 'getting shot and killed' stuff."
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 April 2012 20:43 (twelve years ago) link
i wonder if gz was somehow constrained in his apology from recounting the actual incident, which might come across as testimony and could conceivably interfere with his defense team's plans for putting him on (or keeping him off?) the stand during the actual trial.
still, "sorry your kid was ambiguously threatening" is not even an apology at all so fuck it
― zubaz fupa (elmo argonaut), Monday, 23 April 2012 13:36 (twelve years ago) link
and yeah i still don't understand the relevance of trayvon's age to the shooting at all. "i thought he was a little younger than i was" just sounds like an assertion that black men are increasingly criminal as they age, like what? like i'm certain if you knew his actual age then your racist algebra would have produced a result where you did not shoot the kid.
― zubaz fupa (elmo argonaut), Monday, 23 April 2012 13:46 (twelve years ago) link
??? Trayvon's age has been a huge focus in nearly every media mention of the case, as in "how could this child pose a threat to this grown man?"
― President Keyes, Monday, 23 April 2012 13:55 (twelve years ago) link
GZ responding to that I gather
― President Keyes, Monday, 23 April 2012 13:56 (twelve years ago) link
except that GZ's self-defense argument depends on portraying martin as an immediate threat requiring deadly force???
― zubaz fupa (elmo argonaut), Monday, 23 April 2012 14:01 (twelve years ago) link
I thought he was a little bit younger than I was, and I did not know if he was armed or not.
Anything GZ says about his frame of mind in regard to this shooting should be thrown away as worthless, unless he takes the stand in a trial and subjects himself to a searching cross-examination by a prosecutor, while under oath. Even then he would almost certainly lie, but at least a judge or jury could test his story against their inner lie detectors.
― Aimless, Monday, 23 April 2012 16:44 (twelve years ago) link
A few updates.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 April 2012 22:23 (twelve years ago) link
Reading that "Zimmerman isn't such a bad guy, and problems in the neighborhood, blah blah blah," after a complicit media let dead-enders run around for more than a month with all the hoodie- fake Facebook photo- school suspension-thug crap about Trayvon, just makes me absolutely livid.
― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Wednesday, 25 April 2012 22:58 (twelve years ago) link
yep. that was about as depressing as I expected it to be.
― heavy is the head that eats the crayons (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 25 April 2012 23:01 (twelve years ago) link
It's funny, how little of a shit I give about whether Zimmerman seemed like a nice guy to people or not.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 25 April 2012 23:12 (twelve years ago) link
yeah this. I've tried to keep opinions to myself until the inevitability of the levee breaking, which is difficult when you advise a college newspaper staff whose staff is a quarter black. What's awful is how the media has behaved as shamefully as usual yet we were still swept along.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 April 2012 23:18 (twelve years ago) link