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

How about, following and confronting a guy walking innocently through your neighborhood?

― 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.

trial's gonna hinge on that

yup

thrid

"used it as an excuse"?

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.

have to admit that if i shot somebody, the possible consequences would loom large in my mind from like second one

<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

And if it's literally three minutes later, I wonder if the photographer witnessed some of the altercation before the gunshot?

Plus the guy was there taking photos

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.

sure, but i was just saying "consistent with", not "provides support for"

definitely doesn't exonerate zimmerman

And if it's literally three minutes later, I wonder if the photographer witnessed some of the altercation before the gunshot?

this too. i thought all the neighbors were hiding indoors?

have to admit that if i shot somebody, the possible consequences would loom large in my mind from like second one

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

So you guys have a lot of experience killing, huh?

no but i majored in it

worth remembering that prosecution knew of this picture before they brought the charges they did

i.e. they've accounted for this evidence that seems consistent with Zimmerman's potentially-exonerating story

"So you guys have a lot of experience killing, huh?"

No, but I've seen Blood Simple.

^ good movie

lol TWU

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.

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

i think when you kill somebody time slows down. so 3 minutes is more like 6 minutes.

awesome, next time i'm late for work i'm gonna kill like fifteen people

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.

Sincerely, william carlos psychopath.

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"

his transparent thought process there is "this is a black teenager, he is likely armed" and its kind of blowing my mind

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."

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

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.

??? 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?"

GZ responding to that I gather

except that GZ's self-defense argument depends on portraying martin as an immediate threat requiring deadly force???

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.

A few updates.

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.

yep. that was about as depressing as I expected it to be.

It's funny, how little of a shit I give about whether Zimmerman seemed like a nice guy to people or not.

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.

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.

there are a lot of big questions wrapped up in this case and "does George Zimmerman hate black people?" is kinda not even the central one. It does seem pretty clear that he judged Trayvon based on the color of his skin/his age/his clothes and Trayvon is dead because of it. That the cops didn't see fit to charge him is also pretty clearly institutionalized racism at work but whatever

that article is like Don Rickles' "I'm a nice guy!" routine

the cops didn't charge him because of Florida's Stand Your Ground law.

which I'm sure is judiciously applied in every case regardless of skin color

if Trayvon had shot Zimmerman he would have been arrested and you know it

"He was following me and acting crazy! I thought he had a gun!"

"into the county lockup with you young man"

if Trayvon had shot Zimmerman he would have been arrested and you know it

yup

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120403/articles/120409919

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/24/justice/ac360-stand-your-ground-law/index.html

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, April 25, 2012 10:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what should the media have done? Dig into Trayvon's life to try and refute the "dead-enders"? The media was reluctant to root around in the personal life of a teenager who had been killed, understandably.