Whodathunkit - Little Old Provo

[Kenngo1969]

This seems relevant to the topic.  As much as I might wish, in some ways, that I didn't, I do have to wonder about the motives of groups such as Black Lives Matter and those who ally with them.  It seems that they're determined to protest any use of force, justified or not.  As I've said before, peaceful protest, in and of itself, isn't wrong, but it needs to have clear, achievable aims and (a) valid predicate(s).  There is no valid comparison whatsoever, for example, between what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis and what happened to Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal in Salt Lake City.  And the Michael Brown shooting was investigated exhaustively by a grand jury (and, while the exact composition of the grand jury is unknown, reportedly, it did have some black members), which declined to indict then-Officer Darren Wilson of Ferguson (MO) PD.

Do police organization, policies and procedures, and practices and tactics need reform?  Certainly, that's a discussion worth having.  But the sort of unrest we're seeing impedes that process rather than facilitating it.  Sorry this is somewhat out-of-focus.  Hopefully, it's still readable.  It's the best I could do and get both the start of the op-ed and the jump in my snip:

[Amulek]

9 hours ago, bsjkki said:

I ask people about watching the trial because if they were only reading news accounts, they missed many important facts and did not see the witness testimony and cross examinations.

Seriously. I don't know anybody who watched the entire trial who was surprised by the verdict. 

As Christopher Darden, trial prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder case, said: the prosecution's case lacked evidence: "[J]ust about everything the prosecution has asserted in this case has been addressed by the defense and refuted. ... [Y]ou have to wonder if you're a juror sitting on this case, why was this prosecution brought in the first place? ... I mean, there are just huge, huge holes in the prosecution's case." 

 

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The media certainly wasn't going to report the trial in an accurate, full way. Watching this case made me realize how morally bankrupt cable news and newspapers are and they are not to be trusted...at all. Even their 'trial experts' were completely wrong at times and misled viewers. Switched to original sources, CSPAN, and have read a lot of transcripts since then.

Same. The media locked onto it's story early on and refused to alter course.

You had to scour all over the place to find original information and not just some reporter's characterization (or mischaracterization) of a particular piece of information.  

I am now much more skeptical about any news article which deals with race relations. If it isn't a direct quote or independently verifiable fact, I pretty much ignore it. And I'm much more sensitive to bias as well.

For example, when I see a chart comparing Whites and Blacks my first thought is no longer: Wow, what a discrepancy; instead it's more likely to be something like, I wonder why they elected to omit data for Asians or Hispanics? Is it because providing a more complete picture would undermine the 'story.' 

 

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Thanks for providing such an accurate account of the case on this forum. It is not often I see someone so knowledgeable about the details. IYO, was Rachel Jenteal the real girlfriend on the phone? The facts seem to support the prosecutors allowed her knowingly to commit perjury.

I haven't had time to look into the whole 'switched witness' theory. What I can say with confidence however, is that, as the prosecution's key witness, Rachel Jeantel was an absolute train wreck.

And it wasn't just because of her level of education, or her code-switching, or whatever else the media tried to use as a deflection. The bottom line is that she was caught contradicting herself on multiple occasions, and she admitted to having earlier provided false testimony under oath. Her credibility was severely damaged, and that was a major blow to the case.  

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Amulek

[Kenngo1969]

This one, too, concerning the shooting of Danielle Willard in West Valley City after she attempted to flee and endangered officers who were attempting to arrest her for drug offenses.  A judge found no probable cause to indict then West Valley City Police Detective Shawn Cowley for the Willard shooting.  I had an interesting conversation with my dad, who spent 43 years on the job, about this one.  He asked me if I think that, "as-am" (disabled, walk with a pair of forearm crutches or with a severe limp without), I could have gotten out of Danielle Willard's way.  I told him I think I could have, but I think it's beside the point: We don't want to impose a duty to retreat on those whom society has charged with the mandate of protecting us.

[Rajah Manchou]

4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I told you. I’m going off of news reports quoting official police statements based on an investigation that included views of multiple videos, not just one, and statements given by witnesses at the scene. 

OK, I just haven't found these. Are there witnesses from the opposite side of the intersection that confirm a gun had been fired and the driver was injured?

4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

But I do wonder how you can conclude the video you’re seeing was “shot from roughly the same position as Walters” if Walters is visible in the video. 

Because I'm watching the video and Walters is on the same side of the intersection as the person shooting the video. Walters is close enough to the camera that I can see him holding a gun, I can see a lot of detail including the color of his shoes and his cap and that he is holding something white in his left hand. I can see two people in the path of the SUV cowering, likely concerned that the SUV might swerve and hit them. But from that video, I can see very little of what is happening on the other side of the intersection. I can't see a gunman. I can't see a gun. I can't see anything that indicates the driver was shot and injured. 

Apart from the news reports, can you see anything in the video that indicates there is a gunman that shot the driver? Can you see that the driver is injured? Do you see a gunman or a gun? Broken windows in the truck? Even the back window seems to be in tact as the SUV drives past. Can you explain why two people on that side of the intersection cower and take steps back as the SUV approaches?

Here's the full video.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Rajah Manchou

[Kenngo1969]

29 minutes ago, Amulek said:

... As Christopher Darden, trial prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder case, said: the prosecution's case lacked evidence: "[J]ust about everything the prosecution has asserted in this case has been addressed by the defense and refuted. ... [Y]ou have to wonder if you're a juror sitting on this case, why was this prosecution brought in the first place? ... I mean, there are just huge, huge holes in the prosecution's case." ...

It surprises me that he would say something like that, because it's ethically problematic, at least, for a prosecutor to bring a case that he does not think can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Amulek]

20 hours ago, pogi said:

Who threw the first punch?  Is that what this boils down to?

Legally speaking, it's a pretty significant factor. 

But if you want to get down to brass tacks, what really matters is whether or not George Zimmerman - while lying on his back, choking on the blood from his broken nose, with his assailant straddling him, bashing his head against the sidewalk / raining down blow after blow "MMA style" and presumably reaching for his gun - reasonably feared for his life.

As a general rule, if you reasonably think that your life is in mortal danger, you are justified in using lethal force in self-defense. 

 

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Unfortunately, there is only one person here to tell their side of the story.  What do you think Zimmerman is going to say?

Well, it just so happens that what Zimmerman has to say comports with the physical evidence.

Zimmerman had a broken nose, two black eyes, lacerations on the back of his head, etc.

Martin's only injury (gunshot wound aside, obviously): the abrasions on his knuckles from beating the living tar out of Zimmerman.  

 

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How do you know he wasn't scared for his life?  The fact that he called his friend is not evidence that he wasn't scared.  It seems like proof that he was to me.  There could be plenty of reasons why he didn't call police. 

Martin was talking with his friend prior to encountering Zimmerman. Their phone conversation was broken up a few times due to bad signals / dropped calls, but there was nothing about their conversation which intimated Martin was scared. He was casually talking with her, asking her about the all-star game, etc. 

 

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From the friend on the other end of the phone call:

"hounded by a strange man on a cellphone who ran after him, cornered him and confronted him."

CFR - Please provide the transcript for this alleged quote from Rachel Jeantel.

I believe you will find this to be someone's characterization of the events and not an original quote at all. 

 

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'He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man,' Martin’s friend said. ‘I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run.' Eventually he would run, said the girl, thinking that he'd managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin. 'Trayvon said, 'What are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.'"

Who wouldn't be terrified of some guy chasing you down, cornering you, and confronting you for no known reason? 

Anyone, probably. Unfortunately, zero of those three things happened to Trayvon Martin. 

First, Zimmerman didn't chase him down. He got out of his truck and followed him for a few seconds, but when the police said he didn't need to do that he said 'okay' and then talked with them about how to arrange their meet up. He was walking around, waiting for the police to arrive when the confrontation happened.

Second, Martin wasn't ever "cornered." Again, that's just someone's characterization. Take a look at the map.

Based on the phone records, we know that approximately four minutes passed between the time where he first encountered Zimmerman (in his truck) and when the altercation happened. If you look at the star on the map where the shooting occurred, count two buildings down - that was where his father lived. He had ample time to walk (let alone run) home; he didn't. And as there is wide open access going both north and south, it isn't possible to be 'cornered' anywhere over there. 

And finally, as discussed previously, both the prosecution and the defense agree that Martin was the one who confronted Zimmerman - not the other way around.   

 

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Why was Zimmerman even within striking distance if he wasn't there to start something?

Easy. He was within striking distance because Trayvon Martin decided to teach that "creepy a** cracker" a lesson, so he traversed the distance between them and then sucker punched Zimmerman in the face. 

 

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If I was a young black kid and some angry, racist dude was chasing me and cornering me for no good reason, dang straight I am going to fight my way out of being hunted down, feeling cornered and threatened.  Who honestly wouldn't feel threatened in that scenario? 

Sorry, but Zimmerman wasn't a racist. I mean, I guess you never know for sure, but if he was a racist he was the really sneaky kind.

You know the kind of racist who would take a black girl to his high-school prom, open a business with one of his black friends as his partner, vote for Obama, donate his time to tutor black children in his neighborhood, and launch a campaign to help a homeless black man who was beaten up by a white kid (source). 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Amulek

[Amulek]

25 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

It surprises me that he would say something like that, because it's ethically problematic, at least, for a prosecutor to bring a case that he does not think can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

That's what Alan Dershowitz thought as well.

Okay, he was actually a little more pointed than that in his criticism:

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MIKE HUCKABEE: You have said that you thought the prosecutor ought to be disbarred, that's a pretty serious type of violation to get a person disbarred. It is that serious to you?

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Right, it is. She submitted an affidavit that was, if not perjurious, completely misleading. She violated all kinds of rules of the profession, and her conduct bordered on criminal conduct. She, by the way, has a horrible reputation in Florida. She's known for overcharging, she's known for being highly political. And in this case, of course she overcharged. Halfway through the trial she realized she wasn't going to get a second degree murder verdict, so she asked for a compromised verdict, for manslaughter. And then, she went even further and said that she was going to charge him with child abuse and felony murder. That was such a stretch that it goes beyond anything professionally responsible. She was among the most irresponsible prosecutors I've seen in 50 years of litigating cases, and believe me, I've seen good prosecutors, bad prosecutors, but rarely have I seen one as bad as this prosecutor, [Angela] Cory. (Huckabee, July 14, 2013)

 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Amulek

[Kenngo1969]

This one, too, although "dialoguing" amidst rioting is a little tough to do, to say the least:

[Rajah Manchou]

47 minutes ago, Amulek said:

bashing his head against the sidewalk / raining down blow after blow "MMA style" and presumably reaching for his gun - reasonably feared for his life.

I know you all are familiar with this, since you watched the whole trial. How do you interpret the medical examiners testimony that Zimmerman's injuries are not consistent with his account?

"They were not life-threatening. They were very insignificant,” Rao told the Seminole County criminal court jury.

What is your opinion of this medical examiner's determination that the injuries do not support the statements about bashing his head against the sidewalk, and raining down blow after blow "MMA style"?

I've seen the faces of fighters after an MMA match, they do not look like ZImmerman did after Martin "beat the tar" out of him.

11 hours ago, Amulek said:

Yes, because even though he had ample time to run home, he chose not to - either because he was hiding and scared or because he decided that he was going to teach this "creepy a** cracker" a lesson for following him

Martin was on the phone with his friend at that moment. She asked him to run home and Martin said he wasn't running because he was out of breath after running AWAY from Zimmerman who was following him. Martin was too tired from running in fear from Zimmerman. According to that account Martin was catching his breath when Zimmerman approached him and the scuffle began. 

What is you opinion of this account?

You joined the conversation after our discussion about vigilantes branched off into the Martin case. So let me ask, what is your opinion of armed vigalantism?

Edited July 8, 2020 by Rajah Manchou

[bsjkki]

16 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I know you all are familiar with this, since you watched the whole trial. How do you interpret the medical examiners testimony that Zimmerman's injuries are not consistent with his account?

"They were not life-threatening. They were very insignificant,” Rao told the Seminole County criminal court jury.

What is your opinion of this medical examiner's determination that the injuries do not support the statement "bashing his head against the sidewalk / raining down blow after blow "MMA style"?

Martin was on the phone with his friend at that moment. She asked him to run home and Martin said he wasn't running because he was out of breath after running AWAY from Zimmerman who was following him. Martin was too tired from running in fear from Zimmerman. According to that account Martin was catching his breath when Zimmerman approached him and the scuffle began. 

What is you opinion of this account?

What is your opinion of our previous discussion about the dangers of armed vigalantism?

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-evidence-letter-that-witness-rachel-jeantel-wrote-to-news-photo/171654002

This is really all we know. Rachel Jeantel's verbal testimony is not credible. This was written to Trayvon's mother and is most likely an accurate account of the the phone call with a friend.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/03/justice/george-zimmerman-photo/index.html

Edited July 8, 2020 by bsjkki

[bsjkki]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

OK, I just haven't found these. Are there witnesses from the opposite side of the intersection that confirm a gun had been fired and the driver was injured?

Because I'm watching the video and Walters is on the same side of the intersection as the person shooting the video. Walters is close enough to the camera that I can see him holding a gun, I can see a lot of detail including the color of his shoes and his cap and that he is holding something white in his left hand. I can see two people in the path of the SUV cowering, likely concerned that the SUV might swerve and hit them. But from that video, I can see very little of what is happening on the other side of the intersection. I can't see a gunman. I can't see a gun. I can't see anything that indicates the driver was shot and injured. 

Apart from the news reports, can you see anything in the video that indicates there is a gunman that shot the driver? Can you see that the driver is injured? Do you see a gunman or a gun? Broken windows in the truck? Even the back window seems to be in tact as the SUV drives past. Can you explain why two people on that side of the intersection cower and take steps back as the SUV approaches?

Here's the full video.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1278001442620489729?s=20

Watch this slow motion and zoomed in video and you can see the shooter. In the original video it is hard to see the shooter as things are happening quickly. He is to the side of the SUV and fires outside the passenger side window. Bullets holes are in the SUV and the driver was shot. Are you disputing the report?

https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/1278007399216021504?s=20

Photo capture of shooter.

 

[bsjkki]

36 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

What is you opinion of this account?

It is suspect. https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-trayvon-zimmerman-anniversary-lawsuits-documentaries-zorn-20200222-kef4togy6va3blp23l37qu2knu-story.html

[Rajah Manchou]

30 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1278001442620489729?s=20

Watch this slow motion and zoomed in video and you can see the shooter.

Certainly with our slow-mo zoom vision powers activated, we can all see what happened on the opposite side of the intersection and inside the truck.

Problem is none of us have such superpowers. Without zoom and without slo mo, can you make out a gunman shooting? Can you see the driver is shot and injured?

[bsjkki]

3 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Certainly with our slow-mo zoom vision powers activated, we can all see what happened on the opposite side of the intersection and inside the truck.

Problem is none of us have such superpowers. Without zoom and without slo mo, can you make out a gunman shooting? Can you see the driver is shot and injured?

The people around did hear it and see it. What is your point? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCSwZXBQstU

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by bsjkki

[Rajah Manchou]

47 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

This is really all we know. Rachel Jeantel's verbal testimony is not credible. This was written to Trayvon's mother and is most likely an accurate account of the the phone call with a friend.

The letter confirms that Martin was walking home, noticed Zimmerman following him, was afraid enough to take a different path home so Zimmerman couldn't follow him. Martin confirms to the friend that Zimmerman didn't follow him through the shortcut, but then confirms that he looked again and there was Zimmerman coming towards him. Then Trayvon asks Zimmerman "why are you following me?"

So the question I ask myself is: how would I react if I'm a young boy walking home in the dark and I see an older man following me, what would I do? I would try to run from the man. This is what Trayvon did. If the man then appears again and continues to approach me, what would I do? I would ask "why are you following me?". This is what Trayvon did. If the man continues to come towards me, I'm going to prepare to defend myself, physically. 

What is so often ignored in this case, is that the laws that allowed Zimmerman to legally shoot Martin, also granted Martin the right to stand his ground and defend himself against Zimmerman. 

(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force.
(2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.

So Trayvon, according to the law, was not at fault for standing his ground and using force. This seems clear to me. Am I missing something?

Trayvon did not break the law by fighting with Zimmerman, and apparently Zimmerman did not break the law by shooting Trayvon. However, if Trayvon had not been shot, then he could have claimed he was acting in self defense, because he was in fear. Problem was, he was shot, and couldn't defend himself in court. He couldn't argue he was fighting ZImmerman off in self-defense. 

I guess the moral of the story is, if you are a 17 year old black kid in Florida, and you live in a neighborhood where people follow you because they always assume you are on drugs and up to no good. Carry a gun and stand your ground.

Such twisted and backwards logic these gun laws are built on.

[bsjkki]

I stumbled across the podcast while researching the Trayvon Martin case today. What a fascinating podcast...especially right now. Very interesting. https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/57818

An economist and linguist discuss the case and the new book/film The Trayvon Hoax and what is described as "racially charged hoaxes."

Glenn Loury (Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University) and John McWhorter (Columbia University, Lexicon Valley, The Atlantic)

****This episode is really great too. https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/59386?in=6:03&out= "John: White Fragility is “one of the worst books ever written”

Edited July 8, 2020 by bsjkki

[Rajah Manchou]

34 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

The people around did hear it and see it. What is your point? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCSwZXBQstU

I think you've missed the first half of the discussion. I'll let you go back and read up if you want. But in short, the second man with a gun on the other side of the intersection could not have seen it. He would not have known the driver was injured and fleeing. The second man with a gun could claim he pulled the gun to defend himself and others from an SUV that appeared to be a threat. 

But others here are of the mind that the second man with the gun intended to shoot the driver, not in self defense, but rather attempted murder.

[bsjkki]

13 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

The letter confirms that Martin was walking home, noticed Zimmerman following him, was afraid enough to take a different path home so Zimmerman couldn't follow him. Martin confirms to the friend that Zimmerman didn't follow him through the shortcut, but then confirms that he looked again and there was Zimmerman coming towards him. Then Trayvon asks Zimmerman "why are you following me?"

So the question I ask myself is: how would I react if I'm a young boy walking home in the dark and I see an older man following me, what would I do? I would try to run from the man. This is what Trayvon did. If the man then appears again and continues to approach me, what would I do? I would ask "why are you following me?". This is what Trayvon did. If the man continues to come towards me, I'm going to prepare to defend myself, physically. 

What is so often ignored in this case, is that the laws that allowed Zimmerman to legally shoot Martin, also granted Martin the right to stand his ground and defend himself against Zimmerman. 

(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force.
(2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.

So Trayvon, according to the law, was not at fault for standing his ground and using force. This seems clear to me. Am I missing something?

Trayvon did not break the law by fighting with Zimmerman, and apparently Zimmerman did not break the law by shooting Trayvon. However, if Trayvon had not been shot, then he could have claimed he was acting in self defense, because he was in fear. Problem was, he was shot, and couldn't defend himself in court. He couldn't argue he was fighting ZImmerman off in self-defense. 

I guess the moral of the story is, if you are a 17 year old black kid in Florida, and you live in a neighborhood where people follow you because they always assume you are on drugs and up to no good. Carry a gun and stand your ground.

Such twisted and backwards logic these gun laws are built on.

"Forget the girlfriend issue. When you juxtapose the timeline of events on the night of the killing with a map of the subdivision where the tragedy took place, you can see that idea that Zimmerman hunted down Martin like a dog is as phony as the idea initially put forth that Martin was just a little kid

Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch busybody, profiled Martin as a potential burglar as Martin was walking back to his father’s townhouse from a nearby convenience store. He called police, got out of his car and began hoofing after Martin, who, he reported, began running away. The dispatcher told Zimmerman not to chase him. “OK,” said Zimmerman. Martin was about 100 yards from his father’s house when Zimmerman lost sight of him. About a minute later, according to time-stamped police phone records, he told the dispatcher "I don’t know where this kid is.”

A minute and a half later, as he waited on a sidewalk for police to arrive, Zimmerman hung up with the dispatcher. Two and a half minutes after that, neighbors begin calling 911 to report the sounds of a fight outside, again about 100 yards from Martin’s father’s house. The sound of the single, fatal gunshot is heard 45 seconds later.

The six-part documentary TV series “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story” never mentions or wrestles with the implications of this timeline. Attorney Lisa Bloom avoided it entirely in her 320-page book “Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It."

Why would that be? Because the tick-tock wrecks the story by all but proving Martin doubled back so he could administer a beating to the short, doughy guy who’d profiled him.

And it strongly suggests, as the jury found, that Zimmerman pulled out his gun and shot in self-defense because he was getting his butt whipped.

That’s why police took forever to charge him. That’s why he was acquitted. That’s why the feds never filed civil rights charges against Zimmerman. And that’s why Martin is far from an ideal martyr."

Edited July 8, 2020 by bsjkki

[Rajah Manchou]

7 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

A minute and a half later, as he waited on a sidewalk for police to arrive, Zimmerman hung up with the dispatcher. Two and a half minutes after that, neighbors begin calling 911 to report the sounds of a fight outside, again about 100 yards from Martin’s father’s house. The sound of the single, fatal gunshot is heard 45 seconds later.

How far is this sidewalk where ZImmerman was supposedly patiently waiting for police from the location where Trayvon was shot?

During the two and a half minutes after Zimmerman got out of his SUV and confirmed he would not chase the boy, did Zimmerman walk? How far? Where? Why?

 

[Amulek]

10 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I know you all are familiar with this, since you watched the whole trial. How do you interpret the medical examiners testimony that Zimmerman's injuries are not consistent with his account?

The medical examiner took issue with the word "slammed." She didn't think the injuries were consistent with being "slammed" into the concrete multiple times because she believes that the word "slammed" implies very great force. And she would have expected to see greater, more severe lacerations if his head had hit the cement with very great force. 

 

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"They were not life-threatening. They were very insignificant,” Rao told the Seminole County criminal court jury.

You don't have to be sustaining life-threatening injuries before you are justified in defending yourself with lethal force. 

 

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What is your opinion of this medical examiner's determination that the injuries do not support the statements about bashing his head against the sidewalk, and raining down blow after blow "MMA style"?

Maybe you should watch the cross-examination rather than just the portion of the testimony which was prepped by the prosecution.

When you do, you will see that the defense attorney gets her to concede that his injuries were consistent with his head having made impact with the sidewalk as many as 12 - 14 times. 

Also, the characterization that Martin was on top, going after Zimmerman "MMA style" wasn't from Zimmerman himself. It was from an eye-witness account. 

 

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I've seen the faces of fighters after an MMA match, they do not look like ZImmerman did after Martin "beat the tar" out of him.

Look at the pictures @bsjkki posted previously showing what Zimmerman looked like after the police showed up (link).  

He had a broken nose, two black eyes, and multiple lacerations / bruises on the back of his head. 

Eye-witnesses put Martin on top of Zimmerman, going to town on him.

We've got 911 tapes where you can hear Zimmerman screaming for help as many as 12 times in 45 seconds, which is a significant amount of time in a real fight.

Sorry, but there's no other way to characterize it than by saying Zimmerman was getting the trash beat out of him. 

 

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Martin was on the phone with his friend at that moment. She asked him to run home and Martin said he wasn't running because he was out of breath after running AWAY from Zimmerman who was following him. Martin was too tired from running in fear from Zimmerman. According to that account Martin was catching his breath when Zimmerman approached him and the scuffle began. 

What is you opinion of this account?

That it strains credulity. 

Seriously, take a look at the map. Martin doesn't start trying to lose Zimmerman until after passing his truck. The distance between where he was on the sidewalk at that point and where the altercation occurs are roughly two buildings in length. You're trying to tell me that an athletic 17 year old is "too tired from running" that distance? You've got to be joking. 

Additionally, I don't recall the friend ever saying that Martin was too tired from running in fear of Zimmerman. I remember her alleging him to have said that he didn't need to run because he was right by his daddy's house, but nothing about being too tired to run.

 

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You joined the conversation after our discussion about vigilantes branched off into the Martin case. So let me ask, what is your opinion of armed vigalantism?

If you're Batman, I can live with it. Everyone else, not so much. 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Amulek
cleaning up formatting

[Rajah Manchou]

4 minutes ago, Amulek said:

You don't have to be sustaining life-threatening injuries before you are justified in defending yourself with lethal force. 

Would you say that if Martin was running in fear, that once Zimmerman appears again he had right to stand his ground and defend himself?

[Amulek]

9 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

What is so often ignored in this case, is that the laws that allowed Zimmerman to legally shoot Martin, also granted Martin the right to stand his ground and defend himself against Zimmerman. 

The Florida "stand your ground" law had nothing to do with the Zimmerman case. You know that, right?

 

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(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force.
(2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.

So Trayvon, according to the law, was not at fault for standing his ground and using force. This seems clear to me. Am I missing something?

Yes. You have to prove that Trayvon Martin reasonably feared that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. And there is absolutely zero evidence indicating that was the case. Someone following you and the asking what you are doing there does not equate to an imminent threat to your life. 

You have to come up with some pretty extreme hypotheticals before you get to that point with this case. 

 

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I guess the moral of the story is, if you are a 17 year old black kid in Florida, and you live in a neighborhood where people follow you because they always assume you are on drugs and up to no good. Carry a gun and stand your ground.

Alternatively, the moral of the story could be, don't go around starting fights with "creepy a** crackers" just because you are bigger than them and don't like the fact that they were following you; because you never know if you are going to end up biting off more than you can chew.

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Amulek
cleaning up formatting

[Kenngo1969]

42 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

...The six-part documentary TV series “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story” never mentions or wrestles with the implications of this timeline. Attorney Lisa Bloom avoided it entirely in her 320-page book “Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It."

Why would that be? Because the tick-tock wrecks the story by all but proving Martin doubled back so he could administer a beating to the short, doughy guy who’d profiled him.

And it strongly suggests, as the jury found, that Zimmerman pulled out his gun and shot in self-defense because he was getting his butt whipped.

That’s why police took forever to charge him. That’s why he was acquitted. That’s why the feds never filed civil rights charges against Zimmerman. And that’s why Martin is far from an ideal martyr."

That's the problem with so many of the Black Lives Matter (and with allied groups) protests.  Do they want to have serious discussions about possible police reform?  Okay.  Let's have those discussions.  (Rioting doesn't facilitate those discussions.)  Have innocent people, or those who are guilty, mostly of minor offenses, been targeted by law enforcement because of their race? Yes.  Have bad apples stayed in the profession by moving from one agency to another to escape discipline?  Yes.  Should both of those things be stopped?  Yes.

But it seems as though so many protesters want to make every member of a minority who has had any contact whatsoever with law enforcement a veritable Poster Child for the movement, when many of those contacts are benign and/or when, in many cases, the reason why minorities have more serious contact with law enforcement is because [Surprise, surprise!] they have miles-long rap sheets.  It's next-to-impossible to address any problem effectively when one refuses to characterize it accurately.

All of that having been said, there is absolutely no comparison between what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis and what happened to Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal in Salt Lake City.  None whatsoever.  Yet, in both instances, too many protesters have treated both incidents exactly the same.  Details matter.  Records matter.  Histories matter.  "Another member of a minority shot by law enforcement!" (or minority stopped by law enforcement, or minority arrested by law enforcement, and so on) doesn't come close to telling the whole story.

[Rajah Manchou]

5 hours ago, Amulek said:

The Florida "stand your ground" law had nothing to do with the Zimmerman case. You know that, right?

What do you mean by that? It was referenced in the judge's instruction to the jury:

"If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

My feeling is that if George had a right to stand his ground then so did Trayvon. This was certainly a tragic case.

5 hours ago, Amulek said:

Yes. You have to prove that Trayvon Martin reasonably feared that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. And there is absolutely zero evidence indicating that was the case. 

There is zero evidence of how afraid Trayvon was of Zimmerman, because the only person that could know that was shot dead by Zimmerman. See how illogical this is?

5 hours ago, Amulek said:

Someone following you and the asking what you are doing there does not equate to an imminent threat to your life. You have to come up with some pretty extreme hypotheticals before you get to that point with this case. 

You don't even need hypotheticals. It's rather easy, from the evidence, to get to the point where Trayvon fears for his life. (1) He's walking home in the rain with Skittles and tea for his little brother, (2) Zimmerman is looking at him, (3) Trayvon walks past and Zimmerman starts following him, (4) Trayvon runs, (5) Trayvon calls his friend and says he's being followed by a creepy guy, (6) Zimmerman appears again and approaches Trayvon, (7) Trayvon asks "why are you following me?", (8) there's a scuffle, (9) Trayvon realizes Zimmerman has a gun and, without a doubt, fears for his life.

5 hours ago, Amulek said:

Alternatively, the moral of the story could be, don't go around starting fights with "creepy a** crackers" just because you are bigger than them and don't like the fact that they were following you; because you never know if you are going to end up biting off more than you can chew.

Er, not touching that one.

As engaging as this discussion is, my holiday is sadly over. Time to make the donuts. Thanks for the chat, I learned a lot.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Rajah Manchou

[Amulek]

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

8 hours ago, Amulek said:

The Florida "stand your ground" law had nothing to do with the Zimmerman case. You know that, right?

What do you mean by that?

What I mean is that Florida's "stand your ground" law was legally irrelevant to the case - at every single stage. 

The initial decision not to arrest Zimmerman, according to former Police Chief Bill Lee (as paraphrased by CNN), "had nothing to do with Florida's controversial 'Stand Your Ground' law" because "from an investigative standpoint, it was purely a matter of self-defense."

And at trial the defense never invoked the state's stand your ground law as part of their defense. They waived it during pre-trial proceedings and argued their case as a pure self-defense case. 

If you're interested in reading more about how it had nothing to do with the case, here is a pretty good place to start: Florida's Self-Defense Laws.

 

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 It was referenced in the judge's instruction to the jury:

"If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

Go back and read the article referenced above. The "stand your ground" part of stand your ground laws pertains to a duty to retreat. 

Knocked down and pinned to the ground by Martin, Zimmerman would not have had an opportunity to escape as Martin hit him, knocked his head against the concrete, threatened to kill him, and supposedly attempted to go for a gun.

The duty to retreat therefore was irrelevant.

 

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My feeling is that if George had a right to stand his ground then so did Trayvon. This was certainly a tragic case.

I agree it was a tragic and (ultimately) avoidable outcome. But that doesn't mean Zimmerman broke any laws or committed any crimes. 

 

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You don't even need hypotheticals. It's rather easy, from the evidence, to get to the point where Trayvon fears for his life. (1) He's walking home in the rain with Skittles and tea for his little brother, (2) Zimmerman is looking at him, (3) Trayvon walks past and Zimmerman starts following him, (4) Trayvon runs, (5) Trayvon calls his friend and says he's being followed by a creepy guy, (6) Zimmerman appears again and approaches Trayvon, (7) Trayvon asks "why are you following me?", (8) there's a scuffle, (9) Trayvon realizes Zimmerman has a gun and, without a doubt, fears for his life.

Two major problems with this: First, in this version of events you don't get to the imminent threat of great bodily harm / fearing for his life until after the assault has already begun. That's not how justification works. If you walked up to somebody on the street, punched them in the face, jumped on top of them, and started beating them - only to then realize they had a gun, you wouldn't get to justify your attack based on fear for your life. You were the aggressor - you were the one who illegally assaulted them.

The other problem is that you are missing a crucial step between 7 and 8 - one that you persist in leaving out: (7.5) Zimmerman simply asks Martin what he is doing there. In order to justify Martin's initial use of force, you have to come up with a scenario that puts him in a realistic threat of significant physical harm between 7.5 and 8. You haven't come anywhere close to doing that, or even attempting to do that. 

And remember, any such threat has to be proportional to the force that Martin used (i.e., sucker punching Zimmerman, pinning him, and giving him the good ole' ground and pound). Good luck with that. 

 

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Er, not touching that one.

I understand. 

 

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As engaging as this discussion is, my holiday is sadly over. Time to make the donuts. Thanks for the chat, I learned a lot.

Have a good one.