Trayvon Martin, Vigilante Justice

[johnny karate]

I think Crumb could make it fit into "hate crime".

I like how you took something ridiculous O'Mara said and turned it into a swipe at Crump.

Well played.

 

[LTC8K6]

I like how you took something ridiculous O'Mara said and turned it into a swipe at Crump.

Well played.

I like how you manufacture claims.

 

[LTC8K6]

I'm not so sure it couldn't be classed as hate.

It's obviously supposed to represent a young black male, let alone that it obviously represents TM.

 

[johnny karate]

I like how you manufacture claims.

Yeah, I was way out of line. Clearly, when someone turns the name "Crump" into "Crumb", it would be completely unreasonable to interpret that statement as derogatory.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

"Pandering" was your word:

I need more coffee or something. Sorry.

 

[WildCat]

I'm not so sure it couldn't be classed as hate.

It's obviously supposed to represent a young black male, let alone that it obviously represents TM.

So? It's not illegal to hate, nor should it be.

A hate crime is a crime where hate is the motive, the hatred itself is not a crime.

 

[Dancing David]

Why wouldn't further analysis be the responsibility of the Sanford PD? They are the ones investigating the crime. I'm not suggesting they do the analysis themselves. I'm suggesting they use that analysis in their investigation.

And that is the crux, they can turn over the case to the SAs prior to the completion of all analysis.

Let me offer a generic example.

Suppose there has been a murder. Police gather forensic evidence such as blood, fingerprints, hair, and bullet casings. This evidence is sent to a lab to be analyzed.

What happens next?

Does the crime lab send their results to some other investigative body besides the police?

In this case they had a suspect, and on the face of the evidence they decided not to make an arrest and handed the case over to the SA's office. I do not know how further analysis would be routed, probably to both the SPD and the SA's office, on a guess.

The SPD investigation is done.

And then what happens? Suppose the analysis of the forensic evidence yields positive results or even points to a suspect. What's the next step in the process if those results are not sent to the police for them to continue their investigation?

If another suspect is indicated then I would guess the SPD would open the case and proceed to gather further evidence on that suspect.
Otherwise it would be up to the SA's office.

You actually did state further evidence was being gathered:

And I clarified my statements as well.

If you want to backpedal from your previous statements, that's certainly your prerogative.

And if you want to call my clarification 'backpedaling' that is your choice, it sure does not help your argument any.

And since they contradict the facts, I don't blame you.

I know you don’t want to understand my clarification of my statements, further analysis of evidence gathered, may not be part of the SPD's investigation.

But please don't accuse me of semantic arguments or trolling, or pretend it's a misapprehension on my part when I can directly quote you saying the things you claim not to have said.

Then start discussing and avoid the embellishment with rhetoric. I could go and finds all your rhetorical statements and trolling attempts.

I have stated that if evidence is further analyzed it may be done without it being part of the SPD's investigation.

According to what you are saying about it, what was left out of the Sanford PD investigation is, quite obviously, the forensic evidence.

More the forensic analysis of the physical evidence gathered.

they had a suspect, they had examined the crime scene and gathered evidence and witness statements. they decided that they were not going to make an arrest.

The case is turned over to the SA's office while evidence is being analyzed.

My reasoning for thinking the Sanford PD would use this evidence in their investigation is because I cannot for the life of me fathom why they wouldn't.

because they had done their investigation and turned it over to the SA's office.

You seem to be suggesting that the police merely gather evidence and do absolutely no follow-up work beyond that.

It would depend, the evidence indicated they had a single suspect who acted alone, what further evidence is there to gather?

There was no reason to leave the case open, they did not have another suspect or were lacking a suspect.

If the police find a fingerprint at the scene of the crime, apparently they simply turn that in for analysis and walk away forever, never to find out what that fingerprint analysis yielded.

Now there you are making extreme statements rather than engaging in a discussion, you can do better.

I honestly have no idea how this makes any sense.

Maybe you should ask yourself, since you made the statement. Strawmen probably fall under rhetorical embellishments.

 

[johnny karate]

I have stated that if evidence is further analyzed it may be done without it being part of the SPD's investigation.

By who? Under whose purview was this analysis being done between the time the Sanford PD had completed their investigation and the state attorney's office started their review?

The case is turned over to the SA's office while evidence is being analyzed.

Again, under whose purview? The police had completed their investigation. The state attorney's office had yet to begin theirs. Whose investigation was this evidence analysis a part of?

 

[Dancing David]

By who? Under whose purview was this analysis being done between the time the Sanford PD had completed their investigation and the state attorney's office started their review?



Again, under whose purview? The police had completed their investigation. The state attorney's office had yet to begin theirs. Whose investigation was this evidence analysis a part of?

I suppose you will have to write them and ask them. When the SPD said they were done with their investigation they turned it over to the SA's office, so my guess is that until their is a reason for the SA to ask the SPD to do further investigation, it would be the purview of the SA's office. So my thought is , if the analysis say indicated another suspect, the SPD would start another investigation. Otherwise the analysis would go to the SA's office.

But these are questions for them, I am just guessing.

And there are most likely other investigations as well, especially the coroner is likely charged with many details of the cause of death and the means of death, as well as the physical condition of Trayvon's body. I would this falls into the bureaucratic grey zone of inter-agency jurisdiction and cooperation and then Florida state laws regarding investigations and jurisdiction. So much of it will fall into specific policies for the various agencies and informal history of procedure.

This for example:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/167568.pdf

would seem to indicate that many times (probably dependent on state law) the coroner's office is charged with investigation as well.

 

[This is The End]

OK if the police did a thorough investigation, then why did the Police Chief resign? What were his reasons?

(Also, I mean the first time he tried to resign (mid to late March), not a month later when they accepted it (mid to late April).)

I remember possibly he was ashamed of his remarks or something...

ETA: It appears the first time was after a no confidence vote:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/...-Evidence-Testimony-Chief-Says-143712316.html

I'm still not sure about the exact reasons.

 

[PhantomWolf]

JK, I would suggest that you are being extremely stubborn minded here, It's very obvious what David is attempting to say, you seem to be more interested in playing word games like most of the CTs in that section.

If the police waited for all the forensics to be done, they'd still be waiting; these things take a long time to come through because the labs tend to be overworked. It's not just a case of ignoring the forensics, it's a case of working with what you do have, and realising that while forensics might change the direction of a case, it's unlikely. Most cases are solved the old fashion way, crime scene investigation (they did that), questioning witnesses (they did that), identifying suspects (they had one), and interviewing the suspects (they did that). Forensics are the pretty bow on top to make everyone feel better, but 9 times out of 10, if not more, all the forensics do in a case where the police already have a suspect, is confirm what they already knew. Forensics is of far more use when you don't have a suspect or witnesses. The real world isn't CSI where all the cases are solved by Lab techs while the Detectives sit around and drink coffee until the results come in.

So did they need them in this case? I'd say no, what are powder burns and ballistics going to tell them that they didn't already know? Not a lot. They had a suspect, they had witnesses, they had a crime scene, they had autopsy results. At that point they believed they had enough of the picture to hand it over to the SA to determine if charges should be filed.

That doesn't mean it all cut and dried and over and done with. If the forensics came back and said that the shot had been made at 10m or more, the police wouldn't have gone, "Oh, what a shame, in the round filing cabinet it goes." They would have reopened the case and started looking for what they missed so they could update the SA with a new report and have a new decision on charges made based on the new evidence.

As to the re-investigation, no investigation is perfect, all of them can have areas that can be improved, lines of investigation that could have been followed and weren't because they weren't considered necessary, or it was assumed that they wouldn't shed new light on what they already had. A re-investigation, mostly to appease the public, checks out those assumptions, goes back over the evidence at hand to see if anything was missed, basically looks at it all from a slightly different angle to see if you get a different result. It doesn't mean the first investigation was necessarily shoddy, and most of the time when there is no new evidence available to them, re-investigations come to the same conclusion as the first.

 

[PhantomWolf]

OK if the police did a thorough investigation, then why did the Police Chief resign? What were his reasons?

(Also, I mean the first time he tried to resign (mid to late March), not a month later when they accepted it (mid to late April).)

I remember possibly he was ashamed of his remarks or something...

ETA: It appears the first time was after a no confidence vote:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/...-Evidence-Testimony-Chief-Says-143712316.html

I'm still not sure about the exact reasons.

Public Pressure. It doesn't matter how well you actually do your job, if the people you work for have no confidence in you and are calling for your head, why bother staying? I know pretty much how he was likely feeling. In the middle of last year I had a couple of incidents where my management failed to back me up and instead treated me like I was guilty until proven innocent (I was cleared both times). Had I had another job to go to (or the money to support myself and my partner until I found new work), I would have gone in a shot.

 

[johnny karate]

As to the re-investigation, no investigation is perfect, all of them can have areas that can be improved, lines of investigation that could have been followed and weren't because they weren't considered necessary, or it was assumed that they wouldn't shed new light on what they already had.

Yes, thank you.

From the start, my point was that statements like this:

I am baffled about the claims that SPD did not do an investigation, or did an inadequate investigation.

As far as I can tell, they did a normal thorough investigation of a shooting, even with GZ's self defense claim.

Are in contradiction to statements like this:

The SPD investigation was still going on.

On one hand, the Sanford PD are above reproach. How dare anyone criticize their adequate and thorough investigation.

On the other hand, the case was unfairly taken way from them before they could finish the investigation.

You can't have it both ways. Either the case was thoroughly investigated or it wasn't. And thorough investigations - by definition - don't require further investigation.

And no one is saying the initial investigation has to be perfect. All I'm arguing for is the possibility that it wasn't perfect, and perhaps it was warranted to have another agency take it over.

For some reason, this seems to be a highly controversial position.

 

[Beerina]

Yes, thank you.

From the start, my point was that statements like this:


Are in contradiction to statements like this:


On one hand, the Sanford PD are above reproach. How dare anyone criticize their adequate and thorough investigation.

On the other hand, the case was unfairly taken way from them before they could finish the investigation.

You can't have it both ways. Either the case was thoroughly investigated or it wasn't. And thorough investigations - by definition - don't require further investigation.

And no one is saying the initial investigation has to be perfect. All I'm arguing for is the possibility that it wasn't perfect, and perhaps it was warranted to have another agency take it over.

For some reason, this seems to be a highly controversial position.

Wouldn't that be selective prosecution? We, the government, don't like the result in this particular case so are going to work extra hard to make sure a particular citizen goes to jail.

That is different from claims of deliberate impropriety, of course.

 

[Rare Truth]

Update:
George Zimmerman prosecutors file list of witnesses, evidence in Trayvon Martin shooting

<snip>According to the documents, prosecutors also have new video evidence from the night of the shooting — both from the 7-Eleven store where Trayvon purchased Skittles and Arizona iced tea, and from the clubhouse of Retreat at Twin Lakes, the apartment complex where the teen was killed.

Other video evidence, which shows Zimmerman being taken into Sanford Police Department headquarters after the shooting, has already been made public. Crime scene photos of both Zimmerman and the teen are also listed in the documents filed Monday.

Also included in the evidence, according to the new filing, are phone records — Zimmerman's from Feb. 21 to Feb. 26 and from March 7 to March 22, Trayvon's from Jan. 1 through March 1, and those of an unnamed witness labeled "W8" from Feb. 26 through April 2. Zimmerman's medical records and Trayvon's autopsy report are listed, as are records of Zimmerman's 2005 arrest and domestic-violence injunctions.

The list includes 56 audio-recorded statements. One witness, identified as W6, one of the 911 callers, gave four statements to authorities about the shooting, two to Sanford police, one to FDLE and one to the prosecution's lead trial attorney, Bernie de la Rionda.
Another witness, W8, gave two statements, one to Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Trayvon's family, and one to de la Rionda, which suggests W8 may be the girl described by Crump as Trayvon's girlfriend.

Other primary witnesses include four FDLE investigators and three investigators from the office of state attorney Norm Wolfinger plus two from Corey's office, including Dale Gilbreath, who hand-delivered the motion to Seminole County clerks about 20 minutes before their doors closed for the day Monday.

Five fire-rescue personnel are listed as secondary witnesses. So are a fingerprints expert with Sanford police, and the following FDLE experts: a firearms specialist, DNA expert, trace evidence expert and fingerpprints expert.

Also listed as witnesses are a New Jersey forensics expert, two employees with the Volusia County medical examiner's office and a pair of Federal Bureau of Investigation audio experts.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...rosecutor-angela-corey-evidence-rachel-fugate

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yes, thank you.

I'm not really agreeing with you, I think you are playing word police.

On one hand, the Sanford PD are above reproach. How dare anyone criticize their adequate and thorough investigation.

On the other hand, the case was unfairly taken way from them before they could finish the investigation.

It is going to depend on what "adequate and thorough" mean. Technically it's hard to have something both "adequate and thorough" as adequate means that it has managed to reach acceptable level but could have been better, while thorough means that something has been done completely with nothing outstanding. They are sort of different ends of the done spectrum.

There is a difference between a case not having been investigated down to the last dot on the last "i", and having done such a shoddy job that they deserve it to have been taken off them. I think this is the issue. The SPD certainly appears at face value to have done an adequate job, possibly even a pretty good job and were happy they had an understanding of what occurred. Public pressure forced them to take a second look at it to see if they did get it wrong, and then before they could finish rechecking, further public pressure resulted in the case being taken off them.

You can't have it both ways. Either the case was thoroughly investigated or it wasn't. And thorough investigations - by definition - don't require further investigation.

This is why I'm suggesting you are being a word policeman on this one, unlike other words used, "thorough" isn't a loaded word. That said, it's probably not the best word; I'd prefer "adequate" or "good" myself. I'd also argue that even thorough investigations do need to be re-investigated just to make sure that they were, especially when they come under public scrutiny. Saying, "But we did a thorough job the first time" tends to act like a non-Mythbusters lead balloon, whereas if you tell the public that you'll look at it again even though you are pretty sure the job you did first time was good, you tend to get off the hook a bit.

Look at it this way. You do a job for your Boss, you think you have done everything required and completed it at an exceptional level. He disagrees and thinks you missed something important and need to look at it again. Do you stand on your dig that you got it right first time and don't have to check it over, or do you go and do it?

And no one is saying the initial investigation has to be perfect. All I'm arguing for is the possibility that it wasn't perfect, and perhaps it was warranted to have another agency take it over.

For some reason, this seems to be a highly controversial position.

Mainly because the difference between "not perfect" and "warranting another agency taking it over" is pretty big, and for the other agency to act before the SPD has even finished its rechecking smacks of political interference. Beerina makes a good point there. If you re-check things based just on them being non-perfect investigations, every single investigation ever done should be re-checked and taken over.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Update:
George Zimmerman prosecutors file list of witnesses, evidence in Trayvon Martin shooting



http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...rosecutor-angela-corey-evidence-rachel-fugate

Hmmm, well unless there is something highly explosive in the medical records or autopsy, there doesn't look like there is anything there that isn't already known.

 

[Rare Truth]

Another update:


FBI seeks to charge George Zimmerman with hate crime

WFTV has learned charges against George Zimmerman could be getting more serious.


http://www.wftv.com/

 

[johnny karate]

I'm not really agreeing with you, I think you are playing word police.

It is going to depend on what "adequate and thorough" mean. Technically it's hard to have something both "adequate and thorough" as adequate means that it has managed to reach acceptable level but could have been better, while thorough means that something has been done completely with nothing outstanding. They are sort of different ends of the done spectrum.

There is a difference between a case not having been investigated down to the last dot on the last "i", and having done such a shoddy job that they deserve it to have been taken off them. I think this is the issue. The SPD certainly appears at face value to have done an adequate job, possibly even a pretty good job and were happy they had an understanding of what occurred. Public pressure forced them to take a second look at it to see if they did get it wrong, and then before they could finish rechecking, further public pressure resulted in the case being taken off them.

This is why I'm suggesting you are being a word policeman on this one, unlike other words used, "thorough" isn't a loaded word. That said, it's probably not the best word; I'd prefer "adequate" or "good" myself. I'd also argue that even thorough investigations do need to be re-investigated just to make sure that they were, especially when they come under public scrutiny. Saying, "But we did a thorough job the first time" tends to act like a non-Mythbusters lead balloon, whereas if you tell the public that you'll look at it again even though you are pretty sure the job you did first time was good, you tend to get off the hook a bit.

Look at it this way. You do a job for your Boss, you think you have done everything required and completed it at an exceptional level. He disagrees and thinks you missed something important and need to look at it again. Do you stand on your dig that you got it right first time and don't have to check it over, or do you go and do it?

Mainly because the difference between "not perfect" and "warranting another agency taking it over" is pretty big, and for the other agency to act before the SPD has even finished its rechecking smacks of political interference. Beerina makes a good point there. If you re-check things based just on them being non-perfect investigations, every single investigation ever done should be re-checked and taken over.

I'm the "word police"? That's rich.

The bottom line is that none of us know if the Sanford PD investigation was thorough or not. There is certainly reason to believe it might not have been. And it's ridiculous to merely assume that it was thorough, as indicated by the logic-defying, internally inconsistent argument I've already pointed out.

 

[Unabogie]

Update:
George Zimmerman prosecutors file list of witnesses, evidence in Trayvon Martin shooting



http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...rosecutor-angela-corey-evidence-rachel-fugate

Interesting that they're listing fingerprint experts as witnesses. I wonder if Zimmerman claimed at some point that Martin had his hands on the gun, but none of Martin's fingerprints could be found?

Also, they are listing the EMT people, presumably to discuss the cuts that Zimmerman claimed needed stitches and his broken nose. If the EMTs say that Zimmerman's nose didn't look broken, but he showed up at the doctor's with a more severe injury, this could be used to argue he injured himself to enhance his claims.

Again, the DA is clearly going with evidence to prove that Zimmerman's story just doesn't add up.