So you take Zimmerman's word for it?
Why?
His statements are evidence, even if not compelling evidence.
What could we conclude if George had remained silent from the git-go? Not much, I think. So of course his statements are part of the entirety of the evidence.
Except that Zimmerman made very specific claims. He didn't just say "I was beat up". He said he was punched in the face repeatedly, and repeatedly had his head bashed onto the pavement.
So again, why do you so readily accept his word?
Suppose I discount his word entirely. I don't see how that changes much. You still have the statements from other witnesses, the injuries, the fact that Trayvon and George interacted and there was a fight.
The whole point is there is no evidence to support Zimmerman's claim that he was repeatedly punched in the face, and repeatedly had his head bashed onto the pavement.
If his injuries do not support that contention, then I don't see a way to convince you. If it's the matter of a lack of one-to-one correspondence between "repeatedly" and tearing of the skin, I'd point out that not all contact has to cause injury to the extent of bleeding or even photographic documentation. I simply can't tell how many times (more than one) the guy was hit. I've hit my head before, enough to daze me, without drawing blood.
Zimmerman made the specific claim that he was punched repeatedly in the face, and that he had his head repeatedly bashed onto the pavement.
What evidence supports those claims?
This is getting repetitive. I've seen boxing matches and MMA fights where there was no discernible injuries to the face after repeated punching. He did have more than one small tear on the back of his head. I can't support "repeatedly" by mapping out a series of cuts. I think, much like the term "beat up," we are making rather too much over the word "repeatedly."
I have no trouble accepting that not all blows or contact with the ground/cement/grass would leave a mark. The same is true for his face. Did he get punched each time with a balled fist or with a cloth-covered elbow or the heel of the hand -- I simply don't know. I can imagine lots of possibilities -- for example, a couple of punches to the nose and then one that fractures/doesn't fracture but leaves a cut. How could you tell how many blows were struck, since we only see the final result? Maybe Trayvon punched "girly style" and wasn't very good at it, nor effective.
I'd even agree that George may be exaggerating or misremembering the details. This doesn't hurt his case much, since "fearing for my life" falls under his perceptions of the event, not the exact injuries.
He mentions hitting to the front and the back of his head. There are injuries to the front and the back of his head. It's foolish to draw much more from that. If he had said he was stabbed or shot and there wasn't a cut or a gunshot wound, I can see how the "lack of injuries" argument works. But not here.
