Hi Rare Truth, may I point out a couple things from an earlier post of yours?
Hi, and welcome.
Recall that the apparent result of the tapping of the flashlight, was George coming to the conclusion that it wasn't working. In an interview with Serino, the detective himself acknowledges that he interacted with the same flashlight and found it to be inoperable or nearly so.
As Rare Truth pointed out, that's not accurate. I interpreted Serino as basically agreeing with everything George said to keep him talking. He did that a lot, and I don't think you should put stock in that.
I consider it extremely likely that, upon failing to get it to work or work reliably, George put it in his jacket pocket where it later fell out from.
The jacket pocket where his phone was, because it wasn't in his pocket where he always keeps it? Put a few elements together. He was carrying a key chain, a gun, a phone, and a flashlight. The thing he was carrying at the time of the fight would be the first thing dropped. The flashlight was found by the victim's phone, which a witness describes as sounding as though it were dropped as the fight started. That's quite a coincidence for them to end up right next to each other, 50 feet from where George says the fight started.
Isn't it also possible that (only several hours later, the next day, on VERY little sleep) going back to the location of the even itself jogged George's memory a bit? Remember, he volunteers himself the information "I don't remember exactly... I think... I stumbled, somehow he got on top of me" and walks southward with the detectives as he briefly reenacts the motions of fending someone off. It's not as if the detectives were grilling him about "How'd you get so far south!" and he just pulled something out of nowhere to explain it... he was back at the scene, which I think anyone would agree could be a good way to trigger additional detail in his memory (which is precisely why the police took him there, after all) and he volunteered this himself.
He was very specific about this in two separate interviews and a written statement. In all three of those, he was hit once, went immediately down, then was set upon.
The fact that upon seeing the physical impossibility of what he originally claimed happening he then changed his story isn't "jogging" of memory to me. It's a self serving attempt to lie himself out of a jamb.
What is your explanation of why he didn't mention this the night before in initial interviews with detectives? Is there a more reasonable or logical explanation than that he was struggling to remember the fine details of a very fast, hectic, traumatic event?
He remembered plenty of details. Listen to his statement. He even remembered every bit of dialogue. And he was doing this while listening to his own 311 call. Why didn't that jog his memory?
If George is indeed such a criminal mastermind as a lot of people seem to imply... lying about nearly everything, to hear them tell it (I even saw Unabogie implying George had the presence of mind and wherewithal to instantly plant evidence north at the "T" after the shooting, George "Jason Bourne" Zimmerman apparently...) then I can't help but wonder why he wouldn't also be prepared to lie about how they got so far south during initial interviews?
Hold on here, this is totally off. I never said he planted evidence. What I said was that he was looking for a weapon. We know he thought the victim had one because he said "he's got something in his waistband" before he chased him. Now once he shot him, a witness saw him patting the body down. My guess is he was looking for a weapon and only found that ice tea can. So he got up, no longer with the flashlight in hand (it was dark, so he didn't know where it went), took out his keys, and started looking for something on the ground. The witnesses saw him walk up toward the T where he was arrested. I think that's when and why he dropped the keys. They were in his hand and when cops show up with guns drawn, you drop everything if you don't want to get shot.
If it's no thing to him to lie about it the next day at the scene... why not lie the night before? Why not lie every time he gives his account, and just simply say "Then I stumbled southward and he was grappling with me, and eventually he brought me down." - it seems a very trivial thing for such a supposedly accomplished and thorough liar to do.
He did lie that night. That's his problem and that's why he was charged.Many of the details, such as "circling the car" and doubling back to intimidate George are impossible if you listen to the 311 call. They happen too fast to have occurred where he said they did. I don't think he's a good liar at all. Did you see the stunt he and his wife pulled at the bond hearing? With the code words and the bank transfers? They think they're smarter than they are. That doesn't mean they didn't lie, does it?
I personally consider it a far better explanation to say that this man with a flawed human memory, perhaps a particularly flawed one (what with his ADHD etc) was struggling to remember every detail of those frantic moments.
And we should keep this in mind when Witness 8 is called. Since a flawed human memory can't be expected to get every detail right.
In George's case, every flaw in his memory just coincidentally painted himself in a light that made him look innocent. Like how he mistakenly told the dispatcher he was following the victim and then told Serino how he was not following, just going in the same direction looking for an address which he never noted, never found, and never gave to the dispatcher. Or how he said the dispatcher told him to chase the suspect when the recording shows no such thing. Or how he said he was afraid of the dark when we demonstrated here that his brand of vehicle's lights would have been out when he walked towards Retreat View Circle from his truck, meaning he wasn't afraid of the dark until he used that as an excuse for why the 311 call timeline doesn't match a story of a guy who walked to get an address and then walked back.
I don't think this is flawed memory. I think this is a guy trying to lie about the fact that he chased the "suspect" when he shouldn't have, tried to detain him for the police, which caused the fight. It's not totally wrong, it's just embellished to cut out his actions which he knows will hurt him, while adding dialogue and threatening actions to make the victim seem scarier.
Here's the most likely explanation of all. A slightly paranoid, wannabe cop, with a history of anger and violence issues, and a history of calling the cops on young black kids at the drop of a hat, mistakenly thinks a kid going to the store is up to no good. He calls the cops for no good reason, follows him, gets angry ("*********** punks", "these ******** always get away"), finds him, and the scared kid punches him. He loses his cool and shoots him.
There's nothing extraordinary about any of this, and it fits reality much better than a 17 year kid coming home to watch the Allstar Game who suddenly tries to murder a stranger for no reason at all.
