Continuation: Discussion of the George Zimmerman case

[batvette]

Again, you've obviously solved this case and you know all the details. Be sure to contact MO'M on Monday and tell him what you know to be the facts. Amazing he hasn't figured these things out for himself.

Snarky sarcasm is not a credible argument. You did say my version of events was not true, and I believe I provided sufficient evidence that it is. If there was anything else in that post you need clarification upon or would like me to direct you to information about, please specify what it is.

I don't know all the details. I know enough about them to make the statements I did. You are free to disagree, but if you are going to call them untrue you need to document how they are not.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

Great post.

ETA: This is the same reason any chance of a successful run at an immunity hearing is essentially nil in this trial as well.

Agreed.

When people act like it's a "conspiracy" I think that's giving it too much credit. I think it's a series of cowardly buck-passings and justifying to yourself "well the jury will let him off anyway..." etc...

 

[KatieG]

Snarky sarcasm is not a credible argument. You did say my version of events was not true, and I believe I provided sufficient evidence that it is. If there was anything else in that post you need clarification upon or would like me to direct you to information about, please specify what it is.

I don't know all the details. I know enough about them to make the statements I did. You are free to disagree, but if you are going to call them untrue you need to document how they are not.

You provided a link to an article. You announced your opinions as facts. I assumed you'd solved the case.

The details you claim you don't know are very important. This is the second thread on this subject, and both are filled with cogent arguments from sides indicating there are still questions about what happened that night. If you'd like to go back and read through the first thread and this one, you'll see what's been posted.

 

[batvette]

Agreed.

When people act like it's a "conspiracy" I think that's giving it too much credit. I think it's a series of cowardly buck-passings and justifying to yourself "well the jury will let him off anyway..." etc...

Exactly. It's a mistake to assume District Attorneys/Prosecutors are anything but politicians or are in the making to be. And their marching orders are handed to them by politicians. Truth or justice or even pursuing charges only if they believe they will win, are far outside of their true intentions.
I think their biggest fear at the time was escalation of public unrest to the point of rioting in Miami like we saw in Los Angeles. (though I hear Miami is better prepared, or cannot isolate it away from affluent neighborhoods so would act more effectively. They circled south central and let it burn)
No doubt they'd rather crucify Zimmerman than have to deal with that. In the end they probably won't even do that, they know by the time the legal system does its thing and Zimmerman walks, the anger will have subsided.
Zimmerman will still need plastic surgery, a new identity or move to Fiji.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

they know by the time the legal system does its thing and Zimmerman walks, the anger will have subsided.

I personally think that if a not guilty verdict comes down, particularly from a majority white jury, or if Nelson declares immunity at any point during the trial (which I don't credit her with the courage to do) riots will still happen, and I believe they will likely happen nationwide. Not just Miami.

I doubt any single riot will be on the scale of the LA '92 riots, but I think they'll be pretty large and in most major cities.

Despite the time which has passed...

I could be wrong, let's hope I am.

 

[batvette]

You provided a link to an article. You announced your opinions as facts. I assumed you'd solved the case.

The details you claim you don't know are very important. This is the second thread on this subject, and both are filled with cogent arguments from sides indicating there are still questions about what happened that night. If you'd like to go back and read through the first thread and this one, you'll see what's been posted.

Let's get in the way back machine and travel to where you said my version of this was not true.
The most specific of my statements, I believe, is that:

Zimmerman committed no crime before the possible crime of discharging his weapon.

Martin clearly committed a crime of assault and battery upon Zimmerman, which we can verify by witness as factual.

Which if unimpeached will IMO justify Zimmerman's actions.

The law will steer the jury to look at legal issues, about events that can be confirmed by evidence.

Your statement "you provided a link to an article" does indicate, if I have any experience with this internet stuff, that you may have gone to the article, seen something which confronts your own position as in error, and soundly rejected it. Which is why you don't now return to your "your version is not true" position.

I can lead a horse to water...

 

[Dan O.]

Zimmerman will still need plastic surgery, a new identity or move to Fiji.

You should check your facts first. Concealed carry is prohibited in Figi. If George could so easily give up his alter-manhood, he'd admit his mistake and plea for a short prison sentence.

 

[batvette]

I personally think that if a not guilty verdict comes down, particularly from a majority white jury, or if Nelson declares immunity at any point during the trial (which I don't credit her with the courage to do) riots will still happen, and I believe they will likely happen nationwide. Not just Miami.

I doubt any single riot will be on the scale of the LA '92 riots, but I think they'll be pretty large and in most major cities.

Despite the time which has passed...

I could be wrong, let's hope I am.

We would hope those planning on doing so would look at the results for South Central. I live in San Diego and happened to be in downtown LA on the second day, in a truck picking up furniture from a factory. The owner of the company I worked for drove that day, being somewhat of a cowboy he wore chammies and carried a .45 in a belt holster. At the factory they were walking around with rifles. (the riots were a few miles away)
I drove through South Central about 5 years later, end to end one Sunday, from the 10 all the way through Compton to the 405. I got lost, but knew more or less where I was. I was driving this:

So even though I was alone I wasn't afraid. It's a Cadillac, two thumbs up.
Anyway it was depressing as hell. Nothing to steal, everything is either chained down or surrounded by iron fence- the kind you get impaled on trying to climb. Police patrolling the outer few blocks, once inside nary a one. No opportunity, hardly any stores.

They only hurt themselves.

 

[KatieG]

Let's get in the way back machine and travel to where you said my version of this was not true.
The most specific of my statements, I believe, is that:

Zimmerman committed no crime before the possible crime of discharging his weapon.
Martin clearly committed a crime of assault and battery upon Zimmerman, which we can verify by witness as factual. Which if unimpeached will IMO justify Zimmerman's actions.

The law will steer the jury to look at legal issues, about events that can be confirmed by evidence.

Your statement "you provided a link to an article" does indicate, if I have any experience with this internet stuff, that you may have gone to the article, seen something which confronts your own position as in error, and soundly rejected it. Which is why you don't now return to your "your version is not true" position.

I can lead a horse to water...

Speculation, not proven. He didn't just discharge his weapon, he shot an unarmed teen straight on in the heart. Impossible to do from a prone position.

None of the witnesses are 100% certain of what they saw. Not one of them saw the fight from start to finish.

I've read almost all the articles on this so the link you provided was not new. Pretty rude of you to speculate on what I may or may not do in regards to reading links provided.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

We would hope those planning on doing so would look at the results for South Central.

Most of the people who would participate have no idea they will, and aren't planning anything. They'll be the people who paid attention (kind of) early on when the fact-challenged narrative was being pumped relentlessly by the entire media, and who haven't heard much of the evidence which has come out since then... the only other time they'll pay real attention is the verdict.

There are a lot of people in the world who just aren't exposed to a lot of news, and something has to rise to a pretty significant level before they get wind of it. The initial coverage did, and the verdict will. Nothing in between.

as for learning from the example of what became of South Central? Heh, I admire your wish on that... but anyone thoughtful enough to reflect in the way you describe, wouldn't be the type to riot.

 

[batvette]

You should check your facts first. Concealed carry is prohibited in Figi. If George could so easily give up his alter-manhood, he'd admit his mistake and plea for a short prison sentence.

But not in Florida with a permit, which Zimmerman had- and carried on advice from a police officer in case of attack by a mean pit bull in his neighborhood.

You seem to have a lot of contempt for Zimmerman. I think if he'd been your neighbor things would be different.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.




"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits...

..By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

There's a lot more in that article you may not like to hear.

It portrays George as less than a monster.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

Was Zimmerman so wrong to follow a black male teen in his neighborhood he didn't recognize?

I think there were a lot of people also at fault here, namely Trayvon's peers who were terrorizing the neighborhood, Martin's father and his girlfriend, who were seemingly unaware of this and what it might mean to allow this kid- who should have by all rights been grounded anyway- wander around in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night, wearing a hoodie.

 

[Dan O.]

I don't think so. I did ask you to present any evidence that Zimmerman's actions were unlawful before Martin's.

What do you have?

Observing Martin was not a crime.

Following Martin to keep him in view for the police was not a crime.

We don't have any evidence to point either way about how the fight started.

We have evidence Martin was assaulting and battering Zimmerman.

So let's go back again. What do you have and what was Zimmerman's criminal activity before he was being beaten and feared for his life?

Are you discarding witness 8 and the debris field?
Are you ignoring the lack of defensive wounds on Zimmerman's hands and arms?
Are you ignoring the lack of wounds on Trayvon to show that he was in an extended even if one sided fight?
Are you disregarding the significance of there being an adult present that verbally broke up the fight?

I've already posted my theory of what happened. I tried not to leave anything out. You could scroll back to find it. Or, you could ante up your own version.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

he shot an unarmed teen straight on in the heart. Impossible to do from a prone position.

 

[KatieG]

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/gTYiRil.gif[/qimg]

The arm in that .gif is never straight enough to account for the lack of angle in the bullet path. The bullet traveled from front to back with no angle at all. Not possible in a prone position.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

lack of defensive wounds on Zimmerman's hands and arms?

"Probably cause you had long sleeves on. I mean, that’s what I’m thinking. I can write that up pretty easy." - Detective Serino

 

[Skeptic Tank]

The arm in that .gif is never straight enough to account for the lack of angle in the bullet path. The bullet traveled from front to back with no angle at all. Not possible in a prone position.

The arm doesn't need to be straight for the path to be, only the barrel and Trayvon's chest need to have been lined up with one another. As you can see in that .gif, that is possible even if GZ's arm was bent.

 

[lionking]

I think there were a lot of people also at fault here, namely Trayvon's peers who were terrorizing the neighborhood, Martin's father and his girlfriend, who were seemingly unaware of this and what it might mean to allow this kid- who should have by all rights been grounded anyway- wander around in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night, wearing a hoodie.

I've seen a lot of victim blaming in this and other threads, but this takes the cake.

Evidence that TM's "peers" were "terrorising the neighbourhood". And TM's Dad is at fault for not grounding him? At his age?

Just curious, do you have children?

 

[KatieG]

I've seen a lot of victim blaming in this and other threads, but this takes the cake.

Evidence that TM's "peers" were "terrorising the neighbourhood". And TM's Dad is at fault for not grounding him? At his age?

Just curious, do you have children?

Agreed. Not sure who the "peers" are in the neighborhood, or even any evidence that the young black males GZ spotted lived there.

 

[batvette]

Speculation, not proven. He didn't just discharge his weapon, he shot an unarmed teen straight on in the heart. Impossible to do from a prone position.

None of the witnesses are 100% certain of what they saw. Not one of them saw the fight from start to finish.

I've read almost all the articles on this so the link you provided was not new. Pretty rude of you to speculate on what I may or may not do in regards to reading links provided.

I didn't see where you provided evidence Zimmerman committed a crime before being beaten by Martin.

I didn't see you refute that the witness clearly described what he saw, the crime committed by Martin.

I did see you try to introduce ambiguity about how the fight began.

This has little bearing on the facts we know and do not refute the fact Martin's actions were unlawful and can be verified.

As for rude well you provided zero commentary on the article content so I was left to assume you saw nothing of interest within.

Was it an article you read that leads you to claim the utterly absurd notion that it is impossible to shoot someone in the heart from a prone position?

And about that unarmed teen, thing... you might want to read the history books. Murders happened before guns were invented. People can hurt you with their bare hands. Did you see the photos of Zimmerman? He's battered. Husbands are jailed for doing that to their wives all the time. Martin had no right to do that to Zimmerman, not by the law.
Funny thing, the autopsy report ONLY reports a gunshot wound to Martin. No broken nose, no cuts on the back of his head, no fat lip.
Does this sound like a fight, or like Martin opening up a can of whoopass- ghetto justice- for the "offense" or disrespect, of being followed by George?

Trayvon Martin had been either a running back or an end on his football team, judging by the number on his jersey. In an inner city school the competition for a slot on a football team is intense. He would have been in the top couple of percentile in speed among his peers.

Zimmerman was a couch potato of partly Peruvian descent. Do you know how many Olympic medals Peru has won in the track and field events in the summer games, ever?
None, not in over 100 years. In fact I believe the only medals in the summer games they ever won was one in volleyball and three in shooting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru_at_the_Olympics

Amazing isn't it. Trayvon Martin could have run circles around George Zimmerman. And probably beaten him to a pulp in seconds.

Please spare us the "unarmed teen" stuff. He was old enough to join the military. I joined the military at 17, coincidentally.

That was the year I pinned my dad against the wall and told him he wasn't going to hit me any more. You should have seen his shock, he was a real "spare the rod, spoil the child" parent who always warmed up with a few beers first. I was packing my bags for boot camp a month later, at his insistence. Any of the guys on my high school's football team, like Martin? They could have broken him in two.

I expect most of this to fly right by you, but do expect Zimmerman's jury will include people who think like you, and people who think like me.

And will need all to find him guilty for a conviction. So you might want to start getting the hankies out for your side.

 

[Dan O.]

You seem to have a lot of contempt for Zimmerman. I think if he'd been your neighbor things would be different.

Are you talking about the same George Zimmerman that took a "*********** ******** always get away" attitude because a kid he didn't know was walking through HIS neighborhood?