• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Merged Continuation Part 2: Discussion of the George Zimmerman case

TM asked, "why are you following me" before any punches were thrown which rules out a sneak attack.

The gun had to be out before GZ claims his head was being bashed in, it's not possible GZ pulled it out given the circumstances he described.

A) No it doesn't. How did he say it? Was he weeping and pleading?

B) The thing about humans is they are able to move at the shoulders and elbows and wrists and hips and along their spines. Also flesh is soft and pliable. Even with someone sitting on top of you, you should still be able to force your hand between their body and yours. Or, wait for it...maybe he reached over and around Trayvon's leg to reach his waist.
 
He also screwed up getting the other two ingredient. Drank is typically made with an ounce of cough syrup mixed with Sprite or a sports drink and a Jolly Rancher candy dissolved in for color. Skittles would not dissolve properly.

None of this really matters to the audience of right wing web sites were this story is being circulated.

Can anybody see the operative word there? "typically". Not "always" or "must be" just "typically". Innovative teenagers would never dare to alter a drug cocktail to suit their tastes.
 
What's really bizarre are people trying to argue that drugs have no effect when they're not being used. I've known plenty of people whose only two moods are "high" and "cranky because they're not high". And of those two, "high" is the much more pleasant.
 
It's gated and Martin came through the gate. Was there a security person on-duty? (I'm asking, I don't know.) Did they stop him?

This happened at seven-thirty on a weekday evening. Were there any other motorists present? Did any of them call the police when they saw Martin?

He did not come thru the gate. He came through a cut through between some houses.

Feb 26 2012 was a Sunday. It was raining. There appears to have been no other traffic.
 
Btw, I have to look for this quote, but someone with the Sanford PD said the night of the shooting the lead investigator wanted to charge Zimmerman with murder. Why? Because he didn't believe his story. But in Florida all arrests have to be vetted by a state attorney. The SA did not feel the circumstances justified the charge.

None of that is really true. Chris Serino testified that he was pressured by a group of SPD supervisors to recommend a charge. He also testifies that he believed Zimmerman's account as a whole, that he thought Zimmerman had juiced the number of times that he was struck, that this was fairly typical of victims of assault and none of Zimmerman's inconsistencies or nothing in the physical evidence gave him any real concern that Zimmerman was being untruthful. In fact, the state even filed a pre-trial motion naming Serino by title to prohibit him from giving an opinion on whether or not Zimmerman should have been charged.

Det. Chris Serino, SPD (Day 1) [1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7]

Det. Chris Serino, SPD (Day 2) [1 - 2 - 3 - 4]

During trial, the state also filed an oral motion to strike Serino's statement that he believed Zimmerman was telling the truth.



Looking back, there's a fairly well-documented narrative of the SPD decision tree. Zimmerman was taken into custody at the scene and transported to SPD to be interviewed by Doris Singleton. At that point, they had a hold on Zimmerman - he was not free to leave. Singleton conducted two interviews with Zimmerman and the CVSA examiner conducted two. Between Singleton and Serino, it was decided that his story matched the evidence and the witness statements and they didn't have probable cause. During the interim, SPD had collected Zimmerman's clothing, firearm, fingerprints and buccal swabs. At some point, Serino decided to consult with the ASA on call (can't remember his name) at which point it was decided to release Zimmerman.

SPD continued its investigation, and held meetings with the Major Crime Unit and command staff. During those meetings there was general agreement that no evidence existed to charge Zimmerman until almost three weeks later when suddenly SGT Randy Smith spoke up. At that point the 18th Judicial District State Attorney Norm Wolfinger agreed to convene a grand jury. Before the grand jury could be seated, Florida Governor Rick Scott appointed the 4th District State Attorney Angela Corey as special prosecutor and Zimmerman was charged by information.
 
Yes, a story inconsistent with the evidence normally counts against a defendant, doesn't it.

Yes. But presumably, you would have us believe this case is different from all those others you mentioned in which cooperation failed to convince the authorities of the innocence of the presumably convicted cooperative perps?

Well, it's obviously different in one way. Zimmerman was aquitted. So it's down to understanding what accounts for that difference.

Obviously there cannot be a logical, simple answer to that difference, right? Especially now that Jesse Jackson has called for a UN investigation.

So the answer must be extremely illogical, convoluted, and racially charged.

Curious how, in Zimmergun's case, his supporters co-opt it as a sign of truthfulness. Inconsistent, indeed.
.
.

1. I don't know what you're talking about.

2. I'm not supporting Zimmerman. I support the jury's verdict.

3. I haven't seen anyone else around here supporting Zimmerman either.
 
The gun had to be out before GZ claims his head was being bashed in, it's not possible GZ pulled it out given the circumstances he described.

So what position did OFC Smith assert Zimmerman's firearm and holster were in when Zimmerman was taken into custody?
 
He refers to a search of Trayvon Martin's school locker as finding a "burglary tool" -- it was a screwdriver -- and "several pieces of stolen property."

....
Claimed by TM to belong to a friend, who strangely enough, never went to the school resource officer to collect his belongings. I wonder why ? :rolleyes:

First, you're implying it was stolen. Whittle states as a fact it was stolen.

Second, why didn't the friend claim it? You're implying because it was stolen, correct? That's a possibility. There are other explanations, though none work as well for Bill Whittle's purposes, that much is very clear.


Then Whittle goes on to say that, "incredibly," school officials decided to list the stolen property as "found property" since they didn't want to do anything that would "reflect badly on black crime rates in the school system." And how does Bill Whittle know that? He doesn't say.

....
Because it is a widely known story. And the M-D School Police officers admitted to that. See, for example, page 87
http://www.scribd.com/doc/135564937/Sergeant-William-Tagle-Internal-Affairs-Investigative-Report

There is nothing on page 87 stating the property was listed as found instead of stolen because it would "reflect badly on black crime rates in the school system." I'm not going to read through all 106 pages of the report but it seems to be about school officials trying to reduce disciplinary problems by under-reporting them. First, does the Miami-Dade school system even track crime by race? Second, government agencies are notorious for tweaking stats.

Several years ago the New York City Transit system got in trouble in a similar way. They had been under-fire for excessive train delays, then the on-time rate improved quite a bit. The IG discovered many dispatchers were showing trains "arrived final terminal" when they were still a couple stations away. Now Bill Whittle could probably come up with a nefarious reason for this -- there are many minority transit employees, that might be one avenue he could take -- but it's mostly CYA.

But in the case of the jewelry found in Martin's locker I would suggest to you they didn't list it as stolen for the simple fact they could not prove it was stolen.

The report said the jewelry was confiscated and a photo of it was sent to Miami-Dade Police burglary detectives....Miami-Dade Police confirmed that it had been asked by school police to help identify the property taken from Martin’s backpack. It notified school police that the jewelry did not match any that had been reported stolen.
Link

Here is a link to a screen shot of TM facebook page, looking for codeine. You can just hand-wave it away as a fake if you want.

This seems to be a big problem among high school students, I can easily believe it. Unless....

Are you suggesting it's fake? It could be, I really don't know how to tell.
 
It's gated and Martin came through the gate. Was there a security person on-duty? (I'm asking, I don't know.) Did they stop him?


Is there some evidence of this that I missed? George claims that Trayvon entered between the houses at the NW corner of the complex. I believe that Rachael also ssays that because it was raining Trayvon chose to go through the neighborhood instead of following the road.

The two adjacent neighborhoods do not connect but it is a short trek across the grass and through a 20' easement between the housing units to get from the eastern most parking area if the first onto Retrete View Circle. At the time, this was not fenced and while the next easement to the north appears to be posted, I could see no posting on this one.

I have seen no mention of guards at the entrance (nore a guard house). The gates are electronically operated and at the time they had been left open. There are video cameras at the entrance but aparently these were not operating. Video cameras within the clubhouse cought some headlights and shadows but I have not tried to analized these yet.
 
Snip...

I realize it does no good to tell people that if you assume either of these scenarios could equally be true, the evidence still convicts GZ.

You do realize that an actual trial has happened and now that it's over Zimmerman has been found not guilty by reason of self-defense right? You're argument is based upon facts only in your head and not in the record. Don't you think that f there was any evidence such as you imagine that the prosecution would have brought it up at some point? Have you wondered why this didn't happen?

There is zero evidence of racism in Zimmerman's past. None whatsoever. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary however. From mentoring young black children (actual children and not a 17 year old) to being a community organizer over a homeless black man being beaten after that beating was being glossed over by SPD. Spending his Sundays passing out flyers and getting people involved in their churches over it.

Stop drinking the media's Kool-Ade. You have been lied to repeatedly by them, all of them. From Fox to NPR. They all have gotten the basic facts dead wrong even after the trial was over where all of the lies, rumors and exaggerations should have been laid to rest once and for all. I don't know if it's laziness, being afraid to go against the false narrative that they had been pushing before the trial or what but they have done it and are still doing it the last time that I looked.
 
I don't recall seeing this mentioned in this thread yet, but marijuana wasn't the only drug Martin was abusing. In particular, it appears that Martin was abusing a drug cocktail called "lean", one variant of which is skittles, Arizona Watermelon fruit juice cocktail, and Robitussin DM. And Martin had two of those three ingredients on him at the time of his death (no, it wasn't iced tea, despite the commonly repeated claim that it was). The active ingredient in lean is DXM, and DXM abuse can potentially lead to serious problems, including antisocial behavior, paranoia, violence, and even psychotic breaks. Oh, and liver damage. Which Martin had.



That story was debunked several months ago in the original thread.

Here's a hint, if your link goes to TCT, it's very likely been debunked and quite probably proven to be racist.
 
(replying to discussion of facts in this case from another thread)

True. The point is GZ started the ball rolling.


No - because no reasonable person would have responded the way TM did. *You can't blame people engaged in lawful behavior for other peoples criminal and extreme overreaction.


Only two people were witness to the full interaction between George and Trayvon that night. George killed the other one and anything he says can be presumed to be self serving.

We can hypothesize an alternate scenario that is consistent with the known evidence. Continuing from my earlier post where I looked at the wind noise as George crossed The cut-through to Retreat view circle, George says he is looking for a street sign. Anyone that lives and drives in that neighborhood would know that the street signes are at the intersections of the roads and the nearest intersection is to the south. George is still on the phone as he is walking south along RVC where there are many nearby hiding places where someone could overhear as he starts to give out his home address. George asks the operator to have the officer call him. By the time the NEN call ends, George would be nearing the intsection. There he would read the street sign so he would have a reference to tell the officer where he was and he would look around for the suspect.

From there, George would begin returning to his truck. If he retraces his steps on RVC or stays on Twin Trees Lane there would never have been an encounter so we can presume that George walks back on the path between the houses.

Trayvon who had run East from the Mailboxes and into the cut-through turned south at the tee and once out of sight stopped to catch his breath. He is near his father's house and if he sees the stranger comming down the path he can easily run home. He continues his talk with Rachael as he watches the path to the north.

Trayvon tells Rachael "now he's behind me". While Trayvon had been watching the path to the north, George had circled around and was comming up the path from the South cutting off Trayvon's retreat home. As George approaches Trayvon asks "why are you following me" and George demands: "what are you doing here?" Rachael tells Trayvon to run. Trayvon says he is not going to run, that he is going to walk fast. George runs and catches Trayvon, grabbing him from behind and Rachael hears the bump as Trayvon's headset is dislodged. With George on his back, Trayvon says "get off, get off" and swings from side to side trying to dislodge the unwanted passenger. The swinging throws Trayvon's cell phone from his pocket and Trayvon gets his arms free and swings his elbows towards George's head. The blows land and George is thrown backwards landing his head on the hard concrete.

The ground fight is uneventful. Trayvon sits on top of George and controls George's arms so he cannot try to punch him. Trayvon would call for help but George is already doing that. Finally a resident comes out saying "cut that out, I'm calling 911". This is Trayvon's cue that the fight is over so Trayvon releases George and begins to get up.

So, that is my reading of what could have happened. A 17 year old kid minding his own business, walking home from the store, talking to his girl on the phone. And a hothead packing a pistol out to stop those ******** that always get away. Trayvon did absolutely nothing wrong. He tried to avoid conflict by running, talking and walking away and when assaulted he returned a measured response to stop the assault and waited for help to defuse the situation. George on the other hand did everything to escalate the situation. He followed, chased, continued to hunt, demanded, physically attacked and in the end drew his pistol and fataly shot Trayvon.


Until you can prove that it didn't happen this way, your claim that Trayvon was at fault is unfounded.
 
That's it, in a nutshell

...The way I see people's view of this case, they are defending the right of GZ to shoot someone who punched him. That fits with the gun culture that permeates people siding with GZ...

You've hit the nail on the head. And since, generally, Americans like guns more than they like blacks, it was inevitable an essentially all white jury was not going to hold Zimmergun accountable for the killing. Even though they should have.

Different relative circumstances, different relative participants, obviously it's possible shooting someone who's punched you (or, for that matter, not so much as physically laid a hand on you) could be justified.
.
.
 
It's called demonizing the victim. The same tactic as bringing up a rape victim's sexual exploits so the people start thinking of her as a slut.

The latest claim about LEAN is completely bogus, but will play well with the crowd that still believes that Obama was born in Kenya.
There have been a ton of absurd claims about TM, but conversely what's often happened is that when ever facts about TM are brought into this case, those who would attempt to bring them in get demonized for having done so and accused of blaming the victim.

Also, here's the difference with regard to your analogy. How many men a rape victim has slept with should be irrelevant because it has 0 relevance to her being raped. On the other hand, if a woman could be shown to have a history of having made bogus rape claims, well that would be relevant and not "blaming the victim".

In this case we know that TM liked to fight, that he liked to "make people bleed". That's seems relevant to analyzing and understanding what might have happened. The jury didn't get to see it because of a questionable ruling on the part of the judge, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

I do acknowledge that what should and shouldn't be admissible in court is really tricky. And it's easy for bias to cause us to put great importance on one persons past behavior while minimizing the importance of another persons past behavior. I think we've seen that from both sides here.
 
Can anybody see the operative word there? "typically". Not "always" or "must be" just "typically". Innovative teenagers would never dare to alter a drug cocktail to suit their tastes.

Trayvon had none of the ingredients for this drug cocktail, but still you are arguing that he intended to make it.

You may as well be arguing that Trayvon intended to make heroin when he got home.
 
Yes. But presumably, you would have us believe this case is different from all those others you mentioned in which cooperation failed to convince the authorities of the innocence of the presumably convicted cooperative perps?

Well, it's obviously different in one way. Zimmerman was aquitted. So it's down to understanding what accounts for that difference.

Obviously there cannot be a logical, simple answer to that difference, right? Especially now that Jesse Jackson has called for a UN investigation.

So the answer must be extremely illogical, convoluted, and racially charged.



1. I don't know what you're talking about.

2. I'm not supporting Zimmerman. I support the jury's verdict.

3. I haven't seen anyone else around here supporting Zimmerman either.

I have supported George Zimmerman from the get go.
 
<Snip>
Until you can prove that it didn't happen this way, your claim that Trayvon was at fault is unfounded.

Leaving out the previous fantasy scenario that appears to bear very little relationship to the evidence, I think you'll find that you're attempting to shift the burden of proof.
If you think that this is what happened, then you need to support it with evidence.
 
<snip>

Trayvon tells Rachael "now he's behind me". While Trayvon had been watching the path to the north, George had circled around and was comming up the path from the South cutting off Trayvon's retreat home. As George approaches Trayvon asks "why are you following me" and George demands: "what are you doing here?" Rachael tells Trayvon to run. Trayvon says he is not going to run, that he is going to walk fast. George runs and catches Trayvon, grabbing him from behind and Rachael hears the bump as Trayvon's headset is dislodged. With George on his back, Trayvon says "get off, get off" and swings from side to side trying to dislodge the unwanted passenger. The swinging throws Trayvon's cell phone from his pocket and Trayvon gets his arms free and swings his elbows towards George's head. The blows land and George is thrown backwards landing his head on the hard concrete.

The ground fight is uneventful. Trayvon sits on top of George and controls George's arms so he cannot try to punch him. Trayvon would call for help but George is already doing that. Finally a resident comes out saying "cut that out, I'm calling 911". This is Trayvon's cue that the fight is over so Trayvon releases George and begins to get up....

It's possible that's what happened. The conversation is exactly as the witness described it.

There is evidence that Zimmerman had anger issues:

“Usually he was just a cool guy,” the former co-worker explained. “He liked to drink and hang with the women like the rest of us. … But it was like Jekyll and Hyde. When the dude snapped, he snapped...He had a temper and he became a liability,” he recalled. “One time this woman was acting a little out of control. She was drunk. George lost his cool and totally overreacted.…It was weird, because he was such a cool guy, but he got all nuts. He picked her up and threw her. It was pure rage. She twisted her ankle. Everyone was flipping out."
Link

The problem is the jury didn't have enough (any?) evidence to determine what happened in the last few minutes. Zimmerman survived and gave his version. Martin died and thus could not give his version. Zimmerman had visible injuries. He had a plausible account. In those circumstances the jury has little choice other than to accept the evidence that exists and find Not Guilty.

I don't have a problem with the jury verdict. I accept it. I just think we'll never really know what happened in the last few minutes.
 
Last edited:
Leaving out the previous fantasy scenario that appears to bear very little relationship to the evidence, I think you'll find that you're attempting to shift the burden of proof.
If you think that this is what happened, then you need to support it with evidence.

George claimed that he walked straight across the T, then walked back. The noises on the tape are more consistent with him running. He claimed to have walked straight back, but the recording shows he took an immense amount of time to cover that short distance. He claims that Trayvon jumped him at the T, but we know that Trayvon was on the phone when the fight began and that phone was found about 50 feet south of the T and a fair distance south of Trayvon's body. George said that Trayvon slammed his head against the sidewalk time after time, but George's injuries are too minor for that to be the case.

Dan's proposal for what happened fits the evidence a lot better than George's story.
 

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom