Do You Think Zimmerman is Guilty?

[Sheik Yerbuti]

We know he started following Martin, we know he said "Ok" when waived off by a dispatcher

He said, "ok." That doesn't mean he stopped looking for Trayvon. The wind noise which could be heard after he stepped out of his car continued even after he said "ok." All "ok" means is that he acknowledged the 911 dispatcher advised his to cut off his search.

we know there is "dead time" in communication, and we know that Zimmerman had injuries consistent with being knocked to the pavement and being hit. We don't know the details in the known dead time, which could be that Martin engaged or that Zimmerman continued to follow, it could have been a verbal altercation that led to any number of details.

That "dead time" lasted about a minute. It wasn't spent with them talking as Martin was on the phone with a friend who said they each asked one question of each other before the confrontation became physical.

And we also know that Zimmerman knew he was going to follow Trayvon as he instructed 911 to pass his cell number to the police so they could call him to find out where he was because he didn't know where his search would take him.

 

[OhIsee.Then]

...
However holders of CCW permits, and I would argue to a lesser extent Neighborhood Watch members must have discretion as well.... Military training is top notch, no argument from me on that, but if that can have it's rare moments of failure I think we can cut a civilian a slight break.

I sure don't communicate well on this thread. Oh well. I can cut a civilian a slight break if he views himself as a civilian and if the law and his 'training' points out that he is a civilian, which apparently it did. But once armed he is a militia member, and the way we run it in the US he is responsible for getting the training. But the training that is necessary takes several days, is expensive and not available everywhere. My issue is not with Z in particular, but with Zs in general; and our culture that says is OK to be a Z without training.

(BTW, all of my military training was poor. Besides basic I went to two tech schools, one 46 week & one 20 week. I could have completed the training on my own in less than 6 weeks. An NCOIC used me and one other to show that we could complete the work scheduled for two weeks in one day, three other times it took us a day to complete a weeks training. I trust that its better now.)

 

[LaMidRighter]

I sure don't communicate well on this thread. Oh well. I can cut a civilian a slight break if he views himself as a civilian and if the law and his 'training' points out that he is a civilian, which apparently it did. But once armed he is a militia member, and the way we run it in the US he is responsible for getting the training. But the training that is necessary takes several days, is expensive and not available everywhere. My issue is not with Z in particular, but with Zs in general; and our culture that says is OK to be a Z without training.

(BTW, all of my military training was poor. Besides basic I went to two tech schools, one 46 week & one 20 week. I could have completed the training on my own in less than 6 weeks. An NCOIC used me and one other to show that we could complete the work scheduled for two weeks in one day, three other times it took us a day to complete a weeks training. I trust that its better now.)

Fair enough here. I don't think anyone should take the law into their own hands, my only issue with the entire topic is that most people seem to be on one side or the other on the issue and are claiming absolutes. There's a lot of dead time in communication and that is what I think needs to be assessed in court. If Z was acting like an officer and confronted M he is liable to a high degree, if he was trying to back off well.........then it gets tricky.

 

[Tucker Case]

from reading your retarded posts on the subject.

Then you failed at reading because nowhere in my retarded posts did I say anything that could be construed as blaming rape victims.

 

[Tucker Case]

I didn't ignore what you wrote; and perhaps this is just semantics, but there is a difference between "he wasn't trained to follow people," with "he was trained not to follow people." The former is ignorance (which is not criminal) whereas the latter is willful neglect (which is).

I wasn't making a comment about it being criminal, however it's not against the law to ignore your training as a neighborhood watch captain.

My point is, and always has been, about the stupidity of his actions. One could argue that it's far more stupid to follow someone when you have been trained to not follow them, but that doesn't negate the stupidity of following someone you suspect to be a criminal when you are not trained to do so.

 

[OhIsee.Then]

Fair enough here. I don't think anyone should take the law into their own hands, my only issue with the entire topic is that most people seem to be on one side or the other on the issue and are claiming absolutes. There's a lot of dead time in communication and that is what I think needs to be assessed in court. If Z was acting like an officer and confronted M he is liable to a high degree, if he was trying to back off well.........then it gets tricky.

Yes, most on one side or the other & claiming absolutes. I've spent my posts arguing against assumptions, e.g. assuming that T started the fight because Z was loosing has no rational. And, it looks like we may never know what happened in the few moments before the shooting. However, again what is being missed is that we are set up for this to happen with some regularity since we think its good to have untrained militia members doing what Z was doing which precipitates stupid shootings. We don't even know how often stupid shootings occure.

 

[LaMidRighter]

Yes, most on one side or the other & claiming absolutes. I've spent my posts arguing against assumptions, e.g. assuming that T started the fight because Z was loosing has no rational. And, it looks like we may never know what happened in the few moments before the shooting. However, again what is being missed is that we are set up for this to happen with some regularity since we think its good to have untrained militia members doing what Z was doing which precipitates stupid shootings. We don't even know how often stupid shootings occure.

Yeah. Defensive is just that, there has to be some kind of threat to address and people who "police" their own neighborhoods can make a mistake if they try to play hero. Obviously it comes down to specific circumstances but there are some bad decisions made about defense.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Someone here is interested. Don't lie.

For shiggles


Joe G. on Myspace

...I can hit my boy up to handle a lil somethin with my sister and he's at my house with his boys on bikes before i hang up with her! They do a year and dont ever open thier mouth to get my ass pinched.


Movies
Fo sho 4 brothers, hustle and flow, crash..... classics?? Scarface, empire, carlito's way, good fellas. Learn from them LM

[emphasis added]

Joe G. | blog on Myspace

Good news???? Bout Damn time!!!!!!!
2 felonies dropped to 1 misdemeanor!!!!!!!!!!! The man knows he was wrong but still got this hump, Thanks to everyone friends and fam, G baby you know your my rock!

 

[sawyerloggingon]

Zimmerman has become the topic of the day like the latest missing woman or child. One out of the hundreds of recent killings, abductions or whatever for people to obsess on, yaaaaaaaaaaawn.

 

[Dezaad]

If Zimmerman's accounts are true then he is innocent. If the liberal accounts of him being some burly overzealous neighborhood watch guy who said racial a racial slur on the phone and stalked, hassled and terrified some kid because of the color of his skin then Zimmerman is guilty. I don't know if he is guilty. But in light of the blatant media deception I am leaning towards thinking he could be innocent.

Even if I take Zimmerman at his word, I think he was guilty of ignorantly setting up the tense situation. He is guilty of frightening a young man into running away, and then frightening him further by pursuing him. No, there is no law against this, but you don't get off scott free when the episode results in the death of said young man, regardless of how that ultimately transpired AFTER you already created the situation.

I cannot get over thinking about how freaked out I would have been at 17 if I had been pursued in such a manner. We know he was freaked out, according to the account of his girlfriend, with whom he was on the phone. Who among us wouldn't consider turning the tables on our pursuer in such a situation?

Zimmerman is guilty, but not of second degree murder. Perhaps not of any law on the books. But guilty, nevertheless.

 

[liblady]

not so much. if the police tell me i don't need to pursue.......i don't. if martin was on the run, was he any danger to zimmerman? so what if he got away, what crime had he committed other than arousing a wannabe cop's psychosis?

 

[LaMidRighter]

not so much. if the police tell me i don't need to pursue.......i don't. if martin was on the run, was he any danger to zimmerman?

First off, Zimmerman gave indication that he was going to back off, he may or may not have. Second, a dispatch officer......and I have been holding back on this for a reason.......doesn't always give the best advice in the situation. There was an incident where a Dispatcher was attempting to get an elderly female homeowner to disarm while her house was being invaded and her granddaughter was screaming. The elderly woman disobeyed and shot the perp once he broke in and took care of it, the police were still "en route". Dispatcher advice is not a substitute for a lawful order or judgement.

so what if he got away, what crime had he committed other than arousing a wannabe cop's psychosis?

Again, during the dead time in the communication it's impossible to say whether Zimmerman or Martin initiated aggression to the point it got violent.

 

[cjgeist]

I think he should be guilty of manslaughter, but not murder. The 911 operator clearly told him to back off, but he didn't. I don't think Zimmerman actually wanted to kill Martin, but he never should have confronted him in the first place.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

I think he should be guilty of manslaughter, but not murder. The 911 operator clearly told him to back off, but he didn't. I don't think Zimmerman actually wanted to kill Martin, but he never should have confronted him in the first place.

Welcome to DP cjgeist.
I see you're just over the border. howdy

 

[ARealConservative]

I think he should be guilty of manslaughter, but not murder. The 911 operator clearly told him to back off, but he didn't. I don't think Zimmerman actually wanted to kill Martin, but he never should have confronted him in the first place.

The 911 operator clearly told him to report on any other activity. How does one do that without keeping him in visual contact?

Your claim that Zimmerman confronted Martin is speculation and nothing more.

 

[Sheik Yerbuti]

The 911 operator clearly told him to report on any other activity. How does one do that without keeping him in visual contact?

Your claim that Zimmerman confronted Martin is speculation and nothing more.

That the same 911 operator told him he didn't need to follow Trayvon is a pretty clear indicator he wanted Zimmerman to report any additional activity that he observed without following Trayvon. That would be along the lines of his neighborhood watch training which instructed him to "observe from a safe location."

 

[ARealConservative]

That the same 911 operator told him he didn't need to follow Trayvon is a pretty clear indicator he wanted Zimmerman to report any additional activity that he observed without following Trayvon. That would be along the lines of his neighborhood watch training which instructed him to "observe from a safe location."

and after he said he didn't need to follow, Zimmerman said ok.

no known evidence indicates Zimmerman intended to confront Trayvon, or that he purposely got close to him.

 

[OscarB63]

and after he said he didn't need to follow, Zimmerman said ok.

no known evidence indicates Zimmerman intended to confront Trayvon, or that he purposely got close to him.

Funny how with zero evidence, all the zimmerman haters are convinced beyond any doubt that zimm stalked, intimidated, confronted and started the fight with martin. While the rest of us are claiming that it is possible martin MAY HAVE been the aggressor.

 

[Sheik Yerbuti]

and after he said he didn't need to follow, Zimmerman said ok.

no known evidence indicates Zimmerman intended to confront Trayvon, or that he purposely got close to him.

"ok" doesn't mean he stopped looking, it only means he acknowledged the 911 dispatcher said he didn't need him to follow. The wind noise in Zimmerman's phone continued even after Zimmerman said "ok." And shortly after that, Zimmerman rejected the idea of waiting for police to arrive at a designated location and instead, asked the 911 dispatcher to have police call him upon their arrival so he could tell them his location. He ended up between two rows of buildings.

One cannot go looking for someone in the dark whom they've lost sight of AND "observe from a safe location."

Zimmerman's actions, IMO, were negligent; and that negligence resulted in a death. Seems like manslaughter to me.

 

[Sheik Yerbuti]

Funny how with zero evidence, all the zimmerman haters are convinced beyond any doubt that zimm stalked, intimidated, confronted and started the fight with martin. While the rest of us are claiming that it is possible martin MAY HAVE been the aggressor.

We know he followed Trayvon. He said so.

911 DISPATCHER: "Are you following him?"

ZIMMERMAN: "Yeah."

 

[Simon W. Moon]

fwiw, iirc

The "let us know if he does anything else," comes early in the conversation, before the "we don't need you to do that."

 

[ARealConservative]

"ok" doesn't mean he stopped looking, it only means he acknowledged the 911 dispatcher said he didn't need him to follow. The wind noise in Zimmerman's phone continued even after Zimmerman said "ok." And shortly after that, Zimmerman rejected the idea of waiting for police to arrive at a designated location and instead, asked the 911 dispatcher to have police call him upon their arrival so he could tell them his location. He ended up between two rows of buildings.

One cannot go looking for someone in the dark whom they've lost sight of AND "observe from a safe location."

Zimmerman's actions, IMO, were negligent; and that negligence resulted in a death. Seems like manslaughter to me.

again, no known evidence exists that Zimmerman continued following Trayvon, or that he intended to confront hm, or even that he did confront him.

not a single fact can be found showing Zimmerman did a single thing wrong.

 

[ARealConservative]

We know he followed Trayvon. He said so.

911 DISPATCHER: "Are you following him?"

ZIMMERMAN: "Yeah."

he said no evidence indicates he stalked, intimidated, confronted, and started a fight. nothing about disagreeing on following.

 

[OscarB63]

We know he followed Trayvon. He said so.

911 DISPATCHER: "Are you following him?"

ZIMMERMAN: "Yeah."

We know that at some point he followed martin.

We also know that he claims to have lost sight of martin. How can you be following someone if you can't see them?

There is no evidence, made public, to show what happened after zimm lost sight of martin, other than his statement that he got out of his vehicle to look for street sign and that martin approached him on his way back to the vehicle. Martin could well have approached from between the two buildings and confronted zimmerman at the point where the walkways met. Fight starts and during the course it moves between the buildings. From the photos I have seen, martin's body was not that far from the point where the two paths met.

It is possible that zimmerman is telling the truth. :shrug:

 

[Sheik Yerbuti]

again, no known evidence exists that Zimmerman continued following Trayvon, or that he intended to confront hm, or even that he did confront him.

I don't know how many times I need to say this, buuuut .... that the fight occurred between two rows of buildings, away from Zimmerman's car, is proof that Zimmerman continued following Trayvon.

not a single fact can be found showing Zimmerman did a single thing wrong.

He did not observe from a safe location. That was wrong. How come I can find something wrong he did but you can't?