Unarmed teen shooting: Is Florida law to blame?

[Warren Dew]

"made nigga"

What the heck does that mean, anyway?

[Coito ergo sum]

A reenactment?

[FBM]

Little Trayvon was a young thug who got exactly what he deserved, a bullet. That is what all the evidence is pointing at. He attacked and tackled Zimmerman as evidence by the grass stains and head injury. Though you can't prove from the evidence that Trayvon went for Zimmerman's gun, it does follow that after tackling him he could have tried for it.

So here Mr. Zimmerman , thank you for making Florida just a little bit safer from the "made nigga" element.

Well, that is one of the most vile, hate-filled and downright sick pieces of racist invective that I've ever had the displeasure to read on the Internet, and that's saying something.

I'm about 99.9% sure that Ty had tongue fully in cheek there....

[Tyrannical]

"made nigga"

What the heck does that mean, anyway?

I'm thinking "made" as in the mafia sense so he was advertising himself as a criminal. His parents probably should have taken his facebook pictures down

Li'll Trayvon was a six foot two football player and was currently under a five day school suspension, a few more things the media likes to forget to mention. I wonder what that innocent little angel was suspended five days for I guess we'll have to wait and see since his family's lawyer are locking down his school records

[Seabass]

Little Trayvon was a young thug who got exactly what he deserved, a bullet. That is what all the evidence is pointing at. He attacked and tackled Zimmerman as evidence by the grass stains and head injury. Though you can't prove from the evidence that Trayvon went for Zimmerman's gun, it does follow that after tackling him he could have tried for it.

So here Mr. Zimmerman , thank you for making Florida just a little bit safer from the "made nigga" element.

Well, that is one of the most vile, hate-filled and downright sick pieces of racist invective that I've ever had the displeasure to read on the Internet, and that's saying something.

I'm about 99.9% sure that Ty had tongue fully in cheek there....

Lol, really? You must not have been a member of Ratskep or the Richard Dawkins forum. I'm pretty sure he's an actual, honest to god, dyed in the wool racist.

[FBM]

Little Trayvon was a young thug who got exactly what he deserved, a bullet. That is what all the evidence is pointing at. He attacked and tackled Zimmerman as evidence by the grass stains and head injury. Though you can't prove from the evidence that Trayvon went for Zimmerman's gun, it does follow that after tackling him he could have tried for it.

So here Mr. Zimmerman , thank you for making Florida just a little bit safer from the "made nigga" element.

Well, that is one of the most vile, hate-filled and downright sick pieces of racist invective that I've ever had the displeasure to read on the Internet, and that's saying something.

I'm about 99.9% sure that Ty had tongue fully in cheek there....

Lol, really? You must not have been a member of Ratskep or the Richard Dawkins forum. I'm pretty sure he's an actual, honest to god, dyed in the wool racist.

I am/was a member of both, but I don't remember interacting with Tyrannical at either place. I was basing that on a statement that he made on this forum in another thread a while back about rarely ever being serious. I hope he's not really as racist as that post sounds.

Anyway, looks like Trayvon was 6'3", but only 140 lbs. The 6'3" part would be hard to miss even at night, and would be pretty intimidating. The 140 lb part would be easy to miss at night, especially since Trayvon was wearing a hoodie.

As the controversy grows, so does the number of voices disputing the official version that watch captain George Zimmerman gave to police: that the 6-foot, 3-inch, 140-pound teen assaulted him when Zimmerman, 28, tried to question him. In fear for his life, he pulled Kel Tek .9mm handgun from his waistband and shot.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/sfl ... 1920.story

I'm not claiming to know what happened there, I'm just generally suspicious when the public reaches a conclusion so quickly with such scant evidence. If Zimmerman's guilty, he should be held accountable, but he shouldn't be convicted without a trial.

[Tyrannical]

Little Trayvon was a young thug who got exactly what he deserved, a bullet. That is what all the evidence is pointing at. He attacked and tackled Zimmerman as evidence by the grass stains and head injury. Though you can't prove from the evidence that Trayvon went for Zimmerman's gun, it does follow that after tackling him he could have tried for it.

So here Mr. Zimmerman , thank you for making Florida just a little bit safer from the "made nigga" element.

Well, that is one of the most vile, hate-filled and downright sick pieces of racist invective that I've ever had the displeasure to read on the Internet, and that's saying something.

I'm about 99.9% sure that Ty had tongue fully in cheek there....

Lol, really? You must not have been a member of Ratskep or the Richard Dawkins forum. I'm pretty sure he's an actual, honest to god, dyed in the wool racist.

Sheesh, Trayvon captioned his own picture as a "made nigga"
But I am honest, and honesty insists on racism as statistical evidence demonstrates that belief to be correct.

[FBM]

I guess I'm wearing orthopedic shoes today. I stand corrected.

[mistermack]

I'm not claiming to know what happened there, I'm just generally suspicious when the public reaches a conclusion so quickly with such scant evidence. If Zimmerman's guilty, he should be held accountable, but he shouldn't be convicted without a trial.

I think you're missing the point here. The truth is quite the reverse.
He seems to have been acquitted without a trial by the police. In fact, acquitted without a proper investigation.

There is very little dispute about the killing. Zimmerman had the gun, the kid was unarmed.
I know there is a presumption of innocence, but since when was there a presumption of mitigating circumstances being true?
Since when was there a presumption of self defence, when an armed man kills an unarmed kid?

This guy's story is incredibly shaky, yet the police seem to have accepted it word for word. When did they start doing that?

That's what the fury is about. People are not generally claiming that the guy should be considered guilty without a trial, they are pointing to something that's clearly wrong with the police investigation.

After all, this guy's only claim to innocence is fear of his life. And yet the facts don't bear it out. He followed the kid. Not vice-versa. He had a gun. Not vice versa.
Even if the kid resisted being questioned, it's still murder. Even if they were fighting, it's still murder.
Anybody else, gets involved in a fight, pulls a gun and shoots the person they are fighting, it's murder.

His only claim to innocence is fear of his life, and yet HE had the gun, and HE chased a supposedly suspicious person in the dark.

It's not the actions of someone in fear of their life.

[Tyrannical]

I'm not claiming to know what happened there, I'm just generally suspicious when the public reaches a conclusion so quickly with such scant evidence. If Zimmerman's guilty, he should be held accountable, but he shouldn't be convicted without a trial.

I think you're missing the point here. The truth is quite the reverse.
He seems to have been acquitted without a trial by the police. In fact, acquitted without a proper investigation.

There is very little dispute about the killing. Zimmerman had the gun, the kid was unarmed.
I know there is a presumption of innocence, but since when was there a presumption of mitigating circumstances being true?
Since when was there a presumption of self defence, when an armed man kills an unarmed kid?

This guy's story is incredibly shaky, yet the police seem to have accepted it word for word. When did they start doing that?

That's what the fury is about. People are not generally claiming that the guy should be considered guilty without a trial, they are pointing to something that's clearly wrong with the police investigation.

After all, this guy's only claim to innocence is fear of his life. And yet the facts don't bear it out. He followed the kid. Not vice-versa. He had a gun. Not vice versa.
Even if the kid resisted being questioned, it's still murder. Even if they were fighting, it's still murder.
Anybody else, gets involved in a fight, pulls a gun and shoots the person they are fighting, it's murder.

His only claim to innocence is fear of his life, and yet HE had the gun, and HE chased a supposedly suspicious person in the dark.

It's not the actions of someone in fear of their life.

Zimmerman had grass stains on his back and needed twelve stitches to the back of his head and had injuries to his face. There is no evidence indicating anything but Trayvon tackling and punching Zimmerman. It wasn't until Trayvon tried to grab Zimmerman's gun that Zimmerman shot him. Some websites are trying to get Trayvon's autopsy report, which I'm sure will show abrasions to the knuckles proving that Trayvon was the aggressor. They also have Zimmerman's clothes he wore, and if I remember my Dexter blood splatter analysis they'll be able to tell his position when the gun was fired.


Oh, and I hear now that Trayvon was suspended for ten days during that time with a recommendation for expulsion for "behavioral issues". I'm guessing we'll get more details on that even though family lawyers are trying to hide this information.

Looks like Farrakhan wants to up the body count. Good thing we know Zimmerman is armed and ready

[JimC]

Ah, thanks for clarification. Re CESs point, above, no, it is not a crime to defend yourself in the UK. If you shot someone dead, you could probably expect to stand trial but would be acquited if you had been judged to have used appropriate force.

Same in Oz...

Mind you, relatively few people have guns, so it happens incredibly rarely...

We must be a backward society...

[Clinton Huxley]

Ah, thanks for clarification. Re CESs point, above, no, it is not a crime to defend yourself in the UK. If you shot someone dead, you could probably expect to stand trial but would be acquited if you had been judged to have used appropriate force.

Same in Oz...

Mind you, relatively few people have guns, so it happens incredibly rarely...

We must be a backward society...

That's because you are all a bunch of dependent-class drones under the heel of an authoritarian government.

[FBM]

I'm not claiming to know what happened there, I'm just generally suspicious when the public reaches a conclusion so quickly with such scant evidence. If Zimmerman's guilty, he should be held accountable, but he shouldn't be convicted without a trial.

I think you're missing the point here. The truth is quite the reverse.
He seems to have been acquitted without a trial by the police. In fact, acquitted without a proper investigation.

The police didn't acquit him. The didn't declare him either innocent or guilty. They only declared that there was insufficient evidence at the scene at the time to contradict his account.

There is very little dispute about the killing. Zimmerman had the gun, the kid was unarmed.
I know there is a presumption of innocence, but since when was there a presumption of mitigating circumstances being true?
Since when was there a presumption of self defence, when an armed man kills an unarmed kid?

There was no such presumption of any of the things you claim. They only declared that there was insufficient evidence at the scene at the time to contradict his account.

This guy's story is incredibly shaky, yet the police seem to have accepted it word for word. When did they start doing that?

It's made shakier by cherry-picking the facts. The dead guy was 6'3", but people only look at his age and race and make a hasty decision based on their political and/or emotional biases.

The intellectually honest and prudent thing to do is to admit that nobody knows what happened there except Zimmerman and to wait for all relevant evidence to surface before declaring that he's either innocent or guilty or whether or not his actions were the result of racial bias.

But that's not much fun or provocative enough for people with an axe to grind, so I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.

[MrJonno]

Surely if you can stop someone and legitmately shoot them if you think you are in danger means if someone stops you and isnt a police that could be used to argue thats its ok to shoot them as the very act of grabbing someone in the street is potential lethal threat?.

Plainly its all vigilante madness, unless someone is actively about to hurt/kill another person no one should be using any violence at all including the police

[FBM]

Do you mean physically grabbing? There's no evidence that that occurred. Or do you mean it in the colloquial use of the term, just calling at them to stop and give you their attention? The latter is all the evidence points to to date.

And grabbing them how? If someone tugs gently on the sleeve of my jacket to get my attention, that's not assault. If he grabs my throat and starts choking the shit outta me, that's assault, and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if he looked/felt like he was strong enough to have a chance at succeeding. (OTOH, I have a 3rd degree black belt in Hapkido, so I doubt my first response would be to go for my sidearm.) But if I weren't trained in unarmed self defense, I wouldn't hesitate to shoot him, again, assuing he looked/felt strong enough to succeed at choking me to death. And I would extend the same right to anyone I grabbed in such a manner, if I were stupid enough to do such a thing.