Martin shooting, more stuff
Weerd has Zimmerman’s arrest report. Looks like he was on the ground when he was shot. And he was pretty beat up. Also, some eyewitness accounts say he was on the ground getting punched.
And maybe we should stop the Monday morning quarterbacking.
As more things come to light, this case is becoming less clear cut.
March 23rd, 2012 at 10:08 am
Except there wouldn’t be a grand jury if it had not been for all the public outrage up to this point.
Yes, let us be good little badge lickers and accept whatever the nice men from the government tell us the truth is no matter how ridiculous. The fact is Zimmerman was harrasing someone guilty of no crime, and after provoking a fight that ended in the shooting of an unarmed minor.
Even if ends up being legal or cannot be proved a crime in court, it’s still a wildly immoral act that he deserves to be execrated for. It’s also telling that some bloggers seem to have far more empathy for captain mall ninja, who started a unecessary fight and then wanted to pull a gun when he realized he was losing, then they are about Marting who was just walking home when he started getting chased by a paranoid nut.
How come they are so quick to defend Zimmerman’s right to self defense and so quick to dismiss Martin’s?
March 23rd, 2012 at 10:34 am
I have seen a lot of commentary in the gunblogs that basically falls into the “Bad cases make bad law” category, understanding that this is an outlier case of a concealed carrier behaving in a less than stellar manner with a very bad outcome.
On the other hand, the anti-gun,anti-rights bigots look to this case precisely because it is ambiguous, or perhaps an atrocious case of misbehavior, on the gun carrier’s part. Their delight in having a bad case from which to make bad law is evident.
March 23rd, 2012 at 11:27 am
Stormy,
Precisely how do you know Zimmerman was “harassing” Martin? Were you there, or are you reading internet commandos?
In the same vein, how do you know he “provoked” a “fight”? The evidence available so far is that he was basically mugged near his vehicle, and only fired his pistol after he was on the ground being beaten.
You don’t want to be a “badge-licker”? Fine. So why be a Sharpton’s-ass-licker?
March 23rd, 2012 at 11:47 am
Following someone down the street? Legal
Asking someone, “do you belong here?” Legal
Beating someone for offending you? Illegal and it might get you shot.
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Exactly. Just because someone provokes you doesn’t mean you have to fight that person.
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:05 pm
How come they are so quick to defend Zimmerman’s right to self defense and so quick to dismiss Martin’s?
I think it’s pretty obvious why. the police are JBT, out to oppose the citizenry, right up until it’s convenient, then somehow they became the impartial and omniscient arbitors of objective truth.
The logically gymnastics people are going through on this case would be humorous, if they weren’t tragic. Where I’m from, when you chose to take a life, you damn well better be able to provide a valid reason for it. Killing someone is an irrevocable act, and while a lot of internet tough guys talk rather flippantly about blasting someone whenever they get the chance – as if killing someone is an opportunity to be sought out rather than a dreaded possibility of last resort – the community as a whole has always taken the public line that this is a minority fringe. Yet now, a lot of people have seriously taken the position that the death of a un-armed, apparently non-criminal, teenager is just fine as long as some technicality is satisfied or infraction discovered. Here’s the thing; if Zimmerman had stayed in his car no one would have died. Unless someone comes up with an eyewitness that says that Zimmerman never purposely made contact with Martin, that Martin sought him out and assaulted him, at the end of the day, by his own testimony Zimmerman’s own choices, tactics, and actions set this series of events in motion, and he bears responsibility for that. The fact that the gun-blogsphere, which devotes so many electrons to the right of people to defend themselves is seriously making the widespread argument that Martin should not have felt the need to defend himself (aggressively even) against an unknown and armed man is, and that such a defense was suitable grounds to justify killing him is… mindblowing.
But I digress. I’m obvious one of the people that needs to be dealt with.
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:23 pm
I think the fact he followed after being told not to by the 911 dispatcher nullifies the “stand your ground” provision.
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Except, Rustmeister, that it doesn’t. For two reasons, first a 911 dispatcher has no authority to “order” anyone to do anything. Second, its not a crime to follow someone.
The issue is what happened closer to the actual shooting and that’s not entirely clear at this point, despite Stormy above listing “facts” that aren’t.
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:40 pm
junyo, I don’t see anyone not a Moby making that argument.
March 23rd, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Junyo has been bouncing around the blogs.
s/he has read none of the facts and knows all the answers. Just like the Media and the Race Baiters, as well as the people who will burn buildings and flip cars when the evidence is presented in court and Zimmerman walks free.
March 23rd, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Just a guess, but Zimmerman will probably win the criminal trial (if any), but will lose in the following civil suit.
March 23rd, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Weerd, Junyo is a long time reader.
March 23rd, 2012 at 2:47 pm
@Robert: I may be reading it wrong, but I believe that under FL law, if his self-defense claim is upheld in court he cannot be sued.
March 23rd, 2012 at 3:53 pm
I don’t think anyone is defending Zimmerman, but I think that disgust with the way the media is handling the story is pretty widespread, and the urge to oppose anything Al Sharpton says or does is strong and can usually be counted on to put you on the right side of any issue.
We will probably never know what really happened but if the physical evidence and the witness testimony backs up Zimmerman’s story or at least doesn’t contradict it, then I think that Zimmerman will probably walk.
Then the riot begins.
March 23rd, 2012 at 4:10 pm
The 9-1-1 calls make it pretty clear that Zimmerman had made up his mind that Martin was guilty of something and that it was his job to make sure that “f***ing c**n” didn’t “get away with it again”.
What evidence? All we have is Zimmerman’s self serving word for it. And his story doesn’t make much sense on a number of levels.
March 23rd, 2012 at 4:12 pm
This is exactly what I mean. People will bend over backward to come up with excuses to justify Zimmerman shooting Martin, but at the same time refuse to accept Martin could have had a legitimate reason to punch Zimmerman.
Why the double standard?
March 23rd, 2012 at 4:22 pm
@ Jake. If that’s the case, then he’s covered there as well.
March 23rd, 2012 at 4:32 pm
If the kid was there innocently, he was probably thinking “Hey, I have a perv after me”.
I mean, did Zimmy have any sort of “Neighborhood Watch Ninja” stuff on?
Lots we don’t know.
March 23rd, 2012 at 6:02 pm
“to make sure that “f***ing c**n” didn’t “get away with it again””
Why are you repeating lies? He never said the words you starred out.
” People will bend over backward to come up with excuses to justify Zimmerman shooting Martin, but at the same time refuse to accept Martin could have had a legitimate reason to punch Zimmerman.”
Person following you is not grounds to slug them. Person slugging you — and, as Zimmerman was bloodied and on the ground at one point, apparently more than once — is grounds to defend yourself.
There is no evidence that Zimmerman did anything more than follow Martin, and some reason to believe he wasn’t even doing that when the fight started.
March 23rd, 2012 at 7:11 pm
No it’s not a lie:
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2012/03/22/ac-tuchman-trayvon-zimmerman.cnn
March 23rd, 2012 at 11:24 pm
I eagerly await the revision of every single piece of advice ever given in the strategy and tactics section of every self defense and RKBA forum to indicate how calmly and meekly one should apparently respond to the approach on foot of an unknown armed man who’s been following you in his car.
@Weer’d Beard
Feel free to delete my comment on your blog and ignore me whereever you might come across me on the internet, and I will most certainly return the favor.
March 24th, 2012 at 2:43 am
People keep saying over and over that he followed Martin after being told not. Is there ANY actual evidence of this?
I have read probably over a hundred articles about this and better than half quote the operator asking Zimmerman if he is following Martin. They quote him saying he is. They quote the operator telling him he doesn’t need to do that.
I have not yet found a single article that quotes his response.
Not a single one.
Anywhere.
Think about that for a sec and I’ll bet you know what it was before you even look.
We are witnessing the power of the narative here. The story HAS to be about some mall ninja racist, so they make it that. And everyone goes along. Everyone. Even us.
Think about what a big deal has been made of the ‘hoodie’. Look at how many people say he viewed Martin as a threat because of the hoodie. Then go read the transcript of Zimmerman’s 911 call and see what he actually said, and why.
We are being played. And we are playing along. Because we want it to be some goofy mall ninja . Someone we can point at and say ‘not like us. Not like responsible gun owners.’
But what if he is? What if this is really just two scared people who made escalating bad choices? Any rational person knows the cost of a society that allows self defense with deadly weapons will have a small number of innocent victims. What if Trayvor Martins is just the face of that?
Hard to face that. Much easier to mock the mall ninja.
March 24th, 2012 at 10:53 am
I think Jon makes a good point. We don’t know what happened and we may never know. Here’s another thought…Why do we need to have an opinion about this? I have plenty of knives in the house, pocket knives, kitchen knifes, utility knives, but I don’t have an opinion of every stabbing.
Politically motivated people expect us to justify ourselves every time there is a high profile shooting. How about if we just refuse to play along?
March 24th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Well, here’s an eyewitness account of just prior and just after the discharge. I guess only being out there for nearly a month, the other media couldn’t find it. Hat tip to Bookworm
So really the question is, when does a 6’2″ 160 lb kid pummeling you create a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.
It’s a tragedy as Martin apparently carried his defense/attack past the point of stopping a threat becoming a threat himself.
March 24th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Date on the report in 02/26/2012.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears to be 03/24/2012 today.
I guess the obumbler, sharpton, jackson, etc. needed something more than a pipeline to jaw jack on about.
March 24th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Jon Says:
March 24th, 2012 at 2:43 am
“do not follow him!”
“we don’t need you to do that..”
To completely different things.
I was on that from the first time this came to light. 4 weeks after the incident occured.
March 26th, 2012 at 7:37 am
“Looks like he was on the ground when he was shot.”
Don’t you mean looks like Zimmerman was on the ground when Martin was shot? That sentence sounds like Zimmerman was shot.
March 29th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Here’s a thought no liberal could ever think or say…………………
If Trayvon is NOT suspended from school in Miami.
Then Trayvon is in school in Miami instead of in Sanford.
If Trayvon is in school in Miami and NOT in Sanford.
Then Trayvon would still be alive.
Notice a pattern here.
It all started with Trayvon.
Decisions have consequences (sometime deadly)
End of story.