George Zimmerman: Not Guilty

[Deagonx]

I'm sure some here are familiar with the recently decided 'George Zimmerman vs. State' case. George allegedly followed Trayvon as he was cutting between houses. He called the non-emergency number because there were a large amount of break-ins recently and George didn't recognize Trayvon from that neighborhood. The fact that it was raining and that Trayvon was wearing a big hoodie added to George's suspicion.

The ultimate result was a scuffle between the two of them that ended in George fatally shooting Trayvon in the chest. The defense suggests that Trayvon blind-sided George after George got out of his car to keep track of Trayvon's position in the neighborhood. The prosecution suggests George followed Trayvon all the way to the point of confrontation, and Trayvon was defending himself.

Background Info Over

There were multiple witnesses claiming Trayvon was on top, and multiple claiming he was on bottom. Audio experts disagreed on who's voice shouted for help. Some said Trayvon, some said George. Georges parents said George, Trayvons parents said Trayvon. The only person on earth who knows what truly happened that night is George Zimmerman and he described himself as innocent. From a Judge's point of view, you cannot assume he is lying to save his own skin. So we have a he said she said situation with the only person in any real position of non-ignorance is George and he said he's innocent.

This trial should never have even happened. He got the verdict he deserved. On the 4th of July, 11 murders took place including a man and his infant child. Who the hell is investigating that, making T-shirts about that, starting wikipedia pages about that. No one. It should not have gotten the coverage it did. George Zimmerman's life is ruined as a result. Trayvon's family was unsatisfied in believing it was their own son's fault and went to media all over the place and made this whole thing a big disaster.
14 minutes ago · Like · 1

[SmartyPants]

14 minutes ago · Like · 1

Copy and paste from Facebook much?

At most, Zimmerman should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, yet the politically motivated prosecutors only charged him with second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and third-degree murder based on child abuse.

This case is caused by media creating a race issue out of a case that has nothing to do with race.  If NBC never edited Zimmerman's 911 call, then then Zimmerman would have never been charged.

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black.

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he's up to no good. Or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about.
Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?
Zimmerman: He looks black.

This tragedy was caused because Zimmerman felt obligated to follow a suspicious stranger in his neighborhood, and because Martin's first instinct was to hide and assault a person he calls a "creepy-ass cracker".  People criticize Zimmerman being armed, yet if Zimmerman wasn't armed, then he could of easily had his head split open on the sidewalk by Martin.  In my hometown, I learned a long time ago that you don't start fights because you don't know who is armed with a gun or a knife.  Hopefully, teenagers across the nation have learned that starting a fight could lead to their deaths.

[CraigStern]

This case is caused by media creating a race issue out of a case that has nothing to do with race.

Smarty, I know how you like to recite conservative talking points verbatim in these discussions, but come on. What made Zimmerman think that Trayvon was suspicious? What him think that Trayvon Martin was on drugs? Use your head, man. Race absolutely has something to do with this case.

[SmartyPants]

This guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around looking about.

Based on the 911 call, it seem like Zimmerman was profiling the stranger based of the teenager's suspicious behavior.  There is no evidence that Zimmerman was motivated by race.  It is simply people's prejudices that make them assume that a white guy would follow a black guy for racial reasons.  After a series of break-ins, almost everyone would be suspicious of any teenager who was walking in the rain, while peaking through windows.

[CraigStern]

Sorry, that's just stupid. Absolutely nothing he says in the transcript indicates actually suspicious behavior. This kid was one of his neighbors; walking around your own community in the rain is not "suspicious behavior." Nor is staring at the strange man who is clearly following you in a car.

Zimmerman just makes declarative statements like "He looks black" and "Something's wrong with him" and "These (expletive) they always get away." That doesn't establish suspicious behavior--what it does do is establish that he has a set of biases that led him to view perfectly normal behavior as being somehow suspicious. I have a hard time imagining Zimmerman finding a white kid walking home in the rain "suspicious."

[SmartyPants]

Zimmerman knew his neighbors, and Martin wasn't one of them.  Martin was staying over at his dad's stepmom's house after Martin's mom kicked him out after he was suspended from school for drug use.  If Martin would have told Zimmerman that instead of ambushing and assaulting the volunteer watchman, then this whole tragedy would have been avoided.

I have a hard time imagining Zimmerman finding a white kid walking home in the rain "suspicious."

Sorry, that's just prejudicial.  You are assuming that a white guy profiled a black guy for racial reasons based on insufficient knowledge, irrational feelings, and stereotypes.  By only focusing on both parties' races, you ignore other factors that Zimmerman could have used to profile Martin such as the teen's age, dress, and suspicious behavior.

Trayvon Martin's stepmother shares a similar opinion as me:

"No, I really don't think it was Zimmerman don't like black people, or he picked him out because he was black," Alicia Stanley said. "Did he profile him with the hoodie and stuff like that as this thug, whatever, walking, in Zimmerman's mind? Yes, but to say that he targeted him because he was black? No, I don't think so."

[CraigStern]

By only focusing on both parties' races, you ignore other factors that Zimmerman could have used to profile Martin such as the teen's age, dress, and suspicious behavior.

But you still haven't identified a single thing he was doing that was actually suspicious. Simply being a teenager is not suspicious. Wearing a hoodie and jeans certainly isn't suspicious (I wear that clothing combo myself on a rather frequent basis; you can actually see me wearing those in one of my PAX East pictures!)

When you eliminate all other factors, it's reasonable to suspect a racial bias. (Especially when the person in question says things like "These (expletive) they always get away." I mean, really?)

[SmartyPants]

But you still haven't identified a single thing he was doing that was actually suspicious. Simply being a teenager is not suspicious. Wearing a hoodie and jeans certainly isn't suspicious. When you eliminate all other factors, it's reasonable to suspect a racial bias.

Again, you are projecting your own bias on Zimmerman.  You find the most suspicious thing about Martin to be his race, so you assume Zimmerman felt the same way.  Based on Zimmerman's multiracial background that involved mentoring young black kids, I'm inclined to believe Zimmerman when he said he profiled the hoodie-wearing kid because Martin was walking through the rain and peaking through windows.

(I wear that clothing combo myself on a rather frequent basis; you can actually see me wearing those in one of my PAX East pictures!)

I too wear similar cloths, but I expect people to be suspicious to of me when I walk through my friends' neighborhoods at night.  Even I, a white teenager, has been confronted by a security guard that patrols my friends' gated community when I was walking around at night with a hoodie and a backpack.  I don't know if the guard was armed or not, but I didn't need to be worried about being shot, because I didn't plan on ambushing and assaulting the guard.  The guard was right to be suspicious of teenagers like me, because my backpack was full of toilet paper. If Martin chose to talk to the man like I did instead of attacking the man, then he would be alive.

(Especially when the person in question says things like "These (expletive) they always get away." I mean, really?)

Calling "punks" an expletive term is pretty big exaggeration.  I also don't see any racial undertones when he complains that the punks, who were apart of a series of robberies in his neighborhood, always get away.

[CraigStern]

Again, you are projecting your own bias on Zimmerman.  You find the most suspicious thing about Martin to be his race, so you assume Zimmerman felt the same way.

Incorrect. Racial bias (particularly among self-styled law enforcement personnel) is pervasive and incredibly well-documented in this country. A judge just found that the NYPD enforces stop-and-frisk policies in a racially biased manner, illegally stopping and frisking black people even when there exists no objective evidence of any sort of wrongdoing. Professional police officers routinely do this, but we're supposed to just assume that an amateur like Zimmerman had good reason? Yeah, no.

In the absence of other factors, it is entirely reasonable to infer racial bias when looking at racially disparate behavior by the police (or, in Zimmerman's case, a vigilante / wannabe policeman).

I don't know if the guard was armed or not, but I didn't need to be worried about being shot, because I didn't plan on ambushing and assaulting the guard.

Of course you didn't: you could see that he was a security guard, not a random stranger following you with a loaded handgun.

I also don't see any racial undertones when he complains that the punks, who were apart of a series of robberies in his neighborhood, always get away.

He looked at a black teenager and immediately thought "robber." Also: see above.

[SmartyPants]

Professional police officers routinely do this, but we're supposed to just assume that an amateur like Zimmerman had good reason? Yeah, no.

A large amount of law enforcement officers have shown signs of racial bias, so you assume Zimmerman must of done the same.  That is hardly different from the New York cops who stop and frisk young minority men, because blacks and Hispanics together commit 98 percent of shootings in New York.  Without any evidence of racism, your view of Zimmerman as racist is based on stereotypes and irrational feelings.

I don't know if the guard was armed or not, but I didn't need to be worried about being shot, because I didn't plan on ambushing and assaulting the guard.

Of course you didn't: you could see that he was a security guard, not a random stranger following you with a loaded handgun.

I also wasn't at risk of getting shot if he wasn't a guard, because I'm not a thug who's first instinct is to ambush and assault a stranger who might be following me.

[CraigStern]

There's a false idea floating around that circumstantial evidence somehow "doesn't count." That is a myth. Even in a court of law, jurors and judges are entitled to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence. (That is an actual legal standard.) Here, we can infer that Zimmerman was probably acting, at least in part, on racial biases. We don't need a signed letter from Zimmerman stating "I thought he was a robber because he was young and black and wearing a hoodie" to conclude that racial stereotypes played a role in his behavior. We wouldn't need that in a court of law, and we certainly don't need it on the internet.

[SmartyPants]

Even the circumstantial evidence is weak.  Zimmerman is Hispanic and Martin is black, so some people ignorantly assume Zimmerman was motivated by race.  If Zimmerman owned a Confederate flag or if he didn't have any black friends or family members, then I too would assume this was racially motivated.  Other than the difference in skin colors, there is nothing that indicates race was involved.

I refuse to judge Zimmerman and Martin on the "color of their skin, but by the content of their character".  Zimmerman is a man who complained about Sanford Police in defense of homeless black man and tutors black kids while their fathers are in prison.  Martin was a man who was expelled from school for drug use, has text messages that glorifying fighting and gun violence, and has called Zimmerman a "cracker".

[bugfartboy]

Zimmerman is a man who complained about Sanford Police in defense of homeless black man and tutors black kids while their fathers are in prison.  Martin was a man who was expelled from school for drug use, has text messages that glorifying fighting and gun violence, and has called Zimmerman a "cracker".

Forgive me for getting involved here, and forgive me again if you had listed it previously, but do you have a news article or anything to back up these claims? I'm ignorant to the details of the lives Zimmerman and Martin.

[ArtDrake]

You can spin anything.

I'm a socially estranged young man who's been reported to the vice principal for insolence and who routinely makes Google searches about varying forms of automatic and multi-barreled weaponry, while one of the people I simply cannot stand is a beloved cheerleader and an active member in her church.

Did I mention that my teacher who reported me was well known for being a lousy teacher, and that I'm actually very successful academically? Did I mention that I just happen to think automatic shotguns are just plain cool? Or how about that the cheerleader is a bigot, and that she uses her religion to justify it? No. Does this new information change everything? Heck yeah.

Let's leave the direct personal information about Martin out of any justification for Zimmerman's actions, since if nothing else, he clearly demonstrated he didn't specifically know Martin on sight with the "He looks black" comment.

[SmartyPants]

Anecdote are normally useful, but they can be hard to take serious when they are clearly full of personal spite and bias.

Let's leave the direct personal information about Martin out of any justification for Zimmerman's actions, since if nothing else, he clearly demonstrated he didn't specifically know Martin on sight with the "He looks black" comment.

Martin's propensity towards crime and violence may be the whole reason for this tragedy.  Some people try to place all the blame on Zimmerman, yet if Martin decided to use his words instead of his fists, then Zimmerman wouldn't had felt the need to use a gun to stop Martin from slamming his head against concrete.  Some try to portray Martin as the victim, but he is likely the aggressor too.  If Zimmerman was unarmed, then he could have easily been the one killed by Martin that night.

Zimmerman is a man who complained about Sanford Police in defense of homeless black man and tutors black kids while their fathers are in prison.  Martin was a man who was expelled from school for drug use, has text messages that glorifying fighting and gun violence, and has called Zimmerman a "cracker".

Do you have a news article or anything to back up these claims?

*Zimmerman Worked To Help Black Man In Beating Case
*Zimmerman voted for Obama, tutored black kids
*Trayvon Martin Suspended From School Three Times
*Zimmerman defense releases texts about guns, fighting from Trayvon Martin's phone
*Trayvon Martin Described 'Creepy-Ass Cracker' in Final Moments

*FBI report: No evidence George Zimmerman is racist
*After prosecution witness grilled over 'cracker' comment, Martin family lawyer says trial not about race