Repeal the "Stand Your Ground" Laws

[heironymouspasparagus]

Don't know about you, but I can't run at 1700 to 3400 FPS, so out-running a bullet is pretty much an impossibility.

Heir- sad reality here, if it went down as you said, is all this kid really had to do was tell Barney Fife he was walking to his dad's fiancee's house and perhaps the oaf would have backed off with a "have a nice evening".  If he decided to ambush or charge Zimmerman, he effed up.

That's the problem - we still don't have complete info.  But there is massive evidence, that no matter what, Zimmerman was told to back off and let the cops do their job.  That is on the first 911 call they came out with.  Anything beyond that is directly attributable to that act. 


Still no connection on Zimmerman's behalf to SYG.  The kid may or may not have had justification to do something in reaction, but never Zimmerman.  If he had not followed when told not to it is beyond reasonable doubt that he would not have had that confrontation at that time and place - if he would have stayed in his car and kept driving around, Martin probably wouldn't have even known he was there.

Definitely went badly for Martin, regardless.

[Conan71]

A police dispatcher's or 911 operator's recommendations aren't basis for nor necessarily based in law.  They are simply trained to help calm the caller and/or victim and help diffuse situations. 

The investigation is still very much on-going.  I suspect we will learn far more after the grand jury has reviewed the case.  Something sobering I'm seeing through all this though is Americans seem to have this idea that now we try sensational cases like this through the media.

One other thing which does not help is the comment from Martin's dad I emboldened.  That's his dad's opinion (and those who are spring-loaded on racial motivation at every turn) not fact.

There are reports from The Miami Herald and CBS News that police in Sanford, Fla., were looking to arrest George Zimmerman on a manslaughter charge for the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26.

But the local state attorney's office "held off pending further review," the Herald says. According to CBS: "On March 12, police gave the case to State Attorney Norm Wolfinger. He told them they needed more evidence to arrest Zimmerman."

ABC News adds that it has been told by multiple sources that "the lead homicide investigator in the shooting ... recommended that [Zimmerman] be charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting."

He has not been arrested or charged with any crime. Another state attorney is now handling the case and will be taking it to a grand jury.

Martin's father told CNN Tuesday evening that he's convinced Zimmerman wasn't arrested because "the police profiled Trayvon Martin" and concluded that because he was a young black man, he had probably been up to no good.

Zimmerman, 28, has told police he acted in self defense. The shooting, and what Martin's family and their supporters say was a lack of follow-up on the part of police and prosecutors, has ignited a national discussion about race and racial profiling.

In its report, CBS also lays out some of the evidence about what police did in the hours and days after Martin's death. It reports that Zimmerman was questioned for five hours on Feb. 26, that the next day "detectives re-enacted the shooting with Zimmerman at the scene" and that "for the next two weeks, lead investigator Chris Serino pursued a manslaughter charge against Zimmerman."

The Orlando Sentinel also tries today to dispel some "Trayvon rumors" with some facts. It reports, for example, that rumors about key evidence not being collected are not true, according to Sanford police:

"They took [Zimmerman's] clothing as well as Trayvon's and packaged it for crime-lab analysis. A spokeswoman for Special Prosecutor Angela Corey would not disclose Tuesday where the clothing is now, but she wrote in an email that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement 'is assisting with the processing of physical evidence.' "

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/03/28/149518721/reports-police-pursued-manslaughter-charge-in-trayvon-martins-death

[TeeDub]

Hopefully it was a good shoot and the police investigated it as thoroughly as needed.   My prayers go out to both families involved.

[zstyles]

If this was a white kid that was killed this wouldn't be front page news.....no one made this about race except the news media who needed a front page story and the black community...PS: Love how they put: "strolling home with a tea and some skittles" ...I know at 17 I always strolled home and had nothing else on my mind......

[heironymouspasparagus]

If this was a white kid that was killed this wouldn't be front page news.....no one made this about race except the news media who needed a front page story and the black community...PS: Love how they put: "strolling home with a tea and some skittles" ...I know at 17 I always strolled home and had nothing else on my mind......

He was on the phone with his girlfriend.  THAT is what was on his mind.

[Teatownclown]

If this was a white kid that was killed this wouldn't be front page news.....no one made this about race except the news media who needed a front page story and the black community...PS: Love how they put: "strolling home with a tea and some skittles" ...I know at 17 I always strolled home and had nothing else on my mind......

  s/b nostyle?


try this: if this were a white kid murdered by a black man weighing 100 lbs. more then the black man would already be on death row...or very close to it. The news media didn't make this story.....bigotry and racial bias police made this a story. 

[Teatownclown]

It's really hard not using the (R) word to describe so many of you....

Let's just use "vigilantes"....

[Conan71]

 s/b nostyle?


try this: if this were a white kid murdered by a black man weighing 100 lbs. more then the black man would already be on death row...or very close to it. The news media didn't make this story.....bigotry and racial bias police made this a story.  

WRONG TOPIC!!! THIS THREAD IS ABOUT REPEALING STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS!!!!

Talk about false equivalence.  Zimmerman is Hispanic.

[Teatownclown]

Hispanic=ethnic group
Black=race

HUGE DIFF!

[Conan71]

Hispanic=ethnic group
Black=race

HUGE DIFF!

Not true.  Both come from the same race: the human race.

Blacks come from the African ethnic group.

Blacks and Hispanics are defined as "minorities".  Both face bigotry (as do all races, ethnic, and religious sub-sets). 

Explain the difference?

Better yet, explain why the media and race hustlers like $harpton and Jacka$$ are getting away with calling Zimmerman "white".  That is to imply that it's a majority on minority crime, which it is not.

[Townsend]

Hispanic=ethnic group
Black=race

HUGE DIFF!

Melanin.  Not that big a difference.

Shouldn't attack or shoot anyone.  Skin tone shouldn't matter worth a  squirt.

[Conan71]

Melanin.  Not that big a difference.

Shouldn't attack or shoot anyone.  Skin tone shouldn't matter worth a  squirt.

[custosnox]

Hispanic=ethnic group
Black=race

HUGE DIFF!

How are they different?

[AquaMan]

The two races discussed here are Caucasian (white), Negroid(black). Hispanic is not a race it is an ethnicity. Hispanics are actually those Caucasians that live or came from Hispania (Spain) as opposed to Latino's whose ancestry may have been Hispanic mixed with other indignenous peoples from or in the Latin American countries. The two terms are often misused and intermixed along with Mexican (a country).

[custosnox]

The two races discussed here are Caucasian (white), Negroid(black). Hispanic is not a race it is an ethnicity. Hispanics are actually those Caucasians that live or came from Hispania (Spain) as opposed to Latino's whose ancestry may have been Hispanic mixed with other indignenous peoples from or in the Latin American countries. The two terms are often misused and intermixed along with Mexican (a country).

Never considered it in that context, though there are obvious physical differences between what we consider Caucasian and what we consider Hispanic. That being said, I don't see why this difference means anything in the context of this discussion.