Trigger-happy Neighborhood Watch Kills Black Teenager

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escritora

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The girlfriend was hospitalized for being so upset, sometime that night if reports are correct.

I searched and couldn't find corroboration. From what I read, she landed in the hospital after she found out he was dead.

She also lives in Miami, so it's not like she could drive over and get with the parents, look for him, etc.
Of course not.

I still find it odd she hears what she thinks is Trayvon being pushed to the ground, doesn't hear from him for days, and remains silent until she's contacted by Trayvon's father.

I enjoyed reading other people's opinion on the matter.
 
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backslashbaby

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I searched and couldn't find corroboration. From what I read, she landed in the hospital after she found out he was dead.



Of course not.

I still find it odd she hears what she thinks is Traynor being pushed to the ground, doesn't hear from him for days, and remains silent until she's contacted by Traynor's father.

I enjoyed reading other people's opinion on the matter.

Yeah, I'd try to find the link, but the one that alluded to the timing was ambiguous in the first place, so it's not worth much except as a possibility.

I haven't been able to pin down how that all went down with the girl. She is staying out of the limelight and not saying much at all (which I would do, too, so there's no problem with that, imho).
 

muravyets

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Those are the facts.



We disagree.



Agree.



I'm not convinced he didn't do what he was told.



Agree.
Okay, so you're going to acknowledge that Zimmerman told the 911 dispatcher that he was following the young black man, and at the same time disagree whether Zimmerman was following the young black man? And do you expect there to be a discernible point in such a position?
 

muravyets

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Yes. As I said, this is my understanding of the explanation of the guy I work for, who is relying only on what news stories he has read. He and a law student and I were just talking about it, that's all.
Then the answer should be no, not yes. We don't know this at all and we do not have corroboration. Not in the context of your boss or co-worker's (sorry I've lost track of who it was) opinion.

If that's how you took what I said, I misspoke. What I meant to say was that he feels the police were right because they didn't have probable cause to arrest him. He's there, Trayvon is dead, he (allegedly) appears to be wounded, and he says self-defense.
That is what I understood you to be saying, and it is is also what the police said about their own actions. I called it BS when the police said it, and I'm calling it BS as a speculative explanation when your boss or co-worker says it, too, for the reason I outlined.

I'm offering an opinion based on a short discussion I had. I presented it such that it was a lawyer who formed it not because I felt that doing so would add extra weight to it (which is why I indicated that he doesn't do criminal work or practice in the relevant jurisdiction), but to indicate that it came from someone with at least passing knowledge of the way the law works. IMO, YMMV.
The fact that we have an adversarial legal system is an indicator that merely being a lawyer does not automatically make a person a better authority on the law than anyone else. They have to prove their mastery in practice, not just conversation. Regardless of who first raised this interpretation of the events, I can't buy into for the reasons I stated. I know it's just an opinion that you are presenting second-hand, so I'm not criticizing you for it at all. I'm just saying I think it's bunk.
 

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I'm not convinced he didn't do what he was told.

If he had done what he was told, he would have not followed Trayvon. We know that he did - this fact is not in dispute. Since we know he followed Trayvon, and since the police on the phone is recorded as telling Zimmerman not to follow the kid, we can pretty safely say that Zimmerman did not do as he was told.

I'm also not sure why you say listening to the call didn't change your mind. We can clearly, really clearly, hear that Zimmerman goes from sounding like he's still to sounding breathless, as though he's moving, and we can hear that he changes his mind from wanting to meet the police where his car is to wanting to meet them on the fly, at an unspecified location, asking them to contact him later to arrange it, making it clear that he didn't know where he was going to be. If he wasn't intending to follow Trayvon even at that moment what was he planning to do?

I'm going to be honest. I don't know what evidence you're looking at that brings you to the conclusion that any of this is in doubt.
 

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I searched and couldn't find corroboration. From what I read, she landed in the hospital after she found out he was dead.



Of course not.

I still find it odd she hears what she thinks is Traynor being pushed to the ground, doesn't hear from him for days, and remains silent until she's contacted by Traynor's father.

I enjoyed reading other people's opinion on the matter.

I realize I am going to sound picky, but it's Trayvon.

Here's a link that refers to the hospitalization.

I know I learned of the phone call from the ABC story, at which time they'd already obtained the phone logs, but I don't know who knew what when. We have a lot of hindsight that this young woman did not have. She might not have realized there was any reason to tell anyone about the call. If I were a teenage girl and knew my boyfriend had been gunned down seconds or minutes after I talked to him, I might not immediately think, "Hey, the cops are not going to do anything, so I better tell his grieving family right now exactly what I heard right."

And I am not clear on exactly when and how the information was relayed to the family, though I've read that the family had to tell the police to contact her, so can you point me toward your source. I'm not even asking for a link. I'll do the work. I just have taken in so much information I'd like to be on the same page.
 

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One thing I'm not clear on. Where was it said that Trayvon's girlfriend waited x number of days before getting in touch with anyone? I've seen information stating that she was on the phone to him at the time of the attack, that her parents asked the police to get in touch with her but that they did not, and that she was hospitalised at some point due to everything that happened, but I've not seen any confirmed source giving a time frame or the order in which events took place.

Who is saying that she made no attempt to contact him/his parents/the police for days? Where is that stated?
 

escritora

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Okay, so you're going to acknowledge that Zimmerman told the 911 dispatcher that he was following the young black man, and at the same time disagree whether Zimmerman was following the young black man? And do you expect there to be a discernible point in such a position?

No. From the information in the transcripts it's obvious Zimmerman was following Trayvon.

What wasn't obvious from the transcipt is that he continued to follow Trayvon after he was told to stop.

The matter is settled. Lyv and thebloodfiend provided extra information.
 

missesdash

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Vsrenard,

I really don't think the hoodie had any part in this. The guy called the cops on a number of black males, at least one of them a very young child who he estimated to be about four foot tall.

Why did Zimmerman report Trayvon to 911? Not because of the hoodie. He didn't have a habit of reporting anyone in a hoodie--he had a habit of reporting black males.

Why did he pursue Trayvon? In his words, it was because the people he reported "always get away."

It seems to me that he was getting tired of there being no arrests after his numerous calls to 911 and decided to track this guy down himself.

Geraldo says the hoodie is as much to blame for this murder as the Zimmerman. I have to wonder what he would have blamed if the next black male Zimmerman had called the cops on was the four foot child, and that had been the one he decided to pursue...

The problem with this view is that Zimmerman didn't know was black until after he called. He only confirmed it in the phone line. And out of his nine calls about suspicious people, 4 were black, five weren't.

So I'm sure Trayvon's race made him even more determined to act out like a crazy person, it wasn't what initiated the entire situation.
 

vsrenard

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I think we can probably agree that Zimmerman was at best, overzealous in his "duties" as watch captain. At worse he is a racist murderer looking for vigilante justice for crimes, perceived or real, against the neighborhood. I have no idea at this point whether he even understand that Martin did nothing wrong.

We can probably also agree that River's comments about the hoodie being as responsible as Zimmerman are utterly specious and total crap.

But I do think there is something to be siad about how we view people when we personally profile them. Me, when I take my dogs or my niece to the local park, I'm always a little leery of the groups of teenage boys (more often than not in hoodies) loitering with their cigarettes and what have you. Yeah, I'm crotchety (have been since my 20s) but I'm always thinking "what are the hell are those no good 'yutes' doing here.'

Imagine my surprise when one hooded young white man with at least a dozen facial piercings wished me a nice day last week. What, these no-gooders have manners? Nah, I must have misheard. ;)

Point is, I would not at all be surprised to hear someone like Zimmerman use his victim's clothing as a mark of his "no-goodedness." Cool with me if he wants to share my apparently misguided preconceptions. Not cool to use that as a reason to shoot.
 

escritora

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I realize I am going to sound picky, but it's Trayvon.

Here's a link that refers to the hospitalization.

I know I learned of the phone call from the ABC story, at which time they'd already obtained the phone logs, but I don't know who knew what when. We have a lot of hindsight that this young woman did not have. She might not have realized there was any reason to tell anyone about the call. If I were a teenage girl and knew my boyfriend had been gunned down seconds or minutes after I talked to him, I might not immediately think, "Hey, the cops are not going to do anything, so I better tell his grieving family right now exactly what I heard right."

And I am not clear on exactly when and how the information was relayed to the family, though I've read that the family had to tell the police to contact her, so can you point me toward your source. I'm not even asking for a link. I'll do the work. I just have taken in so much information I'd like to be on the same page.

I'm not clear either. I read last night that the father combed through phone records, found her name, and contacted her. That's when I first posted.

Almost immediately after I posted that the girl's parents tried to contact the police. For whatever reason, I assumed it was after the news of his killing was made public.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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I agree. When you make a mistake, even an honest mistake, that leads to someone's death, aren't you supposed to feel really bad about it? I think that's the way normal people feel, anyway.

A lot of people in situations like that react to bad feelings by denial and shifting blame. I don't think that's the situation here, but lots of people try to hide from their responsibilities especially when they've done harm.
 

robeiae

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A lot of people in situations like that react to bad feelings by denial and shifting blame. I don't think that's the situation here, but lots of people try to hide from their responsibilities especially when they've done harm.

Yes. Especially when they are facing life-changing--or life-ending--repercussions. Because I don't think Zimmerman can make this all better with a simple apology and admission of guilt.
 

muravyets

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No. From the information in the transcripts it's obvious Zimmerman was following Trayvon.

What wasn't obvious from the transcipt is that he continued to follow Trayvon after he was told to stop.

The matter is settled. Lyv and thebloodfiend provided extra information.
I'm glad of that, though actually it was pretty obvious, since he was found near Trayvon at a location different from the one he told the police originally, and Trayvon is reported to have said that he was being followed. But if it's clear now, then I'm happy to move on.
 

muravyets

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The problem with this view is that Zimmerman didn't know was black until after he called. He only confirmed it in the phone line. And out of his nine calls about suspicious people, 4 were black, five weren't.

So I'm sure Trayvon's race made him even more determined to act out like a crazy person, it wasn't what initiated the entire situation.
I may be picking a nit, but confirming it on the phone does not mean he didn't know it before he called. On the tape it sounds like he's only looking at Trayvon when the cop asks him to describe him, but that tone of voice can also be explained as saying that he was pausing to double check in the dark and the rain -- a pause while squinting perhaps? But it in no way tells us he hadn't registered that fact before he made the call. That is an assumption that is not supported by the available facts.
 

missesdash

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I may be picking a nit, but confirming it on the phone does not mean he didn't know it before he called. On the tape it sounds like he's only looking at Trayvon when the cop asks him to describe him, but that tone of voice can also be explained as saying that he was pausing to double check in the dark and the rain -- a pause while squinting perhaps? But it in no way tells us he hadn't registered that fact before he made the call. That is an assumption that is not supported by the available facts.

But the fact that he says "I think he's black" and then "yeah, he's black." Means he wasn't sure.
 

missesdash

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Here's an unfortunate update that's sure to cause more animosity:

SANFORD — Members of the New Black Panther Party are offering a $10,000 reward for the "capture" of George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who shot Trayvon Martin.

New Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad announced the reward during a protest in Sanford Saturday. And when asked whether he was inciting violence, Muhammad replied defiantly: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

The bounty announcement came moments after members of the group called for the mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon in a gated Sanford community on Feb. 26.

Muhammad said members of his group would search for Zimmerman themselves in Maitland — where the 28-year old worked before the shooting, employees there told the Orlando Sentinel. He declined to say when the group would begin their search.

Muhammad said the group's national chairman, Dr. Malik Zulu Shabaz of Washington, D.C. is receiving donations from black entertainers and athletes. They hope to collect $1 million by next week, Muhammad said.


Hey, what's a good way to combat ill-guided racially-motivated vigilante justice? Oh I know! More ill-guided, racially-motivated vigilante justice.

http://www.the33tv.com/news/nationw...ack-panthers-protest-20120324,0,4986340.story

A lot of the black bloggers I read have began to warn the community against letting the issue of race get out of hand here. That it's clouding the issue in a way that's bound to cause divisiveness.

Might be too late for that.
 

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But the fact that he says "I think he's black" and then "yeah, he's black." Means he wasn't sure.

I went back to the transcript that is linked above and according to that, he doesn't say exactly what you put in quotation marks. The dispatcher answers the call, Zimmerman says there's a suspicious person, the dispatcher asks if he's white, black, or Hispanic and Zimmerman answers, "He looks black." Later, he says Trayvon is coming toward him, has his hand in his waistband and says, "And he's a black male." That could mean he wasn't sure before and was then confirming it, but it also could mean he just wanted to make sure the dispatcher got it.
 

missesdash

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I went back to the transcript that is linked above and according to that, he doesn't say exactly what you put in quotation marks. The dispatcher answers the call, Zimmerman says there's a suspicious person, the dispatcher asks if he's white, black, or Hispanic and Zimmerman answers, "He looks black." Later, he says Trayvon is coming toward him, has his hand in his waistband and says, "And he's a black male." That could mean he wasn't sure before and was then confirming it, but it also could mean he just wanted to make sure the dispatcher got it.

That's for the correction. I still interpret it as him not being entirely sure. It was raining, dark and he was some distance away. But I guess either situation is possible.
 

nighttimer

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Here's an unfortunate update that's sure to cause more animosity:

Hey, what's a good way to combat ill-guided racially-motivated vigilante justice? Oh I know! More ill-guided, racially-motivated vigilante justice.

http://www.the33tv.com/news/nationw...ack-panthers-protest-20120324,0,4986340.story

The new Black Panther Party is a fucking joke and not a good one.

From the anti-racist monitoring group, The Southern Poverty Law Center

The New Black Panther Party is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers. Founded in Dallas, the group today is especially active on the East Coast, from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla. The group portrays itself as a militant, modern-day expression of the black power movement (it frequently engages in armed protests of alleged police brutality and the like), but principals of the original Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s— a militant, but non-racist, left-wing organization — have rejected the new Panthers as a "black racist hate group" and contested their hijacking of the Panther name and symbol.
From the original Black Panther Party website:

There Is No New Black Panther Party: An Open Letter From the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation

In response from numerous requests from individual's seeking information on the "New Black Panthers," the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation issues this public statement to correct the distorted record being made in the media by a small band of African Americans calling themselves the New Black Panthers. As guardian of the true history of the Black Panther Party, the Foundation, which includes former leading members of the Party, denounces this group's exploitation of the Party's name and history. Failing to find its own legitimacy in the black community, this band would graft the Party's name upon itself, which we condemn.

Firstly, the people in the New Black Panthers were never members of the Black Panther Party and have no legitimate claim on the Party's name. On the contrary, they would steal the names and pretend to walk in the footsteps of the Party's true heroes, such as Black Panther founder Huey P. Newton, George Jackson and Jonathan Jackson, Bunchy Carter, John Huggins, Fred Hampton, Mark Cark, and so many others who gave their very lives to the black liberation struggle under the Party's banner.

Secondly, they denigrate the Party's name by promoting concepts absolutely counter to the revolutionary principles on which the Party was founded. Their alleged media assault on the Ku Klux Klan serves to incite hatred rather than resolve it. The Party's fundamental principle, as best articulated by the great revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was: "A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." The Black Panthers were never a group of angry young militants full of fury toward the "white establishment." The Party operated on love for black people, not hatred of white people.


They are a motley crew of Black separatists who have bit off the name of the original Black Panthers to push their own racist, anti-Semitic agenda. I don't believe for one damn second these unorganized, impotent, assholes have raised $10,000 to pay out any kind of "bounty" any more than I believe they represent anything more than a fringe group trying to feed off the controversy.

It's fine for you to want to draw attention to these play-acting revolutionary wannabees, missesdash, but you are distorting the importance and relevance of these poseurs by failing to point out how fraudulent they really are.

missesdash said:
A lot of the black bloggers I read have began to warn the community against letting the issue of race get out of hand here. That it's clouding the issue in a way that's bound to cause divisiveness.

Might be too late for that.

Right. Because we were sooooo united before here in Post-Racial America. :rolleyes

I don't even know what "letting the issue of race get out of hand here" means. Things "got out of hand" when one man acted on his suspicions, fears and possibly hatreds and took the life of a innocent teenager who was only trying to get home in the rain with his can of ice tea and candy.

There are cowards who recoil from talking about these kind of issues because they are afraid it may roil the waters and upset someone by talking about how doing nothing more than Walking While Black may have cost Trayvon his life. Those folks should probably withdraw from further debate because shit is already hot and liable to get hotter before this story recedes from the front page.

The only way to talk about race reasonably is to talk about race honestly and forthrightly with everyone coming to the table ready to dialogue openly. If someone is whispering, "cool it before someone gets upset" that someone is better off sitting in a corner somewhere and allowing the adults to work things out for themselves.
 

missesdash

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Right. Because we were sooooo united before here in Post-Racial America. :rolleyes

I don't even know what "letting the issue of race get out of hand here" means. Things "got out of hand" when one man acted on his suspicions, fears and possibly hatreds and took the life of a innocent teenager who was only trying to get home in the rain with his can of ice tea and candy.

There are cowards who recoil from talking about these kind of issues because they are afraid it may roil the waters and upset someone by talking about how doing nothing more than Walking While Black may have cost Trayvon his life. Those folks should probably withdraw from further debate because shit is already hot and liable to get hotter before this story recedes from the front page.

The only way to talk about race reasonably is to talk about race honestly and forthrightly with everyone coming to the table ready to dialogue openly. If someone is whispering, "cool it before someone gets upset" that someone is better off sitting in a corner somewhere and allowing the adults to work things out for themselves.

That wasn't the point at all. It was more that it's important to talk about the other problematic aspects so George's stans can't just repeatedly argue that he isn't racist. Because like it or not, "racist" is more subjective than "pursed someone despite being told, by authorities, not to."

Instead make them argue that he didn't abuse Stand Your Ground. Make them argue that the police weren't incompetent, make them argue that George's history didn't make him seem like a loose cannon. Take them to task in a way that can't be answered with a simple "well he had black friends."

We don't want him put away because he killed a black kid. It's bigger than that. We want him put away because he unlawfully shot an an unarmed black teenager and has a history of profiling young black males and has been seemingly protected by the police.

Anger has a place, but so does peaceful protest and rational, cooler heads.

ETA: there was also discussion about the "fucking coon" audio and how it's not as clear as some make it out to be.
 
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Well, all racial issues aside. It's a damn shame that a 17-year-old kid has been gunned down (based on MY understanding of the evidence on this case so far) for no reason.

Personally, I think that George Zimmerman did have issues with Trayvon being black, and the fact that he may be Hispanic doesn't deter me from thinking so; however, we really don't know if that's sure, but I suppose it's safe to assume.

Killing an unarmed minor is horrible, but the fact, that this may be a racial issue, is only adding insult to injury.

My prayers and condolences go out to the Martin family. He was only three years younger me :(
 

muravyets

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But the fact that he says "I think he's black" and then "yeah, he's black." Means he wasn't sure.
That's how you choose to interpret it. I personally find that too literal a reading. I respond to his tone of voice as well as his words, plus what we learned later of his history of 911 calls, and I personally believe that he did know. I won't say how early he knew, but I will say with confidence that he knew before he shot him. That's my take on it, and that's all I have to contribute on that detail.
 

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But the fact that he says "I think he's black" and then "yeah, he's black." Means he wasn't sure.

My suspicions come from seeing a lot of racist people pretend to not be so racist while in my presence. They would know that saying 'Black' is a red flag in this recorded 911 call. He could have been mimicking a non-racist. Truly, I've seen it a million times with folks who catch my look at them when they start to go there. They know how to clean it up to sound 'right'.

I'm not saying he absolutely did this, but I am saying it's a possibility that isn't uncommon in general life.
 
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