Originally Posted by
Sloppy Joe
I stopped following this almost immediately after the verdict, but why the fuck does it remotely matter if Trayvon wasn't angelic?
Does it somehow make it justifiable that he got shot to death? Zimmerman still shot him to death...
It lends more credibility to Zimmerman's account.
As far as it being justified, let's just assume for a minute that everything he said about this confrontation was true. Let's assume that Trayvon Martin really was acting suspiciously walking close to the homes, looking into windows.
Little known fact... George Zimmerman had made a similar call to the police about two young black males looking into homes just two weeks prior to the shooting. That call led to an arrest. Police found a laptop and other stolen items on these two guys and Zimmerman made a positive ID on them. When he called the police on these guys he wasn't racially profiling, he was simply reporting suspicious behavior, just like the night he called on Trayvon Martin.
So again, let's assume every detail of his account was true... That he followed Trayvon in his car while on the phone with the police, and parked on the corner when he couldn't go any further. Trayvon walked down the walkway that was only 100 yards from where he was staying and was out of site of Zimmerman. To me here is the most interesting part of how things went down and a very misunderstood aspect of this case... At that point, instead of turning right down the walkway and going home, Trayvon Martin doubled back, walked approx 50 yards back towards Zimmerman, circled his car and checked him out, went back down the walkway and then ran out of site. All of this is perfectly described on the call to police. Please tell me how that does not fit the description of suspicious behavior, especially after what Zimmerman claimed he was witnessing.
To have a better understanding of the dynamics of that chain of events you have this. Zimmerman in orange, Trayvon in blue. Trayvon's actions from 4-7 paint that picture pretty clearly...
It was at that point where Zimmerman got out of his truck to see where Martin went. I agree that he should have stayed in his vehicle, but caught up in that moment I can see why he would get out to see if he could tell where Martin had run off to.
At no time after Martin ran did Zimmerman see him again, until the confrontation.
So again, assuming what Zimmerman told the police during the interview process and the day after the shooting was true, you now have Martin basically running out of site, hiding out in the darkness, sizing Zimmerman up, walking up behind him and ultimately confronting him... Not the other way around. Martin then cold cocks him, knocks him senseless, gets on top of him, punches him in the face repeatedly and slams his head into the concrete. So here you have George Zimmerman, who by all accounts did not know how to fight, with a guy unknown to him on top of him, beating the shit out of him. He repeatedly screams for help, but no help comes. At this point is it not fair to say that he reasonably feared for his life? He did the only thing at that moment that he knew would get him out of this situation. He grabbed his gun and shot.
In every state of this country, if all of what I just typed is true, and personally I believe it is, no matter the color of anyone's skin, there is no doubt this was justifiable self defense.
Reasons I think it's the truth...
In the call to the police the timeline matches up perfectly to what he described in the re enactment the following day.
He subjected himself to a lie detector test the night of the shooting and passed with flying colors. He could have just as easily asked for a lawyer and said nothing, but he chose to talk.
He was told by one of the detectives in the interview that Trayvon Martin had recorded the entire event on his cell phone to which he replied "Oh, thank God!".
There was a very credible eyewitness who was completely neutral in all of this that was only 15 feet away from the altercation and claimed he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman "raining down blows" and that Zimmerman was yelling for help.
There was no way for Zimmerman to know who witnessed what that night, but again chose to re enact the entire situation for police without a lawyer present.
All of his injuries were consistent with what he described, whereas aside from the bullet wound, the only mark on Trayvon Martin was a cut to his knuckle.
All of the detectives and everyone involved with law enforcement handling this case at the time felt that Zimmerman was telling the truth.
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