Zimmerman is recieving donations for his crime.

[Unsilenced]

He's a civilian and he killed another civilian. This is a court case. If he wants to claim self-defense, he has to actually prove it. It's an affirmative defense, the burden of proof is on him.

He's still innocent until proven guilty, but the lack of a trial is a procedural failure.

 

[theultimateend]

I'm not saying he's innocent, I'm not saying he's guilty. But like Tanis, I would remind you that the rule of the land is "Innocent until proven guilty", not "Innocent until all the special interests have convinced you otherwise."

It might be helpful for all of us to also remember that Trayvon Martin is "innocent until proven guilty," though he's no longer here to speak for himself. I don't think this shooting was racially-motivated in the least, but I think we'll discover it wasn't a justified "Stand Your Ground" shooting.

And that's really all I'm asking for. You could be 100% correct in that the situation does not fall under the "Stand Your Ground" rule and thus Zimmerman should be charged with murder. However considering what facts have come out have been proven to be misleading at best, outright fabrications at worst, I think it's still too soon to judge one way or another.

Not to get involved but the point where it changed for me was when he followed the kid/young adult.

Lets say I think you are crazy. I call the police. If afterwords I stalk you, I'm asking to get hurt.

Would that justify Trayvon harming him? No.

Would that be an incident of self defense? I don't think so either, you should not be legally allowed to put yourself in harms way and then killing the person for responding.

I shouldn't be allowed to scare someone then kill them when they panic.

Buuut again, I'm just going off the police call (the non-CNN cut one), when they asked him not to follow. Once he did I felt the case had drastically changed.

 

[RJ 17]

I'm not saying he's innocent, I'm not saying he's guilty. But like Tanis, I would remind you that the rule of the land is "Innocent until proven guilty", not "Innocent until all the special interests have convinced you otherwise."

It might be helpful for all of us to also remember that Trayvon Martin is "innocent until proven guilty," though he's no longer here to speak for himself. I don't think this shooting was racially-motivated in the least, but I think we'll discover it wasn't a justified "Stand Your Ground" shooting.

And that's really all I'm asking for. You could be 100% correct in that the situation does not fall under the "Stand Your Ground" rule and thus Zimmerman should be charged with murder. However considering what facts have come out have been proven to be misleading at best, outright fabrications at worst, I think it's still too soon to judge one way or another.

Not to get involved but the point where it changed for me was when he followed the kid/young adult.

Lets say I think you are crazy. I call the police. If afterwords I stalk you, I'm asking to get hurt.

Would that justify Trayvon harming him? No.

Would that be an incident of self defense? I don't think so either, you should not be legally allowed to put yourself in harms way and then killing the person for responding.

I shouldn't be allowed to scare someone then kill them when they panic.

Buuut again, I'm just going off the police call (the non-CNN cut one), when they asked him not to follow. Once he did I felt the case had drastically changed.

Now I do agree completely that when Zimmerman says "I'm gonna follow him." And the police call taker quite clearly says "Sir, we do not need you to do that. Officers are on their way." At that point Zimmerman should have indeed stopped following him and just went home. But that's not what happened, no one is certain exactly what happened, and yet there's way too many people immediately jumping in and saying "OMG WTF ZIMMERMAN IS A BIGOT AND A RACIST AND HE MURDERED THAT POOR KID IN COLD BLOOD!!!!" when they have no clue what the truth of the matter is.

I'm not saying that I know either, but what I do know is that the majority of the media's portrayal of this case has been - as I mentioned in my original response to this topic - "misleading at best and outright fabrications at worst". We should not condemn someone until the solid (that being the keyword) facts are brought to light.

 

[theultimateend]

Now I do agree completely that when Zimmerman says "I'm gonna follow him." And the police call taker quite clearly says "Sir, we do not need you to do that. Officers are on their way." At that point Zimmerman should have indeed stopped following him and just went home. But that's not what happened, no one is certain exactly what happened, and yet there's way too many people immediately jumping in and saying "OMG WTF ZIMMERMAN IS A BIGOT AND A RACIST AND HE MURDERED THAT POOR KID IN COLD BLOOD!!!!" when they have no clue what the truth of the matter is.

I'm not saying that I know either, but what I do know is that the majority of the media's portrayal of this case has been - as I mentioned in my original response to this topic - "misleading at best and outright fabrications at worst". We should not condemn someone until the solid (that being the keyword) facts are brought to light.

Unfortunately I've taken one too many courses on sociology and psychology to assume that he didn't have a fear of someone different than him.

Racism is not something someone made up, it is the result of many cognitive biases that every single person in the world has.

We are more likely to trust people who look more like us, in many cases this is because they are more likely to be friendly towards us. We are FAR more likely to act negatively or even aggressively to people who are strangers in a situation where a stranger is not expected.

Is he a conventional bigot or racist? I dunno, never met the guy. But it is highly unlikely that subconscious cues did not motivate his other urges (such as being a faux police officer).

As for the Media, you got me, I don't watch television . I only know about the CNN thing because of Reddit.

All I know is he followed someone when he shouldn't have and the incident got another human killed. That would be enough for me to sentence him, for how long? I'm not sure. Mostly because putting people in prison doesn't really fix anything most times.

Maybe sentence him to training or some kind of intensive community service where he cleans up roads and such.

Anywho, just my take, most psychologists that would stumble across this case would probably not be the least bit surprised it happened. It's just another case of someone committing an act that could have been avoided by better understanding how their brain works.

 

[RJ 17]

Now I do agree completely that when Zimmerman says "I'm gonna follow him." And the police call taker quite clearly says "Sir, we do not need you to do that. Officers are on their way." At that point Zimmerman should have indeed stopped following him and just went home. But that's not what happened, no one is certain exactly what happened, and yet there's way too many people immediately jumping in and saying "OMG WTF ZIMMERMAN IS A BIGOT AND A RACIST AND HE MURDERED THAT POOR KID IN COLD BLOOD!!!!" when they have no clue what the truth of the matter is.

I'm not saying that I know either, but what I do know is that the majority of the media's portrayal of this case has been - as I mentioned in my original response to this topic - "misleading at best and outright fabrications at worst". We should not condemn someone until the solid (that being the keyword) facts are brought to light.

Unfortunately I've taken one too many courses on sociology and psychology to assume that he didn't have a fear of someone different than him.

Racism is not something someone made up, it is the result of many cognitive biases that every single person in the world has.

We are more likely to trust people who look more like us, in many cases this is because they are more likely to be friendly towards us. We are FAR more likely to act negatively or even aggressively to people who are strangers in a situation where a stranger is not expected.

I understand that psychology. I'm not a psychology major (though I almost was ), but I've seen enough documentaries on prison life to know what you're saying is true. In prison trust is boiled down to the most basic levels: only trust your own. Whites stay with whites. Blacks stay with blacks. Latinos stay with latinos, etc. That, however, doesn't address the point that I was making. The point that I was making was that indeed, everything everyone's been saying about this guy could be true. He could be a drunken racist who saw a black person in a hoody at night and immediately thought he was up to no good, he could have then pulled out a gun and shot the kid despite the fact that he was only armed with a box of Skittles. Or that assumption could be entirely wrong. The kid could have turned around and jumped the guy and started beating the crap out of the guy, leaving him no other alternative but to pull a gun and fire.

And that's my point: We don't know the details of the story. Which you even admit right here:

Is he a conventional bigot or racist? I dunno, never met the guy.

I said that I fully agree that it was a highly questionable action for Zimmerman to take by following Treyvon when the cops told him not to. That does not, however, PROVE that Zimmerman physically accosted Treyvon - prompting the cries for help - before pulling out his gun and shooting him.

I mentioned in a previous post that the police report from the scene of the crime mentions that when the police arrived, Zimmerman was found to have a bloody gash on the back of his head, a broken and bloody nose, and the back of his shirt was wet and had grass stains. This evidence would support the theory that Zimmerman was being overpowered by Treyvon.

But I'm not even asserting that that situation is what happened. I'm saying that we do not know exactly what happened, no one does, and as such we cannot lay judgement and sentence Zimmerman to anything until more details come out and it has been proven that he straight-up murdered Treyvon in cold blood.

 

[Fox242]

You know what? It doesn't fucking matter what happens in the end. Both people involved have been made to either look like angels or devils. NBC edited the 911 call to make it sound as though Zimmerman had racial motives. People then started bringing up Trayvon's troubles in school. The whole damn thing has been blown into a racial thing to get people talking. The only ones coming out on top here are the ones who paint the narratives so that we talk about something that probably didn't enter the equation. People like those at NBC, like Al Sharpton, like the person who decided that this was worthy of national attention. It's just like fucking Duke Lacrosse all over again. People are divided and stupid shit is happening. The circumstances are murky. It all happened in a matter of seconds. It should have just stayed a local matter. Instead, we're shown pictures of the shooter and the victim and what conclusions are we supposed to draw? It enters your thinking almost immediately. There are real problems that we could be focusing on instead of this. The entire damn case is tainted, people are divided, and it makes me sick. That's it, that's all I'm gonna say, fuck it, I'm done hearing about it.