I've gotten the impression that no one really wants to win this case. Which is an immense disservice to George Zimmerman, and the criminal justice system.

Everything I've seen seems to indicate they didn't have enough to feel confident of a conviction for murder, to a point where they wouldn't even have charged murder if it wasn't so high profile. And the defense seems like they'd rather ham for the cameras for a while rather than focus on winning.

@PE:
First of all: it's been too long mate! hope you're well, and that your family is as well.

I gotta say though: I'm not sure you're voicing the best read on the situation. Neighborhood Watchman Coordinator sounds pretty nice, but it's just a title. Who's to say he had decent training for the job? Who's to say he presented himself adequately and calmly? Who's to say he wasn't aggressive from the get go? And who's to say what kinda life that kid had and how it prepared him to react to an aggressive white man (if he was indeed aggressive)?
All that to say, we weren't there. And the idea that the prosecutors are not taking the case seriously just goes against every principle they've chose to uphold. I can't buy that either.
Not taking any sides here, at least, not on whether or not the dude is guilty. But the fact remains: this is in court, and I believe for the right reasons. Court is not about judging people guilty. It's about finding out the truth as best we can.

To add to what Cachimbo's saying, it's my understanding that Neighborhood Watch is organized only at the most local of levels, and then the group decides who does what. I know here that if you're in a neighborhood without a Neighborhood Watch, the best way to get a Neighborhood Watch is to appoint yourself Coordinator. Then you can market it as "Neighborhood Watch Coordinator looking for new members" or whatever. No formal training, just stick it next to your name and it is true. In other neighborhoods with an established Watch, they would have some kind of policies about how someone got a leadership role, what responsibilities that has, and maybe what training they must undertake. But in any case, that title by itself means little to nothing.

Cach - GZ isn't white. He is Hispanic. And TM's upbringing is irrelevant. If he attacked GZ and GZ felt in fear of his life, he was justified in shooting to kill.

"Wouldn't surprise me at all if word has come down from On High that Zimmerman needs to be acquitted to prevent disruptions to the flow of campaign contributions and endorsements. "

Baseless claim.

There is no "on high" that can influence a jury. Unless by "on high" you mean the weight of the national media attention influencing one or more jurors to hold out one way or the other leading to a mistrial. Anything besides a guilty verdict could very well cause Rodney King style rioting, seeing as how the media has thrown gasoline on the case in order to inflame racial grievances.

Remember the new category "white Hispanic"? These tools wanted so badly for this to be a case about a racist white man shooting a black child in cold blood that they've actually convinced lots of people that's what happened, even though the truth is something more like a half-white half-Indian man shot a black 17 year old during a fight where the aggressor is so far unclear. If there's any violence after the trial we know exactly who to blame. It's CNN, NBC, that piece of garbage Al Sharpton, and all the other usual suspects who needed to keep ratings up.

Zimmerman decided that Martin was suspicious because he was black. Garden variety racism, wouldn't have been a national story except the racist local cops decided they didn't need to investigate the case any further. Hopefully that will change in the future even if Zimmerman gets away with murder.

First off, racism isn't a crime.

Zimmerman thought Martin was suspicious because he was black yes, but because he was black and the neighborhood had had a series of robberies committed by young black men. Not really so outlandish that he was suspicious of a young man he knew wasn't one of his neighbors, wouldn't you say? Zimmerman obviously handled a lot of things improperly, but the idea that he was some racist Elmer Fudd hunting coloreds has no basis in fact.

As for the cops not arresting him, they didn't do that for the same reason Zimmerman will likely be acquitted. What Zimmerman did seems to meet the criteria for Florida's stand-your-ground law, which means there was no probable cause to arrest him. You need that. It's kind of a big deal. And anyway, they were still investigating what happened, it's just that Zimmerman was not in jail during the investigation (or in jail for a few hours before he posted bail, most likely).

gavrilop represents exactly what is wrong with how this case has been handled in the media. To him and people like him Zimmerman is guilty until proven innocent, which is impossible because he, like totally did it since that's what I've heard in two-minute intervals sometimes on the news. Plus racism. It's disgusting. Now it isn't an open and shut case and Zimmerman very well could be guilty and, if so, deserves all the punishment coming to him. But he should be convicted based on the merits of the case against him, not the passions and emotions of a public ginned up by media-lead racial tension.

Draug: next time this giant fucker waves a fist in my face, I'll make sure to shoot to kill...

Are you serious man??? Really??? Nowhere in this story can I believe for one instant that the man's life was in danger. Had he had a shred of training in ANYTHING he would have been able to know this. And don't give me the shit that I wasn't there and he made a judgement call. Judgment calls can be wrong, as with any other kind of judgement. In fact, it's pretty much the only human action that can make something right or wrong... On that point, I just cannot fathom, not for the slightest moment, that you can justify how shooting an unarmed man DEAD was legit.

So, the key point is: an unarmed man was shot dead by a dude who likely had more power in his hands than he knew what to do with. Whether or not the notion of criminal guilt comes into play at this point is for the courts to decide. And please don'T think that they're not taking this as seriously as they should (though I will venture that the high profile nature of the things might have pushed a few to showboat... Maybe they watched the O.J. trial a touch too often?). A man is dead. It's serious.


And yes, you're right, the dude is Hispanic. I forgot that only white people were allowed to be racist fuckers.

"Nowhere in this story can I believe for one instant that the man's life was in danger."

Are you serious? Nothing like "waving a fist" in Zimmerman's face happened at all. If Zimmerman's story is true and Martin had him pinned to the ground in the fight then it's totally reasonalbe for Zimmerman to think his life was in danger. You really think getting your head pounded against the cement sidewalk while somebody's punching you in the face is not a threat to your life? You're a bigger hard ass than most then. That or an internet tough guy with no experience even seeing a fight happen.

Of course, if Zimmerman was on top of Martin then we've got a wholly different set of circumstances. Pretty damning circumstances for Zimmerman. Some eyewitnesses say Zimmerman was on top, some say Martin, but it's pretty hard to explain the injuries to Zimmerman's head unless he was on the bottom.

And again we see in Cachimbo how people have been poisoned by media coverage rather than the actual facts of the case. Zimmerman can still be guilty, but not like it's being made out.

Dude... seriously...

The guy is in a watch and he's responsible for it (which implies that he's likely faced at least one other stressful situation in his life). He's wearing a gun. He could reach for his gun. He could shoot it.

Tell me how you can, considering these facts, think that his life was in real danger?

And before anyone got pinned down, they just both stared at one another in silence? And what: one instant they were there, staring each other off, and the next one had the other under him threatening to kill him? How do you think this remotely possible?

As for where I'm coming from on this...

No, I've not watched nor devoured a great sum of media coverage. I remember the facts of the case as they came out in the first moments, but I can't say I've paid much attention to it since.
No, I'm not some hardcore hard ass. I do have some training in various martial arts, but not enough to say that I wouldn't be scared fighting some stranger on the street.

And no, I'm not an internet tough guy. Please go through a man's contribution to these forum threads before you make such a dumb proposition. If you find anything that would support this alternative, I will gladly and most immediately retract myself and heck! mute myself forever. I try to use reason and arguments, not threats and insults (though I will admit to having had recourse to the latter when drunk or very angry; apologies to those I've insulted).

My point is more simply that, given Zimm's authority AND his carrying a lethal weapon, that man should have had much, much more judgement in addressing the situation, whatever it was. If indeed the guy had little to no training for this kind of situation, he shouldn't have been carrying a lethal weapon. As for criminal intent or guilt, I'm not in a position to make the call. The courts are.

But I do thank you for your ad hominem attack and the reduction of my reasoning under the head of "successful media brainwashing". It was very productive in helping us carry our thoughts further on this issue.

@Cach - you've already lost, dude. He was pinend to the ground according to his statement, and shot in self defense. Until someone comes forward to disprove his statement (a witness or a crime scene evidence expert), I accept his word as fact. He was patrolling his neighborhood. The neighborhoos had a series of thefts involving a young black man. Treyvon - a 17 year old black man who had trouble with the law and in school recently (ignore the fact the media protrayed him as 12 or 14 with their cute little bullshit pictures that were years old and ignore the fact that in his *past* he had been a good kid - his recent record had him in drug trouble with school and turning into a delinquent). GZ approached (stupid, probably should have listened to the dispatcher, but being stupid isn't a crime) and TM went off on him, pinned him to the ground where he felt himself startign to black out so he shot.

Anyone want to tell me what TM was *actually* doing in that neighborhood? If anything, the odds are TM was the racist punk who thought he could get away with beating the fuck out of GZ and discovered he was on the wrong end of a gun.

No, I have no pity for TM at this point. He shouldn't have been skulking through a neighborhood at night in the rain casing houses for later robberies (and no one seems to have noticed that the robberies stopped after TM got himself killed, maybe the thief just decided to stop after TM got killed? Yeah and I have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale!)

And for those still stuck on the "white on black" racism part of the alleged crime... He is as white as Obama is. They both share one white parent and one non-white. If Obama is black, then GZ is Peruvian (his mom is a Peruvian immigrant). It's funny how the liberal-biased media take the stand that suits their cause best and avoid the actual truth at all costs. Not haha funny but, something smells rotten in Denmark funny.

When stupid leads to death, especially when stupid is a person with authority, sanctions do tend to follow.

Also: you use his statement as a legitimate recounting of the events. That's something that would need to be corroborated by other facts before it's taken as more than a man saying what he needs to so that he may get out of a jam. You deciding to take it as a factual account without anything to corroborate it is an arbitrary choice, and not one the courts can make. I think this much you will grant me.

But more importantly: you seem to be interested in what the court should decide, and you also seem to think it should have something to do with the characters involved. You insist on TM's suspicious behavior. I, on the other hand, insist on Zimm's lack of proper training to be in this kind of situation and use a firearm. Being suspicious is not sufficient for causing death. Discharging your weapon, however, is. You can lack sympathy for TM, but you can't make him responsible for his death.

But the thing is: none of us were there. How things really went down, we'll likely never know. All I care about is that a man (regardless of character) was armed and in a situation of power who OBVIOUSLY (given the results) should not have been. The fact is, even a cop would be blamed for not listening to the dispatcher's order in this case. But Zimm did not have a cop's authority. He acted privately.

I don't think we'll ever agree on this. For me, it's not a case of media coverage or opinion about the individuals involved. For me, it's about facts: an unarmed man was shot by an armed one. That's got to be where our thinking starts. Some of you, on the other hand, seem to imply that our thinking should start at: a black suspicious man was walking in a fairly non-black neighbourhood without obvious reasons. And if that's really the way you approach the issue, we are at odds in such a way that I doubt we can ever discuss the issue properly.

He had no real authority. Neighborhood watches don't have real authority over anything.

And no, the other facts need to disprove it. Innocent until *proven* guilty. Remember that part of our laws? You take him at his word until evidence says otherwise. That's how our system works. don't like it? Move somewhere else. I hear China loves to make people prove their innocence.

"You deciding to take it as a factual account without anything to corroborate it is an arbitrary choice, and not one the courts can make. I think this much you will grant me. "

And no, I don't grant that. Without evidence to the contrary, the courts see it *exactly* as I do.

"You can lack sympathy for TM, but you can't make him responsible for his death. "

A bank robber gets shot while commiting a crime, I sure as fuck don't blaim the guy who pulled the trigger. TM was assaulting (pummelling to his potential death) GZ. So yes, I blaim TM for his own death. Had he behaved like a rational human, maybe the whole thing could have been avoided. But all evidence so far points to his being a hot head drug addict juvenile deliquent. He responded inappropriately and received his just reward. sorry if you find me callous, but I would feel that way about anyone who tried to beat someone else up and got killed for it.

"But Zimm did not have a cop's authority. He acted privately. "

First he is in a position of authority. Now, two paragraphs later, he wasn't? Make up your fucking mind!

"For me, it's about facts: an unarmed man was shot by an armed one. That's got to be where our thinking starts."

No, that isn't where it starts. It starts with a person of suspicious intent going somewhere he didn't belong (and you still haven't countered how, amazingly, the "young black man robbing the houses" stopped right after). Had TM not been casing houses to rob later, he wouldn't have been in the neighborhood and he wouldn't have gotten shot. It was a gated community, so TM was actually commiting a crime by just *being* there (last I checked it's called trespassing).

> First off, racism isn't a crime.

You were acting like race wasn't a part of the story until the media made it so. Zimmerman made it so.

> the neighborhood had had a series of robberies committed by young black men.

Citation?

> the idea that he was some racist Elmer Fudd hunting coloreds has no basis in fact.

That will come out in the 911 tapes during the trial.

> To him and people like him Zimmerman is guilty until proven innocent

He's guilty period, even if the jury comes to the wrong finding. That's okay. I'm not on the jury. I also know OJ murdered Nicole, and I knew that before the trial was over; don't act like you didn't.

Here is your citation for the crime spree.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/28/zimmerman-s-twin-lakes-community-was-on-edge-before-trayvon-shooting.html

> You take him at his word until evidence says otherwise. That's how our system works.

Holy shit! Cachimbo, are you on the jury? You're supposed to be sequestered, not online talking about the case!

@gavrilop - Please move to China. They like your type there.

A black guy committing an act of trespass, shoot him for me that dirty black bastard. More importantly how can a Spic have a surname like Zimmerman, I thought this was Yiddish

Zimmerman was admitted to the hospital suffering injuries after reporting to the police that he had killed a man. From that information alone, any half-wit could figure that Zimmerman either,
A. Was attacked without warning (probably not true)
OR
B. Was willing to engage the 'victim' to some degree before killing him outright.

Either way, there is absolutely no evidence to support that this was not an act of self-defense. Unless the 911 tapes have a recording of him saying "I'm gonna go kill that kid," then the prosecution doesn't have anything that even comes close to a case. I think it's apparent that Zimmerman is not guilty, but it will be a sad day for the American justice system if he is deemed otherwise. Until Zimmerman admits that his injuries were self-inflicted, I'd be pretty happy if everyone would just shut the hell up about it. Seriously, can't a guy kill another guy without it being all about race and shit?

> Had TM not been casing houses to rob later

Something about moving to China.

Also,
According to Bill O'Reilly, 70% of African American children are born out of wedlock. Almost anything you can make a stereotype about is going to be true in most cases. That being said, the punk-ass kid (who was deliberately trying to draw attention to himself (which he expressed in a phone call discussed only by the all-knowing Fox News)) had it coming.

Does no one find it odd that the house burglaries stopped after TM got himself killed? I feel donfident in my assertion that he was casing houses to rob later. But I wouldn't say "he's guilty no matter what the cpourts say" if he had been caught and brought to trial. That's the *key* difference.

> Does no one find it odd that the house burglaries stopped

Citation?

But no it wouldn't be odd. Somebody gets murdered in that neighborhood recently for walking around, I might start robbing a different neighborhood.

> But I wouldn't say "he's guilty no matter what the cpourts say" if he had been caught and brought to trial.

OK, tell me OJ didn't murder Nicole.

If you start shooting all the punk-ass black kids born out of wedlock who's gonna run the 100m, or play in the NBA?
You seem to have loads of extra Spics you didn't know about, maybe they can take their place ...... maybe this is the start of a job creation programme for the millions of illegal immigrants 'once you shoot black, you'll never look back'.