I apologize for asking questions I believe need to be answered.

You asked if the police missed any evidence

The police didn't even follow up (their admission) and check who the victim was on the phone with

It doesn't matter who she told, what the evidence is, who her first grade teacher was or if she has braces.

I said that the media forced police to consider new evidence that hadn't and probably wouldn;t have been considered.

You asked, incredulously, if people really believed that police missed evidence

I showed that police missed evidence

THEREFOR

the media forced the police to consider new evidence and the police investigation before the media caught hold several days after the commission of the crime, was far from thorough.

I never claimed it was a smoking gun, I never claimed she told anybody,

I claimed that it showed the police investigation was far from thorough

Your questions are completely irrelevant.

and I should say, before 20 questions, the fact that she was on the phone with him until moments before the shooting is confirmed by phone records. And she said he mentioned he was being followed, and that she heard a guy confront him. No idea if its true what the guy said. What is undoubtedly true is she was on the phone with him and the police didn't so much look at phone records

@Santa - Please explain to me, an idiot, how the police were supposed to know the victim was on the phone based on the evidence at the scene? If he was using the standard bluetooth earpiece, then the phone would have been closed and possibly in a pocket or something. They would have had no clue.

Oh, and I should point out, those phoen records weren't at the scene of the crime and wouldn't have been researched until later if at all.

"Please explain to me, an idiot, how the police were supposed to know the victim was on the phone based on the evidence at the scene?"

The dead body likely had the phone on or near it. That is an important piece of evidence that certainly bears examination, if for no other reason than to let the decedent's parents know their son was dead - something which (if the media is to be believed) didn't happen for three days. Police routinely examine cell phones for potential evidence to incriminate arrestees, no reason to believe they didn't do so in this case unless the phone was password/code/swipe protected (which I doubt).

Draug, he had the phone in his pocket. It was a dead body. They usually check those things. Its not like they walk away from the scene. And if they approached it as anything approaching a murder investigation it would be simple enough to open the phone and see if it was being used, and from there the phone records. Days passed and they didn't check that information they didn't even know he had been on the phone until ABC news got the info. How do you justify that? You can blame it on the girl all you want like E-mac, but if its not the police duty to investigate, whos is it?

Phone in pocket... Security code by chance? I know my phone is locked. Easy enough to do on an Android, iPhone, or Blackberry. You make assumptions that are invalid. 1) They would check the phone's call log at the scene (usually bag and tag to be checked later according to my brother, the cop). 2) The phone wasn't locked. Bad assumptions there, Santa.

you assume:
1.) the police can't get past a locked phone, which is laughable (they have machines now that check phone call logs at the scene an ignore passwords, though i cant assume everyone has them)
2.) That we are talking about a time frame of a couple days and the police didn't get around to checking it
the fact is several days to weeks had gone by until ABCNews obtained the phone logs and contacted the girlfriend. What that says about the girl's credibility, I don't know, what it says about the police investigation, I do know, it was a sham.

I do believe that even if the phone was locked, the police have equipment that will let them break into the phone and see any unencrypted data.

@Tolstoy - Stop watching TV and thinking every cop has a crime lab in his car. First, TV like's to make shit up. Cracking a phone security code isn't done by a simple piece of equipment a cop has in his trunk. And pulling the SD card won't necessarily get you the phone log if the log is stored in onboard memory as most are by default. So believ what you want, the reality is cops bag and tag everything, then someone at the crime lab processes all of it the next day which means this evidence was not available at the scene of the crime.

@Santa - standard procedure (I've talked to my brother, a *cop*, about this exact case) is to bag and tag. It was midnight so the evidence would all be processed by the crime lab over the next couple of days. Speaking from experience as a IT expert who ahs worked in the security field, that equipment you think they have doesn't exist. Phone tech changes so rapidly it wouldn't be feasible to have equpiment that cracks a phone instantly. So a tech has to hack it to get into it. And as woefully understaffed as most police departments are, that means one or two techs on the case and hundreds of pieces of evidence to process, or days worth of work.

http://monolithik.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/warrant-less-cell-phone-searches-okayed-in-ca-fl-ga/

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/mich-cops-can-now-steal-your-cell-phone-data-without-the-owner-knowing/

...

The existence of the phone call was made public by the family's attorney Daryl D. Parks on March 20.

"Stop watching TV and thinking every cop has a crime lab in his car. First, TV like's to make shit up."

Um... I don't have a TV. I've seen TV news reports of this case only because I was living in a hotel room for a week and a half, and the last time I saw a police drama on TV was about 15 years ago.

http://www.cellebrite.com/mobile-forensics-products/forensics-products.html
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-04-25/tech/30008270_1_location-data-cell-phone-data-encrypted-data
http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/eff-says-cyber-security-bills-open-door-government-corporate-abuse-032412

Maybe you should stop listening to your cop-brother - he's obviously lying to you about this.

The statement "Do people really think that the police ignored compelling evidence? Do people think the district attorney ignored compelling evidence? does not state that "people really believed that police missed evidence." Why would someone intentionally misrepresent a posted statement that is easily copied and pasted? The police can only ignore compelling evidence if they have it.

Ignoring compelling evidence means the police and DA were aware of evidence and ignored it. Was the cell phone still charged by the time the dectetives gt onto the case so they could turn it on and see the call history? Would detectives expect someone talking to the defendant at the time of the murder to come forward to them? Of course they would. Did someone come forward to them. No. The call was not made public until over three weeks after the death.

The first link has squat to do with this case. They don't need a warrant to search evidence at the scene of a crime anyhow.

The second is almost a year old and, if I recall correctly, the device was extremely expensive (only 5 in the whole state) and the ACLU won their case and Michigan was ordered to cease and desist their use in the field. So not exactly sitting in every cop cars trunk or even available at every crime lab like Sanford Florida. Sanford is only 50,000 people. The city I live in (not Cincinnati, but Fairfield in Butler County) has a population of 42,000, not much difference, and I can tell you we have to send our evidence to the county for processing and they get to it when they get to it.

Trayvon Martin was found dead on February 26.

22 days later, phone records were not checked.

Thanks for making my point for me Eman

and yes ABC news reported on the girlfriends call on March 19 when the girl gave the info to Martin's family .

Martin's family attorney Daryl D. Parks announced it the next day.



http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/trayvon-martin-case-timeline-of-events/

@Tolstoy - all that shit is expensive. Sanford is a small "city" of just 50,000 people. I doubt they have the funds for that kind of equipment (see my previous message).

This isn't LA or Miami or NYC or Chicago folks.

The family attorney Daryl Parks ahd a teleconference yesterday with that National Association of Black Journalists. He stated in the teleconference that the Justice Department indicated they would not pursue hate crime charges. Attorney Parks also indicated he planned to file a civil suit against the homeowners assocation. Attorney Parks also filed two trademark claims in the name of the parents for the slogans "I Am Trayvon" and "Justice for Trayvon." Daryl D. Parks is the President of the National Bar Association by the way.

Oh, and my brother just referred to the bag and tag. But at 4K a unit, I doubt a small city (under 250,000 people) is going to put one in every cop's trunk.

Draug, $4,000 is not expensive. They can certainly afford it, especially with all the law enforcement grant money floating around. There are small time police departments like Sanford with submarines, radiation suits, and armored personnel carriers thanks to DHS grants, for frack's sake.

The girlfriend has still not given a statement to police.

or ignoring could mean, as I have claimed all along and you took issue with it, that the police felt no need to investigate the death, ignored possible leads such as the cell phone in the kid's pocket, and assumed this was a case of pure self defense. Until of course the media got on it and all of a sudden the police were working overtime to investigate.

So basically, yes E-man, if all you are saying is that the police didn't sit around look squarely at a piece of evidence and then put it aside just to be jerks, you are absolutely right, they did not do that. Glad we understand. Why you had to make that point, I don't know, but you made it incredibly.

"Would detectives expect someone talking to the defendant at the time of the murder to come forward to them? "

Or they could check phone records... if they cared of course.

I also don't know what i was thinking for faulting a police investigation which, in your words could easily been sidetracked by lack of charged up cell phone. God knows that cops can't find a way to charge a cell phone in 22 days. You, as always are asking the tough questions.

And congrats for trolling me so long...

Night

"The girlfriend has still not given a statement to police."

She gave it to federal investigators because she doesn't trust the Sanford police

troll

Really?! Tolstoy, you are *whacked*! The Cincinnati Police Department (a major city *way* bigger than Sanford) is laying off patrolmen because of budget cuts. Cities around the US are having a hard time balancing their budget! Where the fuck do you live that your police department can afford to drop $K a car?

ABC News was called by an attorney for the Martin family to hear her statement. ABC news did not break the story. The timeline in the linked blog states that fact. The attorney's used the media as they always do. The media did not break the story.

According to the interview that Daryl Parks gave to the NABJ the girl has not given any statement to police. He does not mention the Sanford police. His statement is any police.