Prosecutors in Florida have released some of the much anticipated evidence in the case of the shooting of Travon Martin, the unarmed teenager who died after being shot by George Zimmerman while returning from a snack run, Skittles in hand.
The Daily Beast reports that among the evidence were photographs of George Zimmerman’s bleeding head:
A paramedics’ report corroborates the photograph, identifying “abrasions to his forehead,” “bleeding/tenderness to his nose, and a small laceration to the back of his head. All injuries have minor bleeding.”
All of the other evidence seems to be one contradiction on top of the other. One witness places Matin on top in the fight, another says you couldn’t tell. Martin’s mother recognized Trayvon’s voice in the 911 calls, whereas Martin’s father says it isn’t him screaming.
Confounding evidence aside, so many questions in this case remain, such as whether or not Zimmerman can claim “Stand Your Ground” as a defense when he was told by police not to confront Martin, and why Zimmerman’s first legal team quit so hastily right before he was arrested.
What do you think? Has any of this evidence changed your mind?
What lessons can we learn from the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, and the resulting police, news, and tabloid circus?
For more information, watch the ABC news video below, and visit The Daily Beast.
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Honestly for me no it doesn’t. There is evidence that Zimmerman actively pursued Martin. Therefore any injuries that occured afterward are the direct result of Zimmerman going after him. If he hadn’t have gone after him (and the dispatcer he spoke to told him specifically not to puruse) the confrontation would have more than likely never have occured.
As an allegedly feminist lapdog, I can’t believe I’m the one bringing this up, but isn’t there a gender question as well as a race question in the death of Trayvon Martin? Perhaps his race was a factor in why he became a target. I’d say the fact that he was male is *definitely* a factor in why he was targeted. It’s useless to break it down into percentages, but if you’re targeted for violence for being a black male, that’s partly because of racism and partly because of sexism. And, don’t give me the “people who are ____ statistically are more violent” as a justification. That’s not an excuse for targeting black people, so it’s not a good excuse for targeting men either.
(Now I’ll probably have to turn in my N.O.W. secret decoder ring.)
Definitely.
Shhhh…..didn’t you know that you are only allowed to bring up gender when its women on the short end of the stick or when talking about men on the short end of the stick can be spun to make it look like it really is women on the short end of the stick.
The dispatchers warning does not carry any legal authority. That is a misconception that keeps rearing its head. The neighbourhood had 11 breakins in the past cpouple of weeks. Even iw ould follow a stranger in my own neighborhood.
Being followed in no riught to attack your pursuer. There are many facts that are now coming to light about this case.
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Frankly, I was and still am in the wait and see camp. So this new eveidence does not change my mind either way. There are parts of both versions that do not add up. Let the case speak for itself.
BUT didnt that judge order this sealed, why is the media releasing this information?
True, but it proves that he had the option not to pursue, and decided not to.
“Being followed in no riught to attack your pursuer.” Actually, it is. In fact…. Zimmerman’s saving grace, the “Stand your ground” law, in my opinion should be used AGAINST him rather than as his defence. The law states that a person may use force against someone when there is reasonable belief of threat. If some beefy, strange man was following ME around at night in his car, and got out to chase me when I started moving faster away from him….. I would also feel the need to defend myself in order to, you know, NOT GET ABDUCTED! Duh! Trayvon was a child, and ANY child would feel threatened in that situation. If more children fought back against abductors who followed and then approached them, there would be a lot less missing children in this world. I don’t care how much damage he did, if you follow children around at night in your car and then chase after them on foot when they run from you, they are going to feel threatened, and they might lash out in defence…. plain and simple.
Its not tht the dispatcher’s warning is legal authority but it does establish that any confrontation that happened was the result of Zimmerman making the first move.
Now from there it may be that Tryvon started any type of fight that happened or Zimmerman started. Either way it started because Zimmerman chose to go after him.
And the “but he was protecting his neighbourhood” crowd almost seem to depend on the idea that they knew Trayvon was up to no good.
Doesn’t change my opinion. Confirms everything I already thought was true about the case.
The most relevant question at this point is whether Zimmerman committed second-degree murder. It’s hard to see how he did considering we have the pictures of his bloodied head and face, the broken nose, and the eyewitness – the only one who can definitively say who he saw hitting whom – who says he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman.
Also, the timeline of the call and the short distance which Martin would have had to run if he had indeed been pursued by Zimmerman suggests that Martin came back on Zimmerman for some sort of confrontation. Zimmerman very stupidly and unfortunately played watch dog (partially based on good reasons i.e. a spate of neighborhood crimes, but still too heavy-handed) and shouldn’t have gotten out of his truck. But then Martin shouldn’t have attacked him.
It was avoidable in those two ways.
The evidence also suggests something else to me. The Sanford PD were not dragging their feet. They were following up on leads for a couple of weeks until the media campaign suggested that justice was being denied. Detectives for Sanford PD tried to get access to Trayvon’s phone on March 5 but Trayvon’s father denied the request and said he had to ask the family attorney. Mr. Martin also told detectives that it wasn’t his son’s voice heard screaming in the background of a 911 call.
When you add all of that up it falls far short of a second-degree murder charge and doesn’t match most of the rhetoric being thrown around in the run up of the case back in mid March. Zimmerman didn’t hunt Martin, gun drawn, looking to kill the kid. The kid did some damage to Zimmerman. One detective suggested a negligent manslaughter charge which seems much more justified than Murder-2. But then the Stand Your Ground Law came into play and seemingly overrode that charge.
So from there, I don’t know what charge Zimmerman should have. Something like “Unlawful Endangerment with a Firearm” or some such charge sounds about right.
Changes things a little, but not a whole lot. Zimmerman had no reason to follow him and while he didn’t deserve to be attacked for doing do (acting in an anti-social manner) using his gun was excessive. It’s not like he’s a 90 pound weakling, even after he was attacked I’m convinced he could have gotten out of there.
No, this does not change my opinion of the case.
I always assumed the Sanford Police department, and the local prosecutors, with access to ALL the information, had reasons beyond “derp we’re racist” for not filing charges immediately. Given the evidence of a struggle, it is now clear that they did have other reasons.
I also always assumed that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the appropriate charge or even guilt without getting all the evidence first, and that we did not yet have enough to make an appropriate conclusion. This is also clearly the case. Given the level of information turned over (67 CDs worth of documents), I’m not even sure we have all the relevant evidence today.
But I am also sure that some number of people will continue to claim that the authorities acted out of purely racist intentions, and that no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.
The only mistake Jorge Zimmerman made was to assume that T. Martin was mainly interested in avoiding being watched instead of being all-out willing to try to kill him. That is why he got out of his SUV. He would never have done it otherwise. He profiled TM; but only to the extent of assuming he was less violent and aggressive.than he turned out to be.
The only trials we will see will be in regard to the dis-barment proceedings for every lawyer who lied in public for team skittles.
I haven’t made up my mind; when the court case is complete and a verdict delivered then we’ll know (mostly) what happened. Until then, main stream media will keep aligning what they report with their own bias. Journalists are human too and they are not free of their own agendas. I am not surprised that the initial, breathless articles about a racist attack are now being replaced by a different story. Depending upon how long Zimmerman waits for his day in court, the “story” told my media outlets will change as well.
What is worth watching is how media outlets will change their story but make it look like their position has never altered. It goes to the heart of political gullibility.
told “by”….
According to the ME report, Zimmerman’s blood (from the nose?) was found on Martin’s shirt but not his hoodie. None of Martin’s blood (or so little the examiner couldn’t tell) ended up on Zimmerman. How could Zimmerman’s blood drip onto Martin if he was not sitting on top of him? ME report also says Martin had “moderate congestion of the leptomeniges” in the brain. In other cases congestion of the leptomeniges has been associated with blunt force trauma to the head. Is there an explanation for this? One witness claims he sees a man with a red jacket on the bottom in the struggle. It is well known that in low light situations, humans cannot distinguish between red and black. All the other witnesses and the police say it was dark at the scene. Is this witness who can see red in the dark not human or is he lying? Also the abrasion on Martin’s hand was on his pinkie. I don’t know of any martial art pinkie strike. I think this witness is just talking to feel important. I trust the woman who says she saw a man with a flashlight chasing another man. I think the flashlight was Zimmerman’s. (The flashlight was still lit and attached to a Honda key when the police were collecting evidence.)