Justin Cascio thought he’d be happy to hear that police chief Bill Lee is stepping aside. But he is simply sad for the loss of Trayvon.
When I heard the news that Sanford, FL police chief Bill Lee Jr., 52, who is white, has stepped down, claiming that his involvement in the Trayvon Martin murder investigation had become a distraction, I wasn’t glad; it only made me sad again. As a parent with an 18 year old son, my heart goes out to Trayvon Martin’s mother and father, for how much they have suffered and lost.
On this beautiful spring day, I am out walking through my neighborhood. No one is surveilling me. Along my route, I am admiring the crocuses and the shining bicycles and the students sunning themselves on lawns, and thinking of all the parents who have talked to their kids about Trayvon Martin in the past three weeks, who are afraid for their children in a new way since seeing his face in the news. Commenter Eric M asks,
Anybody know the names of the 512 black boys and men that were killed since Treyvon Martin was? Based on historic patterns, there will be 18 or more Treyvon Martins killed every day indefinitely—unless and until the underlying causes of the despair of black men are addressed, which is very unlikely to happen based on a long history of them mattering very little in our society.
Damon Young at Very Smart Brothas talks about some of those black boys and girls who were murdered. Stories of random violence, and of domestic torture. Bad things happen to everyone, but they happen disproportionately to people of color, and judging by at least some of the comments on VSB, some black people have concluded that no one cares what happens to black children, slactivism notwithstanding.
When I’ve had The Talk with my son, it has focused on other people’s oppression, because I didn’t worry that someone would shame my fair-skinned boy with a slur that struck him to the core, that he would not fit in at school because of his race, or that, as a teenager doing typical teenager things, adults would suspect him of “being on drugs or something.”
When I think of Trayvon, I think of the young people my son’s age. I am thinking about Trayvon’s girlfriend. He told her “some man was watching him,” right before he was killed by the watchman.
When you’ve talked to your sons, what have you told them?
Does the world care about those 512 boys that Eric M mentions?
To read Justin Cascio’s letter to Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee, and Lee’s letter back, click here.
Would it change anyones mind if they knew that there was an eye witness who saw everything from a balcony who gave police a statement that Trayvon attacked Z. as he was backing away and that he got Z on the ground and continued to beat him on the head as Z was calling for help and that the witness told Trayvon to stop because he was calling 911. Which he did, and gave them this description of events on tape?. At one point, everyone was so sure they knew what happened to Crystal Mangum in the house at Duke… Read more »
If audio forensics determine that the cries for help were coming from Z.
If wound ballistics and clothing burns determine that Z fired while he was on his back while being pounded.
If it turns out Mr. Martin was actually taller and stronger than Z.
Will anything change about Obamas or any of you guys take on this?
It won’t change my mind about this: that if police have allowed evidence to disappear, if they never collected it in a timely manner, if they allow so much time to elapse that people’s memories change and fade, if they fail to arrest someone in a case where a child has been killed with a gun… then justice cannot be done. Maybe the fault lies with a bad state law about self-defense. It’s not at all clear that law applies, and since there is so much doubt that there was, Zimmerman should have been arrested.
1 racist cop down…many, many more to go.
At least he’s taking responsibility, good for him.
There are many more Trayvons out there. There’s also many more police chiefs (and officers and politicians and…) who aren’t resigning because there’s no media spotlight on them.
I have a feeling this case will result in a conviction for this man. Is that GOOD, yes it is, BUT for alot of the wrong reasons. This case made national headlines and IMHO, that is the only thing that is going to allow this case to ever end up in court. If you were to take the victim and perp and make them both white, or both black. We probably would not have heard about this case. But what is just as bad if not worse is that if this were a woman who was killed especially a white… Read more »
I’m not sure about that. Florida’s bizarre “Stand Your Ground” law means that you don’t have to make a reasonable effort to escape before shooting in “self-defense.” I think we need to get rid of that law.
The reason I believe what I said is because in thie case, the police NOT the lawyers (DA) made the decision to let him go, PLUS the police it appears did not even do any gun residue tests on him, never took his clothes for testing and it appears they did very little, my point was if there were a woman they would have done a lot more testing and imho, would have charged him OR at the very least passed it onto the DA for processing
Gotten rid of or at least reworked. Essentially what has happened is this law has allowed Zimmerman to chase down, confront, and kill an innocent person when there was no threat to his life. The 911 operator straight up told him that he should not be following Trayvon, but he did it anyway. Its not that he didn’t make a reasonable effort to escape, he actually pressed the attack and went after him. If Trayvon had indeed had a weapon he would have been within his right to kill Zimmerman first.