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Hi again, Barb.Dante, I did not call you a racist. I called you an asshole and a douchebag (pretty sure I limited it to this subject), but never a racist.
Here is the statute itself (Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine):
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
....
(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
....
Now, try to put yourself in the cops' shoes and imagine you know nothing about the parties - both the victim and the shooter have no faces and you only know what you see and hear that night.
And, look at the law within which you MUST operate.
Now, this is what we know:
One of the parties is dead from a gunshot wound.
One of the parties is not and admits to shooting the other party.
An eye witness told the cops they had seen the shooter on the ground and on his back just before the shooting.
The shooter had grass stains on his back.
The shooter had head wounds and those were attended to by the EMTs.
The shooter told the cops he called for help and no one came. And, a witness told cops that they had heard someone calling for help before the shooting.
Remember, no faces to the parties. No emotions. The law is written in plain English. And, no one can detain anyone without probable cause that a law was broken.
I know what I would do. How about you?
The kid did have just as much right to do that. Unfortunately he did not have a gun, too.Hi again, Barb.Dante, I did not call you a racist. I called you an asshole and a douchebag (pretty sure I limited it to this subject), but never a racist.
Here is the statute itself (Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine):
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
....
(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
....
Now, try to put yourself in the cops' shoes and imagine you know nothing about the parties - both the victim and the shooter have no faces and you only know what you see and hear that night.
And, look at the law within which you MUST operate.
Now, this is what we know:
One of the parties is dead from a gunshot wound.
One of the parties is not and admits to shooting the other party.
An eye witness told the cops they had seen the shooter on the ground and on his back just before the shooting.
The shooter had grass stains on his back.
The shooter had head wounds and those were attended to by the EMTs.
The shooter told the cops he called for help and no one came. And, a witness told cops that they had heard someone calling for help before the shooting.
Remember, no faces to the parties. No emotions. The law is written in plain English. And, no one can detain anyone without probable cause that a law was broken.
I know what I would do. How about you?
Si, that is not all we know, though.
The dead kid had just as much right to stand his ground, and he was armed only with an iced tea, a cell phone, and skittles. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He had every right to be there. The cops might have known that sooner if they had done any investigation into his cell phone, instead of ignoring his contact list and tagging him as a John Doe.
Like I said, we'll have to disagree.
The kid did have just as much right to do that. Unfortunately he did not have a gun, too.Hi again, Barb.
Here is the statute itself (Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine):
(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:
....
(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
....
Now, try to put yourself in the cops' shoes and imagine you know nothing about the parties - both the victim and the shooter have no faces and you only know what you see and hear that night.
And, look at the law within which you MUST operate.
Now, this is what we know:
One of the parties is dead from a gunshot wound.
One of the parties is not and admits to shooting the other party.
An eye witness told the cops they had seen the shooter on the ground and on his back just before the shooting.
The shooter had grass stains on his back.
The shooter had head wounds and those were attended to by the EMTs.
The shooter told the cops he called for help and no one came. And, a witness told cops that they had heard someone calling for help before the shooting.
Remember, no faces to the parties. No emotions. The law is written in plain English. And, no one can detain anyone without probable cause that a law was broken.
I know what I would do. How about you?
Si, that is not all we know, though.
The dead kid had just as much right to stand his ground, and he was armed only with an iced tea, a cell phone, and skittles. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He had every right to be there. The cops might have known that sooner if they had done any investigation into his cell phone, instead of ignoring his contact list and tagging him as a John Doe.
Like I said, we'll have to disagree.
The cop report from that night shows the kid's full name, which contradicts the John Doe story.
So, have you looked at the law and the evidence we do know (from the actual cop report)? Can you see why he was not further detained/arrested?
UPDATE 3, 9:30 p.m. EDT, Monday, March 19: Where is Trayvon Martin's cellphone?
When Trayvon Martin was killed, all he had were Skittles, iced tea...and a cellphone, authorities told the L.A. Times. The phone has been mentioned in multiple reports in recent days, and journalists and concerned citizens are starting to ask: Where is Trayvon's phone? Why did the police on the scene of the shooting not use it to identify Martin, or contact his next of kin? "Trayvon's body was bagged and taken to the morgue, where he was tagged as a John Doe," writes African American affairs blogger Sandra Rose. "No one contacted Trayvon's family even though police had Trayvon's cell phone in their possession."
The lack of information about Martin's phone is feeding further skepticism about the police's conduct, and it's led New York Times columnist Charles Blow to start a new meme on Twitter:
Charles M. Blow ✔@CharlesMBlow Make this trend: Where is Trayvon's cellphone?
19 Mar 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
It may be far removed from your pathetic little life, but many in florida would like the ability to walk around with out being followed and killed with impunity because of a bad law.Dante, I did not call you a racist. I called you an asshole and a douchebag (pretty sure I limited it to this subject), but never a racist.
the slippery slope. the fact that I feel you are being irrational about an incident that is far removed from our pathetic little lives...but an incident that goes to how we view each other as human beings...
jesus christ, don't you see what is happening...how people are transforming themselves into warriors for right vs wrong? shit, what is happening here is the American version of what we criticize in the extremist Muslim world
some of us have become ideological purists who would hang another human being because we perceive him as representing evil
George Zimmerman is NOT evil. He is a poor sucker caught up in a whirlwind of societal retribution
(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
No one is under any legal obligation to follow the suggestions of a 9/11 operator. The operator told him, "We don't need you to do that".(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
Don't really see where this applies when from the 911 call we already know he was not "in a place he had a right to be". He was told to quit following the kid and should have been arrested on that basis alone.
On the top of 'page 2 of 4' is the boy's full name.The kid did have just as much right to do that. Unfortunately he did not have a gun, too.Si, that is not all we know, though.
The dead kid had just as much right to stand his ground, and he was armed only with an iced tea, a cell phone, and skittles. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He had every right to be there. The cops might have known that sooner if they had done any investigation into his cell phone, instead of ignoring his contact list and tagging him as a John Doe.
Like I said, we'll have to disagree.
The cop report from that night shows the kid's full name, which contradicts the John Doe story.
So, have you looked at the law and the evidence we do know (from the actual cop report)? Can you see why he was not further detained/arrested?
Si, I'm looking at the cop report. Everything identifying anyone is blacked out. In the report they list Zimmerman, but blacked his name out, and repeatedly refer to the dead as "the subject." So no, thaqt report doesn't contradict anything.
from the Mother Jones link I posted before:
UPDATE 3, 9:30 p.m. EDT, Monday, March 19: Where is Trayvon Martin's cellphone?
When Trayvon Martin was killed, all he had were Skittles, iced tea...and a cellphone, authorities told the L.A. Times. The phone has been mentioned in multiple reports in recent days, and journalists and concerned citizens are starting to ask: Where is Trayvon's phone? Why did the police on the scene of the shooting not use it to identify Martin, or contact his next of kin? "Trayvon's body was bagged and taken to the morgue, where he was tagged as a John Doe," writes African American affairs blogger Sandra Rose. "No one contacted Trayvon's family even though police had Trayvon's cell phone in their possession."
The lack of information about Martin's phone is feeding further skepticism about the police's conduct, and it's led New York Times columnist Charles Blow to start a new meme on Twitter:
Charles M. Blow ✔@CharlesMBlow Make this trend: Where is Trayvon's cellphone?
19 Mar 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
It may be far removed from your pathetic little life, but many in florida would like the ability to walk around with out being followed and killed with impunity because of a bad law.Dante, I did not call you a racist. I called you an asshole and a douchebag (pretty sure I limited it to this subject), but never a racist.
the slippery slope. the fact that I feel you are being irrational about an incident that is far removed from our pathetic little lives...but an incident that goes to how we view each other as human beings...
jesus christ, don't you see what is happening...how people are transforming themselves into warriors for right vs wrong? shit, what is happening here is the American version of what we criticize in the extremist Muslim world
some of us have become ideological purists who would hang another human being because we perceive him as representing evil
George Zimmerman is NOT evil. He is a poor sucker caught up in a whirlwind of societal retribution
An hispanic JEW shoots a black attacker, whites blamed.
Zimmerman might have had a lot of baggage, but he still shot an animal in self-defense.
Nope. Zimmerman blamed. No evidence so far that Zimmerman life was in danger.
Nor any evidence the killing was deemed important in Seminole county, UNTIL there was public outcry.
Whether or not he is tried for and convicted of murder depends on several factors, mainly the applicable law and the available evidence.I think the guy is guilty of murder.
And therein could lie the tale. If Zimmerman can convincingly assert that Martin assaulted him, then according to the Florida law Zimmerman had a right to use deadly force to defend himself. The fact that Zimmerman's conduct up to that point was excessive and probably unlawful does not override the Stand Your Ground ruling.It also sounded like the kid was whipping the shit out of a wannabe super cop.
Actually he was not "told to stop." He was advised that the Sanford PD "did not need him to do that" (follow Martin). That is not an instruction. It is information -- a request at most, leaving a wide open option.Zimmerman was told to stop by a 911 operator, he did not.
I agree. Zimmerman did indeed instigate the incident. But if he can make the case that his part was limited to exceeding his authority as a civilian the most he could be charged with is disorderly conduct and maybe harassment.Zimmerman instigated this and he should be held accountable for his part.
The police know these things which is why Zimmerman hasn't been arrested.
i dont understand why this "story" is so goddamn important. people die all the time...shit happens. this is not special.
Could you quote the part of the statute that you believe specifically says what Zimmerman did is not protected, please?It may be far removed from your pathetic little life, but many in florida would like the ability to walk around with out being followed and killed with impunity because of a bad law.the slippery slope. the fact that I feel you are being irrational about an incident that is far removed from our pathetic little lives...but an incident that goes to how we view each other as human beings...
jesus christ, don't you see what is happening...how people are transforming themselves into warriors for right vs wrong? shit, what is happening here is the American version of what we criticize in the extremist Muslim world
some of us have become ideological purists who would hang another human being because we perceive him as representing evil
George Zimmerman is NOT evil. He is a poor sucker caught up in a whirlwind of societal retribution
Ravi the law does not protect what this zimmerman guy did, how is it a bad law?
People claiming the law protects this do not understand the law itself. Or they are intentionally misrepresenting it to use this tragedy as a vehicle to attack the law, which had nothing to do with zimmerman murdering the kid and doesn't protect zimmerman.
In fact there is language in this law that specifically says what zimmerman did isn't protected.
i dont understand why this "story" is so goddamn important. people die all the time...shit happens. this is not special.
Yes, unarmed teenagers are gunned down all the time with the police looking the other way.
Happens all the time.
Liberals are the ones playing politics and race baiting, with Obama now the official ring leader. And Al Sharpton is a disgrace. MSNBC must be proud.
Both sides have people using this incident as a soapbox for something.Liberals are the ones playing politics and race baiting, with Obama now the official ring leader. And Al Sharpton is a disgrace. MSNBC must be proud.
It's an easily sensationalized story for the 24-hour news networks to pull in the usual crowd of people that can't get enough of other people's misery and get ratings. In short, it sells.
To politicize it is just par for the course in today's political discourse, but as you say, it's sickening.
