Trayvon Martin is still dead. He was a 17-year old African-American male guilty of buying Skittles at a convenience store and walking home. He was pursued by a 29-year old cop wannabe named George Zimmerman, even after the citizen vigilante had phoned in his report of Martin’s alleged suspicious behavior to the real police and was told there was no need to pursue. The real cops would investigate.
What happened next was a fight and a dead young man. Zimmerman shot Trayvon.
Zimmerman just stood trial and got off scot-free because Florida has something called the “stand your ground law” and Zimmerman said that he felt threatened by the young man he was pursuing and so he was in his rights to protect himself with the loaded gun he carried. Word to the wise: don’t want sit next to George Zimmerman at a horror film.
So justice is served and Trayvon Martin is still dead, but if there is any justice, he will never be forgotten.
Laws must change.
The police didn’t advise Zimmerman to stay in his car – a dispatcher did. Not the same thing.
Zimmerman got out of his car and looked for Martin – and when he got back to his car, Martin was waiting for him and initiated the confrontation. You may not believe that, but the jury did – all of them.
The Stand Your Ground law had nothing to do this case. The prosecution never raised it as an issue.
In the fight that ensued, all the witnesses not related to the the defendant or plantiff testified that it was Martin on top of Zimmerman.
Zimmerman had two lacerations on the back of his head and a broken nose. Martin had a laceration beneath his knuckle. That’s consistent with Zimmerman’s argument that Martin was slamming his head against the sidewalk.
Zimmerman told his story before police and passed a lie detector test. His testimony states that Martin said he was going to die tonight. The jury bought it. In my mind, that justifies the use of deadly force.
While pursuing someone may be creepy, it does not – under any circumstances – give ANYONE the right to use violence.
We’ll never know the full story, Mike, but at the rate our country’s going, we’ll soon be back to the wild, wild west.