Yet another win for bigtexxx I've dominated your thoughts and controlled your emotions for years now.
the thing I don't understand is why would someone give the benefit of the doubt to the shooter of the unarmed teen instead of to the killled shooting victim. the reason why there aren't any facts is because he was walking home and got shot on his way. here's the flaw of the entire argument whether self defense was used or not- Zimmerman found the boy walking home to be suspicious behavior and followed/engaged the boy as a suspect instead of a community member.
...it's obvious, if you only have the information presented in the biased reporting on this. We need more facts. Zimmerman may have been justified in his claim of self-defense -- we just do not know.
but was he justified to report the boy's behavior as suspicious? we just do not know. I think we need more facts. I can't wait to hear the non-emergency number recording. wow, that map above shows the boy on the direct path from the store to his home as reported by every single biased media source in the state of Florida and national news coverage!
Texxx, allow me to paint a realistic scenario giving Zimmerman every benefit of the doubt: 1. Zimmerman sees someone suspicious and calls the police 2. The police tell him to stand down, but he decides to follow the person anyway. 3. Martin realizes that he's being followed, and like most hot-headed teenagers (or going ever further...someone whose high on a controlled substance), gets very aggressive and instigates a fight. 4. Zimmerman, despite outweighing Martin by 100 lbs, is unable to subdue an aggressive Martin for whatever reason (he's out of shape, the rain makes it hard to hold onto someone) 5. Still under the impression that Martin is a dangerous criminal, Zimmerman begins to fear for his life and shoots Martin. We could all make a convincing enough argument that much of it was a tragic misunderstanding. However, his willfully ignoring police instructions was the tipping point, and ultimately it's the reason why he should be held responsible for precipitating this entire debacle.
Regardless of race, and barring any other facts coming out, from the facts that are out there so far, it is hard to understand for me that Zimmerman is not in jail.
exactly - his story of self-defense might be plausible if this kid had approached him/initiated contact, but the fact is the wanna-be cop called 9/11 to report him and admitted to "trailing" him. its possible the kid got mad, turned around and said something which escalated the situation, but this zimmerman idiot instigated the whole thing in the first place and based on what we know, was most likely was the one who started the physical confrontation w/ the kid. either way, the result is that an innocent, unarmed kid was murdered by a vigilante..and again, dont equate this w/ joe horn. dont lump this poor kid in w/ two piece of crap thieves who got what they deserved.
The police have stated that Zimmerman found him to be suspicious because he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and that he was walking slowly in the rain. Not that suspicious of behavior.
i never said that, but i will say that there are inherent risks involved in robbing peoples homes and one of them is getting shot and killed...dont hate the player, hate the game. teenagers who go to the convenience store for skittles do not deserve the death penatly...again, dont compare this poor kid to a couple dead thieves. i think burglary should get you 10 years minimum in prison. i would reserve the death penalty for murderers (like this zimmerman person), rapists, child molesters and people who use a gun to commit a crime.
You said they got what they deserved. They were both shot in the back and killed as they ran away from the scene from what I recall. They certainly didn't deserve that even if they were comitting a crime. Where these cases are similiar is in the disproportionate use of force.
Joe Horn's case was a bit more gray. It was like this case in almost every way except he had a more slightly plausible argument for self-defense in that it is reasonable to think that burglars might be armed. I still would have thrown Horn and this guy in prison though. I don't think self-defense should ever be an acceptable legal defense when you (unless you're a cop) choose to confront someone who isn't an immediate threat to anyone. Step back from the particulars of this case and the laws of Florida. No government should have a legal framework that encourages citizens to engage in vigilantism and then get off scot-free when people get hurt for their overzealous intervention. If Florida's laws say what Zimmerman did was okay, it's an immoral law.
another key difference with Horn, was that Zimmerman wasn't aware of any crime being committed here...if the suspicious guy 'got away' somehow before the police showed up, it would be no big deal.
I should have known better. I walk into a thread where the usual "suspects" defend an extremist "neighborhood patrolman." Let's give him a metal for destroying multiple lives. You don't kill an unarmed teenager walking home. Period.
Actually, no. Even after ignoring the police non-emergency number's dispatcher's instructions, Zimmerman still had a right to pursue Martin. That is not the tipping point. What we need to know is what happened between Zimmerman approaching Martin and the shot being fired.
