Do you believe george zimmerman should be in jail?

To answer the question, I feel like we don't really have any good evidence. We have multiple narratives and no access to any of the physical evidence or forensics or reports on what witnesses actually said something to the police and put their name on it.

Therefore I can't say whether he should be in jail or not. If the evidence is murky on whether it was self defense he should stand trial. If it's clear it was self defense, he shouldn't.

 

1. zimmerman sees what he believes to be a suspicious character.
2. when told not to pursue, he does so anyway.
3. suspicious character aware he is being pursued, is nervous.
4. some sort of confrontation/altercation takes place.
5. suspicious character shot dead.

the question is whether this is a clear case of self defense. i believe a jury should decide this.

 

so some of you actually believe the police after they didn't put this in the report?


hilarious

 

#2 is in question and #4 is only "some sort" to us because we don't know all the facts. You are assuming that because it wasn't released to the media no evidence exists. His friend was on the news last night saying there is clear evidence that will be presented to the grand jury that he is under instruction not to reveal by the state's attorney. He seemed pretty convinced that everyone investigating the case believes Zimmerman in actually innocent. Now, of course he could be lying. He's a friend of Zimmerman. Friends, family and girlfriends have reason to lie for their loved ones.

We'll have to see. I'm not ready to say the police and the prosecutors are wrong based on media reports.

 

his friend, well you got us

 

As a friend, that's the smart thing to say just to help keep potential vigilantes away from Zimmerman.

 

I know I know. His friend is guaranteed to be a liar. It's a good thing Trayvon's teenage girlfriend is here with the complete...er almost...er...partial story. We know girlfriends never lie.

Yep. And he may be lying/stretching the truth/something else dishonest. We have no way to know that. I've already stipulated that.

 

how about we just go on what the people who were there said. i don't give a crap about friends or girlfriends

 

Cool. We have one eye witness. He says Martin was on top of Zimmerman beating him up.

Case closed. Right Pgabs?

 

I don't know if George's friend is lying or not. I'm glad that the grand jury will get all the evidence.

But there is a difference, in that the evidence the friend is talking about is some super secret evidence that none of us can discuss, or examine at all. We just have to take his word that it exists and is ironclad.

The girlfriend's statements were made public. We can examine them and shoot holes in them if they turn out to be false. But at least we know what they are, and that cell phone records back up that she was definitely on the phone with Martin. We can at least discuss it.

Also if his friend wasn't a witness, why was this priority super secret evidence given to this friend? Is that standard police procedure to tell friends secret evidence that can't be shared with anyone else?

That evidence may well exist, and may well prove that Zimmerman was attacked and had to defend his life. But for the sake of discussion on this bbs, there is nothing to discuss.

 

This is really all that is relevant, in my opinion. The issue is that no one knows what happened, and that's in part because the initial police response was miserably bad. The fact that no attempt was made to identify the victim for multiple days and (if true) that investigators "encouraged" a witness to support the self-defense line of thinking should result in everyone involved being fired.

 

We don't really have to take his word for anything. He wasn't actually arguing for you to think Zimmerman is innocent, his argument was basically to let the process play itself out. He was directing his words more to the people who are marching and threatening violence.

Right. And I don't know that they are false, nor am I suggesting they are. My only point was if a "friend" of Zimmerman elicits an eye roll in a "of course he's lying" kind of way, then why would one take the girlfriend's testimony of what was said to mean anything?

Well he seems to be appointed as sort of a family spokesman. So perhaps the police didn't share it with him as much as the prosecutors have spoken with Zimmerman's attorney and he's aware of it.

I wasn't suggesting we should discuss this evidence. We obviously don't know what it is. I was only offering up that interview as an example of "we don't really know what is going on."

 

poll was made under a big IF

but you guys sound pretty sure of yourselves...even before the facts

you'd think with time to think (being on a computer) knee jerking responses would be far and few in between.

ah...but this is cf. GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY

 

need moar fax

 

The police told him not to pursue, he continued. He was not supposed to have a gun on watch, whether he had a license is irrelevant imo. If he was that concerned he should have followed from a distance, but NEVER should he of confronted the kid.

I think the media is making it seem that every young black male is considered a suspect whenever walking down the street. The fact is the neighborhood is mostly white, they had 8 robberies in recent months, all committed by "young black males" according to the police reports. A young black male was walking down the st at night, with a hoodie on. I look suspicious in a hoodie. An asian looks suspicious. Whenever I am walking alone at night and I see ANYONE in a hoodie walking alone towards me I ALWAYS grab my keys and put them in between my fingers, JUST in case. I have done that for white guys, black guys, youths, older men, and homeless people.

Still, he should go to jail because he killed someone. He ignored neighborhood watch's policy by bringing a gun, he ignored police when they instructed him to not pursue.

He may or may not be racist. I don't know enough about the things I've heard he supposedly said, but even if he was, one paranoid racist isn't the standard. I've heard a lot of people call this a white vs. black crime, that dude is like hispanic or something, he's certainly not Caucasian.

Regardless of either of their races, it's sad the kid lost his life. I feel terrible for his family, he went to visit his dad, went for some skittles, and never came home.

 

WOW, there's a first time for everything...I actually agree with Batman Jones.

 

Not on my part. I don't think police should be making any decisions about whether or not self-defense was in play. If they have a body and a trigger man, they should make an arrest, period. If it's self-defense, he can tell it to the judge. How much more evidence came to light or will come to light makes absolutely no difference to my conviction that when you cause someone's death, you should enter the court system.

 

I agree as well. Happened several times before, though. I voted yes on the poll. That doesn't mean I am sure he should be convicted - need more facts for that, but based on what I know, I think he should be in jail.

 

No he shouldn't and under our system if the police do a shoddy job people have their charges dismissed or are not convicted. We are discussing though a hypothetical about should Zimmerman be arrested. If the police do their job I think there was grounds to hold him in custody. The fact is he wasn't.

 

This is an unrelated question but why does Trayvon Martin look like he's 13 in all the pics that the media is releasing? Think about the facts you are receiving and the agenda that all parties have in this matter. No one really knows what happened that night besides George Zimmerman. Now that there is a federal probe the facts will come out.