This is what happened that night IMHO... _____ Zimmerman was returning to the neighborhood as Martin was coming back from the store. Zimmerman thought he looked suspicious and started trailing him -- Martin notices this and gets nervous as anyone would when being followed. Zimmerman is really concerned and calls 911 -- he ignores the weak instruction not to follow Martin. Martin scared by the guy following him breaks off and hides somewhere in close proximity to Zimmerman. Zimmerman losing sight of Martin stops his vehicle and gets out looking for Martin. Martin can see Zimmerman from his hiding spot, but Zimmerman doesn't know where Trayvon is at. Martin sees Zimmerman and realizes he doesn't need to be afraid of this guy and gets really angry as anyone would in his situation. Martin comes out of his hiding place and approaches Zimmerman. Zimmerman doesn't have his weapon drawn -- Martin sees weakness and attacks -- he pounds Zimmerman. Somehow Zimmerman is able to pull his gun out and kills Martin at close range. _____ This isn't about racial profiling or Zimmerman wanting to murder Trayvon -- this isn't about Martin being a drugged out gangster wanting to kill George. This is a tragedy of coincidence and perfect timing -- a five minute diversion for either of them and this event never happens.
I think that you have it mostly correct if I had to guess. Although, I think that Martin probably had a few choice words for Zimmerman. Zimmerman probably then said something very incendiary and they came to blows. Zimmerman then, in fear for his safety (from an altercation that he went looking for) pulled his gun and shot Martin. Likely, Zimmerman went looking for trouble by playing Kojak, got in over his head and killed the kid. A situation that could have been avoided by not going and looking for trouble.
The only known wound on Trayvon is the gunshot wound. GZ is the one with all the wounds. The only reason this became a crazy case is because the medias portrayal of TM and the subsequent backlash from the black community. If this was a black man shooting a white boy in Detroit there would barely be a blurb on the news about this.
Who looks for trouble with the police on the phone? By Zimmerman's account, the gun came into play when Martin noticed it in their scuffling and went for it himself. Still can't figure out why Martin, if he was afraid, didn't just knock on somebody's door and ask for help. Zimmerman did ask for help.
Someone who ignores their instructions to not follow the suspect By Zimmerman's account, the gun came into play when Martin noticed it in their scuffling and went for it himself. It might have had the same result. If Zimmerman was worried Martin who wasn't a full time resident of the neighborhood was a burglar and then went to a house in the neighborhood who knows what Zimmerman was done.
Zimmerman didn't know where TM was. He could have waited and then made his way to a neighboring house for safety. TM was suspended from school for fighting that day. He had a history of violence. There is a reason that GZ was attacked and the final reason why wasn't his being followed. TM made the decision to attack. But hey, we'll wait and see. Who knows what the trial will bring out.
It is far from certain that Martin attacked Zimmerman. I realize that you have already thrown out and disregarded some of the evidence and testimony. That doesn't mean that anything is concluded or the jury would throw out the evidence and testimony that you have already discounted in your own mind. What Martin was suspended from school for isn't really important. Zimmerman also had a record and history of violence.
Lets be real. The black man in Detroit would have been arrested. If the police had arrested Zimmerman, it would not have made national news.
While these things definitely show what kind of person TM might have been and quite different from the young innocent photo of him, I don't think these have any relevance to the case because you are making assumptions. I have no legal experience so correct me if I am wrong. What is the bigger question to me is what is the motivation for Martin to attack GZ apparently randomly. I see GZ getting some sort of lesser charge and probation.
This would set a terrible precedent. Take your gun around playing cop. Find some minority get into a fight and shoot his ass.
New Evidence Shows Trayvon's Life Unraveling This past Thursday, George Zimmerman's attorneys released new evidence relevant to the upcoming trial of their client on a second-degree murder charge for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The Martin family attorneys say the evidence is irrelevant. They are wrong. It is damning. The text messages and photos from Martin's cell phone tell a story wildly at odds with the one the State of Florida and the media have been peddling for more than a year, but one altogether truer and sadder. In the way of recap, in February 2012, Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida, shot and killed the seventeen-year-old Martin. Taking their cue from the Martin family's attorneys, Reuters ran the first national article on the shooting ten days after it happened. Zimmerman was a "loose cannon." He profiled Martin, stalked him, and shot him, disregarding police instructions. Martin, by contrast, was a "good kid." He had hoped to be a pilot. He was simply bringing the soon-to-be iconic iced tea and Skittles home to his "little brother." This story was pure fable from the beginning, and the attorneys knew it. Even before going public, they moved to seal Martin's school records, and with good reason. Consider this exchange between Martin and a female friend on November 21, three months before his death. After he told her he was "tired and sore" from a fight, she asked him why he fought. "Bae" is shorthand for "babe." MARTIN: Cause man dat ***** snitched on me FRIEND: Bae y you always fightinqq man, you got suspended? MARTIN: Naw we thumped afta skool in a duckd off spot FRIEND: Ohh, Well Damee MARTIN: I lost da 1st round but won da 2nd nd 3rd . . . . FRIEND: Ohhh So It Wass 3 Rounds? Damn well at least yu wonn lol but yuu needa stop fighting bae Forreal MARTIN: Nay im not done with fool..... he gone hav 2 see me again FRIEND: Nooo... Stop, yuu waint gonn bee satisified till yuh suspended again, huh? MARTIN: Naw but he aint breed nuff 4 me, only his nose As his social media accounts show, Martin was a student of mixed martial arts. The fight followed the MMA format. A day later, he would tell a friend that his opponent "got mo hits cause in da 1st round he had me on da ground nd I couldn't do ntn." As his girlfriend complained, Martin was "always" fighting. He was also something of a sadist. His opponent, after all, did not bleed enough. Why might this be relevant? Witness #6, the best of the eyewitnesses to the shooting, told the Sanford PD that a there was a "black man in a black hoodie on top of either a white guy ... or an Hispanic guy in a red sweater on the ground yelling out help," and that black man on top was "throwing down blows on the guy MMA [mixed martial arts] style." Martin was not the innocent little boy that the media relentlessly and corruptly portrayed him to be. At the time of his death, he was five feet, eleven inches and weighed 158 pounds. To put this in perspective, legendary boxer Tommy "The Hitman" Hearns was six feet, one inch and 145 pounds when he first won the world welterweight title as a twenty-one-year-old. Before leaving for Orlando on February 21, 2012, Martin had already missed 53 days of school that year and been suspended three times, most recently for possessing drug paraphernalia, the time before that for getting caught with women's jewelry and a burglary tool. Why might this be relevant? When George Zimmerman first spotted Martin near the shortcut into a community plagued by burglaries and home invasions, he told the dispatcher, "This guy looks like he's up to no good. Or he's on drugs or something." Zimmerman might have been right on both counts. Had the school district police not been ordered to suppress crime statistics, especially for black males, Martin would likely have been arrested at least twice, and that might have snapped his parents out of their fog. Instead, as the new evidence reveals, he was allowed to live out his increasingly angry, aberrant life as though he were merely a bit mischievous. On November 22, the day after the MMA-style fight, Martin told a friend that his mother "just kicked me out" and that he had to move in with his father. When the friend asked why, Martin answered, "Da police caught me outta skool." "U a hoodlum," said the friend. "Naw," said Martin. "I'm a gangsta." Incredibly, his death would transform this wannabe gangster into a saintly little boy, or, in the words of Florida State Attorney Angela Corey, a "precious victim." On December 21, 2011, Martin told a friend, "dam I just got in trouble 4 sum sh** I aint even do." His mother, Sybrina Fulton, was dismayed. "Pack up your clothes now," she texted him. "I love u but I think u being w/ ur Dad is best." Martin lived with his mother only intermittently and spent even less time with his father, who was then living with a sister in the Miami area. On December 22, Martin confided to a girlfriend, "I got in trouble." She asked, "What did you do now." As was typical, Martin took no responsibility. "I aint do ntn . . . . call me." The friend had other priorities: "I'm about to get my nails done so you gotta wait a few." On the day before Christmas, Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, texted him: "I'm concerned about u but I'm praying for u and I want U to pray for yourself EVERYDAY, ok." She was texting the son she used to know. The Trayvon who was about to turn seventeen, she knew next to nothing about. On January 6, 2012, Martin got into trouble at school again. When asked why, he told a friend, "Caus I was watcn a fight nd a teacher say I hit em." Said the friend, "Idk how u be getting in trouble an sh**." By this time, Martin's mother had thrown him out of the house for "fightn," and he had moved in with his aunt and uncle. The multiple texts about "weed" and the photos of mar1juana plants confirmed his interests in drugs -- a friend called him "weedhead" -- but the new photos pointed to an even more dangerous new hobby -- namely, guns. Indeed, one of the photos of Martin's showed a hand, likely Martin's own, on a pistol. On February 21, 2012, Martin took the bus for Orlando to stay with his father's girlfriend, Brandy Green. He was free to travel because his school had suspended him for mar1juana. The bust did little to sober him up. "I hid m weed," he confided to a female friend, afraid that they might have searched him on the bus. He texted later that day, "I got weed nd I get money Friday." The saddest messages among these texts come from the parents who indulged him. They had all but lost control of their son but chose not to see how far out of control he had spun. Like so many divorced parents, they were torn between punishing him and appeasing him. The father, Tracy Martin, texted his son during this trip to Orlando. "Show much respect to [Green] and adjust to my Lady & [her son]. Show them you a good kid and you want positive things aroud you." His mother texted him as well: "R u comfortable on the bus?? Go to sleep n u will be there soon." In between these texts, Martin was negotiating to buy a handgun with a friend. "U wanna share a .380?" he asked. Guns excited him. "U got heat??" he enthused earlier upon learning that a friend had access to a gun. Upon leaving Miami, Martin seemed to be growing angrier. On February 21, he texted a girlfriend who was pouting about another girl, presumably in Sanford. Wrote Martin, "f*** u cuz I neva text ha 2 day I made dat sh** up so u leav me df alone bout it." Two days later on February 23, a friend tried to warn Martin off some behavior that troubled even the friend. "I ain't ya parent," he texted him, "but gsh** thro it away." Martin was not in the mood to be lectured to. "Y u gotta knock my hustle??" he shot back. On February 26, bored and likely high, Martin was in no mood to be challenged by some small "white" guy who was trying to maintain a visual on him until the police arrived. "As I headed back to my vehicle the suspect emerged from the darkness and said, 'You got a problem?'" Zimmerman would tell the Sanford PD. When Zimmerman answered, "No," Martin said, "You do now." As it turned out, both of them had a problem. Martin's proved fatal. Martin's parents failed him. The school system failed him. The sad vestiges of the civil rights movement betrayed him, and the media betrayed America. This all comes at a cost, and the piper has yet to be paid.
He was arrested. He wasn't charged. He was taken into interrogation, questioned and placed under a stress test. At the time, there was no evidence that Zimmerman did anything malicious. It wasn't until the media got a hold of it and made Zimmerman into a criminal and released 5 year old photos of Trayvon.
I don't know what happened. There are many possibilities. As far as the visible wounds Martin or lack there of, it could be because Zimmerman was attempting tackling/grappling moves instead of punching. It could be, because he's a crappy fighter. It could be because Martin attacked him from behind. However if Martin decided to attack Zimmerman why would he be on the phone at the time? The person he was on the phone with and cell phone weapons corroborate this. If he was going to attack ambush Zimmerman would talking on the phone be the thing he'd do at the time? These are all questions that will hopefully have satisfactory answers after the trial. But there is nothing that is so clearly definitive at this point that we could say for sure.
Don't be foolish. There have been cases where the (blatantly clear) instigator has killed someone and prosecuted. Its people like yourself who are convinced this was a racist issue (by your use of the word "minority") when Zimmerman has never suggested he had racial issues nor did he identify the race of Martin in the call. This is exactly why racial issues will never die out.
Do you really normally read stuff like this? What a horrible and inhumane piece of garbage that was. To act like any of the things in there make it okay for someone to possibly be murdered is horrible. That article does exactly that, in addition to horrible leaps and conclusions based on only partial evidence at best. I'd hope no rational person would read articles like this. And if you're unfortunate enough to do that why would you post it? What a complete piece of crap that article was. It's stinking up the whole forum.
Sure... okay. Now I get the picture. You really do personally think TM was murdered. That explains everything. Go about your business. Please feel free to explain why this article made it okay to possibly be murdered. Your post is stinking up this forum.
Other than the body of a dead unarmed teenager. Of course. They had a dead son, and it was going to be swept under the rug.
He may have been murdered, I don't know Neither does the person who wrote the article. There is evidence that he was murdered and evidence that it could have been self defense. As for the article it states: As if he could only be one or the other. It's possible (IMHO) probable he was a wannabe gangster but he could also have been a beloved son who was the victim of murder. What happened in the past doesn't prevent a person from being the victim of murder or loved by his family. The article also goes on to make claims that he could have been up to no good burglarizing houses etc. The article is full of garbage. If Martin had been in fights or used drugs has nothing to do with whether or not he was murdered that night. The only things we know for sure is that Martin was unarmed and Zimmerman was carrying a gun, and that Zimmerman killed Martin. How it happened isn't really clear right now. Zimmerman being arrested on violence charges, and Martin being suspended from school really don't play into the incident.
