I don’t know if Trayvon Martin attacked Zimmerman or not, and I don’t know if hefty latino Zimmerman was really scared of a tall skinny black kid or not. I don’t know how anyone could really know at this point based on the conflicting evidence I’ve seen and no amount of forum posturing is likely to enlighten me.
But I do know that Zimmerman was out specifically looking for trouble, that he was at least willing (if not eager) to kill somebody, and he got away with it. Being called names for this and obliged to defend his actions in court in no way counts as being a “victim”.
“In the heat of a confrontation he himself had instigated, Zimmerman claimed that “someone” who he outweighed by a good 27 pounds was ‘punching him senseless.’” FTFY
edit for correction; got the weight for people twisted around. You are correct, Zimmerman did outweigh Martin, and by no small amount. However, Martin did have 4", which isn’t a small advantage in a street fight.
[quote=“law, post:68, topic:3888”]
That ‘hefty’ guy, according to the wikipedia link, was 5’7" and 158lbs. The ‘tall, skinny’ kid was 5’11" and 183 by that same source. Having four inches and twenty-something pounds in a street brawl is no small advantage.
[/quote]I agree, having twenty-something pounds on an adversary in a street brawl is no small advantage. The problem is you just mixed up which one of those guys outweighed the other.
[quote=“law, post:68, topic:3888”]
However, Martin did have 4", which isn’t a small advantage in a street fight.
[/quote]Exactly how is height a greater advantage than body mass when two people are struggling on the ground?
[quote=“law, post:71, topic:3888”]
Leverage, I would think. Having longer fulcrums to pry with.
[/quote]Somehow I have a hunch that you’d be taking the opposite position if Martin had been the bulky short guy and Zimmerman had been the tall skinny guy.
The response to “I’m getting punched” shouldn’t be “I must kill this person”. It’s impossible to say Zimmerman didn’t mean to kill Trayvon when he used a gun in response to fists. You cannot truly think a 5’11" 158 lb person was capable of murdering Zimmerman with his bare hands by punching him.
Maybe a better question is: what would you think if Zimmerman managed to choke Trayvon but held on too long and Trayvon died while he attempted to subdue the attacker?
You don’t think a person can be murdered with bare hands, yet your very next paragraph is “what if Zimmerman choked out Trayvon but held on too long…”? That makes very little sense. By accounts, Martin was the one dominating Zimmerman (“Martin kneeling on his chest with Zimmerman on his back”, etc), when Zimmerman fired up into Martin’s chest. I don’t think it’s fair to ask the person on the ground to consider their opponent’s motives during an active attack. Should Zimmerman have said, “Excuse me sir, are you planning on beating me to death right here, or are you just going to give me a whuppin’ and go on with your night?”
This whole thing boils down to "who swung first?" There's only two people on the planet who know that for a fact, and one of them is dead.
So of course you trust the word of the living one, spoiling for a confrontation as he was. So anyone gets shot without witnesses, and so long as the shooter claims they did something to deserve it (and simply being tall and taking a swing at someone who wouldn't leave them alone is all it takes for them to deserve death) then it was all fair. That doesn't amount to legalizing murder, no sir, I've no idea why anyone else might feel the law doesn't protect them.
I can’t believe this is something even bigots and idiots can argue about. Even if you don’t understand the obvious role of race here, you’d think you’d realize that a real legal system needs a way to prevent people from chasing down and shooting other people, and this confirms that Florida doesn’t have one.
So what’s the alternative? Taken at face value, we have a clear case of self-defense. Without witnesses saying otherwise, that’s about all we CAN do. Whether or not you believe Zimmerman was a victim of assault or not, how do you structure the law so a scenario with a more-sympathetic victim still receives justice?
[quote=“law, post:77, topic:3888”]
Taken at face value, we have a clear case of self-defense. Without witnesses saying otherwise, that’s about all we CAN do.
[/quote]And if Martin had shot Zimmerman would you take his story at face value?
If everything about this scenario remained the same and only the people were swapped around, I would side with the man who fired at the assailent on top of him during an active attack.
The alternative is rules about proportional force and obligation to retreat, you know, the things most of the world use to allow some measure personal security without allowing people to kill each other with impunity. Are you actually unfamiliar with how other states and countries keep vigilantes from chasing down and shooting unarmed teenagers, or do you not understand why that is something to avoid?
I can’t speak to Florida’s definitions of proportional force without some serious Googling. However, with Zimmerman being pinned by Martin (one of the few pieces of this whole story corroberated by witnesses), how precisely was he supposed to exercise his duty to retreat?
Does any of the actual forensic evidence even support the idea there was this massive balls out brawl? Where are the wounds on battered hands and faces? I don’t even recall Zimmerman looking that beat up in photos at the time. And I believe in the trial one of the medical experts testified that Zimmerman’s wounds were superficial at best.
I feel like Zimmerman got scared and used his gun, escalating to deadly force purely based on his own fear, not reality.
Speaking of fear, what I truly fear is a world where anyone is free to use their gun to kill people if they get a little scared.
The only thing I’ve seen was the photo of Zimmerman on Wikipedia. He looks bloodied pretty bad, but I’m not a medical expert. However, do we really want to start putting parameters around “your a-- has to be handed to you THIS badly for deadly force to be acceptable”? That leads to obligating the ‘whoop-ee’ (apparently ‘victim’ is a trigger word for some in this scenario) to have to gauge just how much damage their aggressor plans to dish out in advance. I don’t think that’s a reasonable onus to put on someone. In this case, Zimmerman’s story was that Martin was on top of him continuing to attack, he was in fear for his life, so he drew and shot. The ‘Martin was on top of him continuing the attack’ was verified by other witnesses at the time. Also, apparently Zimmerman took a voice stress analysis test during questioning, and the result was that his statement of being in fear for his life at the time was genuine (this Wikipedia article is endlessly fascinating, I must say).
Well, medical experts at the trial testified otherwise – that Zimmerman’s wounds were superficial. Including the detail that none of Zimmerman’s DNA was found under Martin’s fingernails, and Martin’s hands were not bloody, bruised, scratched etc as you would expect from a person aggressively beating up another person.
Furthermore, Dr. Valerie Rao, a medical examiner who reviewed Zimmerman’s injuries, testified Tuesday that the injuries on the back of Zimmerman’s head were consistent with just one strike against a concrete surface, not multiple ones. Rao went on to call Zimmerman’s injuries “insignificant” and “not life threatening,” and said, “If you look at the injuries, they are so minor they are not consistent with grave force.” She continued, “If somebody’s head is banged with grave force I would expect a lot of injuries. I don’t see that.”
Perhaps I’m just parsing your last paragraph incorrectly, but testified otherwise to what? That Zimmerman was in fear for his life, or that Martin was on top of him with Z on his back at the time of the shooting?
