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#352 Mar 29 2012 at 5:18 PM Rating: Default
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Elinda wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And unarmed teenager who was in the process of beating a man senseless according to three eye witnesses. Isn't this exactly the situation in which even the most ardent gun control advocates would acknowledge that the use of a hand gun for self defense should be allowed? If not when you're on your back being beaten, then when?
Why am I completely dumbfounded that you can so easily and so blindly cherry-pick the rumors you choose to believe and attempt to convince us are fact?


I'm not cherry picking rumors. I have restricted my statements and based my conclusions off the following three types of sources:

1. Audio tapes released from various police sources.

2. Actual quotes from witnesses reported in real media outlets (and yes, I'm even including HuffPost as a "real media outlet" here, since they are bound to the same rules when quoting).

3. Official statements from the police (specifically I linked to the actual police reports from that evening).


What I am *not* using:

1. Speculation on blogs or even mainstream media outlets. You'll note I haven't talked about Trayvon having gold teeth, or tatoos, nor his twitter handle and some of the things he's alleged to have tweeted. Why? Because the sources for those aren't sufficient to say they're true and I at least am trying to look only at verifiable facts.

2. Statements by lawyers representing either party. Ok. I broke this rule slightly be saying that Zimmerman had a broken nose (instead of just a bloodied nose as stated in the police report). My bad. Minor point at best though.

3. Third party statements or claims from any source. If I can't find a clear line tracing a piece of information back to a factual source, I assume it's speculation (or at least unconfirmed).

Quote:
We're all reading the same gossip gbaji.


Yes. But I'm making an active effort to filter out the speculative and/or unproven claims from those which we can place a reasonable level of trust on. Most people are just repeating whatever stuff they hear which supports the position they've taken.

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None of us have any facts - that includes you.


Of course we have facts. We have the facts in the police reports. We have the facts of the various audio recordings. We have the facts of the quoted statements from witnesses. All of those are facts.

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We can only have an opinion. You choose to defend the white man who shot another human being dead, others of us choose to defend the dead kid.


I choose to base my choice on that which is most supported by the facts we actually know.

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You might do some soul-searching and ask yourself why you've come to the conclusion that you have.


Um... Because my conclusion is the one best supported by the facts? How did you decide yours? Maybe you need that soul searching more than I?
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#353 Mar 29 2012 at 5:23 PM Rating: Good
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Well, you clearly aren't using the 911 call, since you insist that he wasn't following the kid.
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#354 Mar 29 2012 at 5:47 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:

1. Speculation on blogs or even mainstream media outlets. You'll note I haven't talked about Trayvon having gold teeth, or tatoos, nor his twitter handle and some of the things he's alleged to have tweeted. Why? Because the sources for those aren't sufficient to say they're true and I at least am trying to look only at verifiable facts.

And you shouldn't ever look at things like this. Because anything Martin may have said, tweeted, texted, etc., has absolutely no bearing on anything. He was a guy walking home from the store and Zimmerman decided he looked suspicious. Why anyone or any website is even mentioning what might have been posted on his Facebook is beyond me.
#355 Mar 29 2012 at 5:48 PM Rating: Decent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Well, you clearly aren't using the 911 call, since you insist that he wasn't following the kid.


In his car. You're leaving off a very significant part, aren't you? I never said that Zimmerman did not follow Martin on foot after leaving his car. I was countering your repeated claim that Martin was justified to be scared of Zimmerman because Zimmerman had been trailing him in his car.

All we actually know from the audio of Zimmerman's call is that he's parked up the street watching Martin walking towards him. Martin runs during that call, and *then* Zimmerman gets out of his car and follows him. We have absolutely zero facts which state that Martin ever saw Zimmerman prior to walking towards his car, much less had been stalked by him (would be strange to be stalked by someone driving a car and then walk up towards it a couple minutes later, right?).


While I will freely admit to this being speculative, Martin's actions are much more consistent with someone who was up to no-good, saw someone in a parked car up the road, then realized that person was watching him, and decided to run to avoid getting in trouble. There are massive holes in the story that assumes that Martin ran at that point because he believed Zimmerman was stalking him.

But to realize this, you'd have to discount the unsubstantiated rumors you've heard and actually go back and listen to that audio tape with an open mind.
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#356 Mar 29 2012 at 6:06 PM Rating: Good
Um, no. Was Zimmerman's car marked as a neighborhood watch person? I'm guessing not. All Marin likely knew, was that someone in an unmarked car was following him. I'd be scared too, and probably try to lose the car as well. If I knew the person in the car was a cop or a neighborhood watch person, that'd be a different story.

According to the girlfriend's account, when Zimmerman approached him, Martin asked him why he was following him. Zimmerman didn't say he was from the neighborhood watch, or do anything to identify him as any sort of authority figure. All he did was respond by asking him what he was doing there. Martin had absolutely no way of knowing that Zimmerman was justified in asking him what he was doing, or in following him. He felt threatened and scared. When people are scared, they don't think rationally, they rely on their instincts.
#357 Mar 29 2012 at 6:18 PM Rating: Good
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If your argument, gbaji, is actually going to be that I'm leaving out the part that he was in a car, then you're a dumbass. The fact that he was following him in a car has clearly been my main point for about 7 pages now.
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#358 Mar 29 2012 at 6:29 PM Rating: Good
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Um, no. Was Zimmerman's car marked as a neighborhood watch person? I'm guessing not. All Marin likely knew, was that someone in an unmarked car was following him. I'd be scared too, and probably try to lose the car as well. If I knew the person in the car was a cop or a neighborhood watch person, that'd be a different story.

According to the girlfriend's account, when Zimmerman approached him, Martin asked him why he was following him. Zimmerman didn't say he was from the neighborhood watch, or do anything to identify him as any sort of authority figure. All he did was respond by asking him what he was doing there. Martin had absolutely no way of knowing that Zimmerman was justified in asking him what he was doing, or in following him. He felt threatened and scared. When people are scared, they don't think rationally, they rely on their instincts.

Obviously the girlfriend is lying, unlike Zimmerman.
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#359 Mar 29 2012 at 7:15 PM Rating: Good
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For what purpose?
With all of the Canadians living there we can make the GOP impotent and force them out, then we get a nice warm spot to live.
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#360 Mar 29 2012 at 7:34 PM Rating: Default
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
The fact that he was following him in a car has clearly been my main point for about 7 pages now.


Yes. I know. That's the claim you keep repeating, but for which there is zero evidence. Where did you get this idea? There's nothing in the audio tape to suggest this. There's nothing in any witness statement to suggest this. I don't believe that even the girlfriends account (which is a pretty questionable source really) specifically says that Martin was followed by someone in a car.

Why do you keep repeating this as a fact then?
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#361 Mar 29 2012 at 7:46 PM Rating: Decent
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PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
Um, no. Was Zimmerman's car marked as a neighborhood watch person? I'm guessing not. All Marin likely knew, was that someone in an unmarked car was following him.


But not following him while in that car. I mean, it's nearly irrelevant anyway, since that's not a crime or anything either, but this is a claim that many keep repeating in order to bolster the argument that Martin had a legitimate reason to run, but I can find absolutely no actual source for it.

Can you?

Quote:
I'd be scared too, and probably try to lose the car as well. If I knew the person in the car was a cop or a neighborhood watch person, that'd be a different story.


At the risk of repeating myself enough times for what I'm saying to sink in, there's no evidence that Zimmerman actually followed Martin while in his car. At all.

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According to the girlfriend's account, when Zimmerman approached him...


On foot. Not in his car.

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... Martin asked him why he was following him.


According to the girlfriend. According to Zimmerman, Martin said something like "are you looking for trouble? Well, you found it" and then punched him in the nose.

Um... But inconsistent accounts aside, this still happened while Zimmerman was on foot. I'm just trying to get people to realize how much of the mental image they have of the events is completely fabricated. Idiggory keeps repeating this tale of a scared kid being stalked by some creepy guy in a car, who follows him in that car for several minutes, slowing down, shining his lights at him, etc. But there is no evidence that any of that happened. At all.

Quote:
Zimmerman didn't say he was from the neighborhood watch, or do anything to identify him as any sort of authority figure. All he did was respond by asking him what he was doing there.


Again, this is the girlfriends story, told through the family's lawyer. Doesn't mean that it's false, but we should not assume its gospel truth. Certainly, there's no reason to take her story at complete face value (doubly so since she's signed nothing which binds her legally to that story), while assuming that Zimmerman's account must be a lie. And here's the thing: Someone walks up to you and asks you what you're doing somewhere (while you're on private property), isn't your first assumption that this is either a neighborhood watchman or maybe just the local busybody? It's kind of exactly the question someone who's watching a property would ask of someone walking through it.

Quote:
Martin had absolutely no way of knowing that Zimmerman was justified in asking him what he was doing, or in following him. He felt threatened and scared. When people are scared, they don't think rationally, they rely on their instincts.


Anyone is justified to ask that question, neighborhood watch or not. No one is justified to assault that person just for asking that question. I can walk up to you on a public street and ask you what you're doing here any time I want. You're free to ignore me, or say it's none of my business, but you don't get to punch me in the nose for it.
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#362 Mar 29 2012 at 8:34 PM Rating: Decent
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Nadenu wrote:
gbaji wrote:

1. Speculation on blogs or even mainstream media outlets. You'll note I haven't talked about Trayvon having gold teeth, or tatoos, nor his twitter handle and some of the things he's alleged to have tweeted. Why? Because the sources for those aren't sufficient to say they're true and I at least am trying to look only at verifiable facts.

And you shouldn't ever look at things like this. Because anything Martin may have said, tweeted, texted, etc., has absolutely no bearing on anything. He was a guy walking home from the store and Zimmerman decided he looked suspicious. Why anyone or any website is even mentioning what might have been posted on his Facebook is beyond me.


When there are two sides of a story which contradict each other, and no witnesses to verify either side, it becomes a question of character. This happens in court cases and it happens even more in the court of public opinion.

Much of the outrage over this stems from the perception of Trayvon Martin as a clean cut, innocent kid, who did nothing wrong, and couldn't hurt a fly. Just go back and read some of the earlier posts in this thread and you'll see people making arguments like "Zimmerman must have started the fight because a little kid would *never* attack someone so much bigger than him". Finding out that Trayvon is much larger than he's pictured in the photos we've seen, and has been suspended several times from school (so *not* an honor student), calls much of that into question. Finding out that he may have tattoos and gold teeth might call into question the claim that there was nothing about him that Zimmerman might find suspicious except him being black. And finding out that one of his suspensions was for having what the school officials believed to be stolen property really calls into question the blanket assumption that Martin not just wasn't doing anything wrong, but couldn't have been doing anything wrong.


All of those things actually are quite relevant in a case where public perception is quite obviously significant. However, I have not mentioned those things in this thread (up until just now), and I certainly have not and do not base any of my arguments on those things. Not because they wouldn't be relevant, but because I'm trying to apply the same consistent rules when assessing sources of information. I'm not going to assume something popping up on some blog sites and then being repeated by some people in the media without any verification of the facts is true.

As I said earlier, I'm looking just as the facts that can be reasonably assumed to be true.
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#363 Mar 29 2012 at 8:43 PM Rating: Decent
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Oh. And funny thing about that link I posted. It's a perfect example of what I've been talking about all along. Just the first part is amazing:

Quote:
Very few of the facts in the case of Trayvon Martin's death are in dispute. On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old honor student Martin was visiting his father in a gated community in Sanford, Florida. Martin left his father's home in order to buy candy at a nearby 7-11. As he walked back home, neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman patrolled the area in his van with a loaded gun, as he often did. Zimmerman called 911 and reported a "suspicious" person -- Martin, who according to Zimmerman, was "walking around" and "looking about." The police dispatcher advised Zimmerman that police would arrive to investigate Martin who by now was a "suspect" (although the only "crimes" he ever committed were those of "walking around" and "looking about"). What appears to have aroused Zimmerman's suspicion is the fact that Trayvon Martin was a young Black man (in fact, still a youth, at just 17 years of age). Young Black men, as Zimmerman's neighbors attest, were a special source of anxiety and fascination for him.


She starts out talking about how few of the facts are in dispute, and then proceeds to list off a set of things that are either factually wrong *or* are absolutely in dispute. I've put them in red. Nearly every sentence has a disputed or false statement in it. Martin was not an honor student. He was not at his father's house, but his father's fiance. I'm not sure about the van bit, but this is the first I've heard it described as a van and not an SUV. Van, obviously conjures up images of some man out to abduct a child much more than an SUV does. Zimmerman did not call 911. He called the non emergency line. He was not called a "suspect". The word used is "subject", which many people mistake as being called a "suspect", so I can forgive her, but if her point is to talk about important facts that are not in dispute, she should maybe get her facts straight. And I marked her entire last two sentences since it's pure speculation on her part.


This would be an appalling lack of accuracy in most cases, but sadly, this is typical of the sorts of blogs/articles/etc being written. And those absolutely have influenced how people view this issue. That's why I keep asking people to ignore the wild stories and speculation and look just at what we actually know to be true. The story isn't nearly so cut and dried if you do that.
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#364 Mar 29 2012 at 8:46 PM Rating: Decent
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Step 1, take head out of ***.
Step 2, Listen to 911 call.
Step 3, DIAF.
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#365 Mar 29 2012 at 9:10 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Nadenu wrote:
gbaji wrote:

1. Speculation on blogs or even mainstream media outlets. You'll note I haven't talked about Trayvon having gold teeth, or tatoos, nor his twitter handle and some of the things he's alleged to have tweeted. Why? Because the sources for those aren't sufficient to say they're true and I at least am trying to look only at verifiable facts.

And you shouldn't ever look at things like this. Because anything Martin may have said, tweeted, texted, etc., has absolutely no bearing on anything. He was a guy walking home from the store and Zimmerman decided he looked suspicious. Why anyone or any website is even mentioning what might have been posted on his Facebook is beyond me.


When there are two sides of a story which contradict each other, and no witnesses to verify either side, it becomes a question of character. This happens in court cases and it happens even more in the court of public opinion.

Much of the outrage over this stems from the perception of Trayvon Martin as a clean cut, innocent kid, who did nothing wrong, and couldn't hurt a fly. Just go back and read some of the earlier posts in this thread and you'll see people making arguments like "Zimmerman must have started the fight because a little kid would *never* attack someone so much bigger than him". Finding out that Trayvon is much larger than he's pictured in the photos we've seen, and has been suspended several times from school (so *not* an honor student), calls much of that into question. Finding out that he may have tattoos and gold teeth might call into question the claim that there was nothing about him that Zimmerman might find suspicious except him being black. And finding out that one of his suspensions was for having what the school officials believed to be stolen property really calls into question the blanket assumption that Martin not just wasn't doing anything wrong, but couldn't have been doing anything wrong.


All of those things actually are quite relevant in a case where public perception is quite obviously significant. However, I have not mentioned those things in this thread (up until just now), and I certainly have not and do not base any of my arguments on those things. Not because they wouldn't be relevant, but because I'm trying to apply the same consistent rules when assessing sources of information. I'm not going to assume something popping up on some blog sites and then being repeated by some people in the media without any verification of the facts is true.

As I said earlier, I'm looking just as the facts that can be reasonably assumed to be true.

So, Zimmerman is the social media police also?

I never said Martin was as pure as the driven snow. I was just making the point that all Zimmerman knew was there was a guy walking through his neighborhood and Zimmerman decided he looked suspicious. And all this attention to what Martin may or may not have written online is silly.
#366 Mar 29 2012 at 9:35 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
When there are two sides of a story which contradict each other, and no witnesses to verify either side, it becomes a question of character. This happens in court cases and it happens even more in the court of public opinion.

Much of the outrage over this stems from the perception of Trayvon Martin as a clean cut, innocent kid, who did nothing wrong, and couldn't hurt a fly. Just go back and read some of the earlier posts in this thread and you'll see people making arguments like "Zimmerman must have started the fight because a little kid would *never* attack someone so much bigger than him". Finding out that Trayvon is much larger than he's pictured in the photos we've seen, and has been suspended several times from school (so *not* an honor student), calls much of that into question. Finding out that he may have tattoos and gold teeth might call into question the claim that there was nothing about him that Zimmerman might find suspicious except him being black. And finding out that one of his suspensions was for having what the school officials believed to be stolen property really calls into question the blanket assumption that Martin not just wasn't doing anything wrong, but couldn't have been doing anything wrong.

All of those things actually are quite relevant in a case where public perception is quite obviously significant. However, I have not mentioned those things in this thread (up until just now), and I certainly have not and do not base any of my arguments on those things. Not because they wouldn't be relevant, but because I'm trying to apply the same consistent rules when assessing sources of information. I'm not going to assume something popping up on some blog sites and then being repeated by some people in the media without any verification of the facts is true.

As I said earlier, I'm looking just as the facts that can be reasonably assumed to be true.

If you want to question character, try looking into Zimmerman's list of priors. They include charges of assaulting police officers and a few domestic abuses, resulting in restraining orders. This guy is not exactly a Buddhist monk; he's more of a failed cop-wannabe.
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#367 Mar 29 2012 at 10:12 PM Rating: Good
But guys, Zimmerman was suspicious not because Martin was black, but because he had gold teeth, tatoos, & a hoodie! Martin MIGHT, based on some tweets, have also sold POT. He had been suspended, so he was a THUG and not the innocent victim the MEDIA is claiming him to be.

Sure, he was unarmed walking back to his Dad's girlfriend's house, was confronted by ZImmerman, & killed during the altercation- BUT it was his fault, not the guy that pulled the trigger's. Guns don't kill black teens, BEING a black teen in America invites these kinds of things.
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#368 Mar 29 2012 at 10:32 PM Rating: Good
So the girlfriend's account is questionable, because obviously she would want to make Martin look innocent of any wrong doing, but Zimmerman's account isn't, despite the fact that he could possibly go to trial for murder if he doesn't make it seem like self defense? Riiiight.
#369 Mar 30 2012 at 12:43 AM Rating: Good
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Gbaji, listen to the plain evidence we have from the call to the cops. It's in post 36 of this thread. It's only about 4 minutes long, and it tells us so much. Zimmerman calls up to report a "real suspicious guy" in a neighbourhood that has had a string of break-ins in it. He says the man " looks up to no good or he's on drugs or something, it's raining and he's just walking around, looking about"..."he's staring, looking at all the houses". (Martin is new to the area, he's on his cellphone which Zimmerman can't make out or doesn't describe, and he's on the way to or from a store to get snackfood.) Zimmerman says the guy "Looks black...he's wearing a dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, jeans or sweatpants, and white tennis shoes". He can't describe ANYTHING else about the man at this point, because when Martin turns and comes towards him, ZImmerman confirms he is a black male, is "wearing a button on his shirt", "he's got his hand in his waistband", " he's in his late teens", "He's got something in his hands," (he can't tell what it is it's so dark. Presumably, this is Martin's cell phone.) He can give no other identifiers, which by the whole tone of the call, Zimmerman is eager to do. (In fact it's so dark that night, Zimmerman can't make out whether the pants Martin is wearing are jeans or not... one of the most basic wardrobe items and identifiers) Zimmerman makes clear that he's pegged the man as a burglar, by saying "These ********** always get away".

At this point, Zimmerman CANNOT see any tattoos or gold teeth. Nothing about Martin's appearance factors into Zimmerman's suspicions about him except that he's a strange man in a hoodie, walking alone at night in the rain, looking around instead of walking fast head-down through the rain.

The girlfriend's reported version says, and their phone call to each other might bear this out, that Martin asked "Why are you following me?" to the guy in the car, and getting no satisfactory response, he and the girlfriend decide he should get away from the car and lose it. Martin decides to walk quickly, his girlfriend urges him to run fast, which he does later when Zimmerman keeps following him, against repeated police suggestions not to follow, to park and wait for the police to get there.

Edited, Mar 30th 2012 3:30am by Aripyanfar
#370 Mar 30 2012 at 3:03 AM Rating: Good
Facts:
Man follows teen.
Continues to follow teen after it was suggested multiple times by authorities that he does not.
They get in an altercation where the man is not harmed significantly in any way.
Man shoots teen.
Gbaji is a troll.
#371 Mar 30 2012 at 4:35 AM Rating: Good
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#372 Mar 30 2012 at 2:18 PM Rating: Decent
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I just realized Gbaji needs Varus. Without anyone to out stupid him, he looks pretty stupid.
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#373 Mar 30 2012 at 5:18 PM Rating: Decent
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PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
So the girlfriend's account is questionable, because obviously she would want to make Martin look innocent of any wrong doing, but Zimmerman's account isn't, despite the fact that he could possibly go to trial for murder if he doesn't make it seem like self defense? Riiiight.


Zimmerman's account was given to the police in a statement immediately after the shooting and before he knew what the witnesses in the area reported. So when his account matches the other witness statements, it's a good bet that it's at least reasonably accurate. Remember, at that point he could not possibly have known if there was a witness to any one of the events that happened that night. Someone might have seen him following Martin. Someone might have seen the initial verbal altercation. Someone might have seen the initial physical altercation. He simply does not know, and so if he's lying, he managed to luck out by not having any witness who contradicted his version of events.

The girlfriends account is being filtered to us through the media (3rd hand in most cases). As far as I know, she has never written or recorded a full account and never signed any affidavits attesting to the veracity of said account, and thus is under pretty much zero legal consequences if said account ends out being false. There's a reason we require testimony to come in a sworn form. It's so that people can't just make stuff up without risk. Obviously that doesn't prove her account is wrong or Zimmerman's is right, but we should place far more weight on his than on hers.

Her account is also very very vague and was released (and perhaps even related for the first time) nearly a full month after the shooting. Plenty of time to invent a story which matches the known facts while suggesting a slightly different cause. I'll also point out that aside from the specific words exchanged, nothing in her account actually contradicts Zimmerman's. The two come face to face, words are exchanged, then a physical altercation breaks out. A lot of people seem to insist that her account "Blows Zimmerman's story out of the water", while not actually explaining how it does this. There's no freaking way you can tell me that someone on the other end of a phone call can tell if an earpiece if knocked out because the person wearing it was attacked, or did the attacking. She's free to believe that it fell out because Martin was attacked or pushed, but just like much of the arguments flowing around, it's pure speculation on her part.
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#374 Mar 30 2012 at 5:42 PM Rating: Decent
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Aripyanfar wrote:
Gbaji, listen to the plain evidence we have from the call to the cops. It's in post 36 of this thread. It's only about 4 minutes long, and it tells us so much.


I've listened to the whole audio several times now, and provided a fairly complete response to it pretty early in this thread.

Quote:
Zimmerman calls up to report a "real suspicious guy" in a neighbourhood that has had a string of break-ins in it. He says the man " looks up to no good or he's on drugs or something, it's raining and he's just walking around, looking about"..."he's staring, looking at all the houses". (Martin is new to the area, he's on his cellphone which Zimmerman can't make out or doesn't describe, and he's on the way to or from a store to get snackfood.) Zimmerman says the guy "Looks black...he's wearing a dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, jeans or sweatpants, and white tennis shoes". He can't describe ANYTHING else about the man at this point, because when Martin turns and comes towards him, ZImmerman confirms he is a black male, is "wearing a button on his shirt", "he's got his hand in his waistband", " he's in his late teens", "He's got something in his hands," (he can't tell what it is it's so dark. Presumably, this is Martin's cell phone.) He can give no other identifiers, which by the whole tone of the call, Zimmerman is eager to do.


I'm unsure why any of this is problematic. This is *exactly* what he's supposed to do. He's giving the police the best physical description of the subject possible. Let's not forget that it's dark and lightly raining at the time he calls.

Quote:
(In fact it's so dark that night, Zimmerman can't make out whether the pants Martin is wearing are jeans or not... one of the most basic wardrobe items and identifiers) Zimmerman makes clear that he's pegged the man as a burglar, by saying "These ********** always get away".


He's made it clear that he thinks the guy might be a burglar. Again, what's your point here? So now it's a crime to call the police if you see someone suspicious walking through your neighborhood?

Quote:
At this point, Zimmerman CANNOT see any tattoos or gold teeth.


So? First off, I made it clear that those are things I have not yet confirmed, so I'm not basing my arguments on them. I've certainly never argued that Zimmerman saw these things and thus decided Martin was up to no good.

Quote:
Nothing about Martin's appearance factors into Zimmerman's suspicions about him except that he's a strange man in a hoodie, walking alone at night in the rain, looking around instead of walking fast head-down through the rain.


Which is why Zimmerman never says that the guy's suspicious because of his appearance, or what clothes he's wearing. You're assuming that because he describes Martin's skin color and clothes that those things must be what makes him "look suspicious". But it was his actions and behavior that made Zimmerman think he was suspicious. Let's not forget that Zimmerman wasn't sure if Martin was black when he first called the cops. Strange for someone who is supposedly targeting Martin because of his race.


The relevance of those other things (gold teeth, tattoos, twitter name, online comments, suspensions at school) is to counter the perception that Martin was a squeeky clean kid who could not possibly have been doing anything wrong, and thus Zimmerman could not possibly have had a legitimate reason to think he was suspicious. If he's someone who's been suspended for having drug materials on him, and another time for having graffiti materials on him, and yet another time for having stolen goods on him, and seems to habitually be getting into places and things he's not supposed to be into, then this supports the idea that he might have been doing something while walking home from that store that Zimmerman could have legitimately viewed as suspicious.

Let's not forget that the entire case against Zimmerman basically rests on the assumption that Martin could not have been doing anything suspicious because he's such a good kid. But if our perception of him as a good kid isn't quite as correct as we were initially lead to believe, then perhaps we should re-assess our perception of the actions of Zimmerman. If Martin had originally been described as a troubled teen, currently on suspension from school, with a history of theft, drugs, and vandalism, and a healthy disregard for authority figures, wouldn't most people view this whole thing completely differently?

Public perception is fueling this. But that perception has been manipulated from day one to make them more supportive of Martin and more angry at Zimmerman. I'm just trying to cut through the allegations and claims and speculation and look just at what we know to be true and then assess the likelihood of the actual events that transpired.

Quote:
The girlfriend's reported version says, and their phone call to each other might bear this out, that Martin asked "Why are you following me?" to the guy in the car, and getting no satisfactory response, he and the girlfriend decide he should get away from the car and lose it. Martin decides to walk quickly, his girlfriend urges him to run fast, which he does later when Zimmerman keeps following him, against repeated police suggestions not to follow, to park and wait for the police to get there.


Sigh. I've mentioned this several times now. There is zero evidence from any statement that Zimmerman followed Martin while driving his car. Why do people keep assuming that he followed him in his car? You've even gone so far with this fantasy as to invent a statement by police telling Zimmerman to park his car and wait for police.

Listen to the police tape. Zimmerman was clearly already parked when he made the call. Read the released statements from the girlfriend. She never says that Martin is being followed by Zimmerman while Zimmerman is in the car. And both Zimmerman's statement and the girlfriends seem to support that the first time either of them spoke, they were both on foot.

Where are you getting this? Why do people keep repeating this? It's crazy. Even after I point out that this is just made up and there's no evidence of this at all, it keeps getting repeated over and over. Like somehow in your minds, if Zimmerman is following in his car, it makes him a more sinister threat, so you pretend that's what he must have done. Stop putting the cart before the horse. Stop repeating things purely because they make the position you've taken seem stronger. Look at the facts. Look at the statements from various people involved in the events. Judge *only* on those things.


I'm just asking people to use their brains here.
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King Nobby wrote:
More words please
#375 Mar 30 2012 at 7:10 PM Rating: Decent
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589 posts
We are using our brains Zimmerman left safety to chase down some one that he deemed up to something instead of waiting for the police to show up and do it. Hell if he had just went by called the cops and kept going with out following him, Martin would not had ran with a good chance of still being in the area when the cops showed up. Nothing in the law gives people the right to follow another person just because they are out of place. Stand your ground doesn't protect him since again he left safety and sought danger. The simple fact that Zimmerman was told by the police more then once to break off and take no further action is enough to place him in doubt. The only exception the law gives to willingly placing your self in to a situation were deadly force might be needed to defend your life is if their is clear and president danger to the life of another, i.e witnessing a assault.

Long and short is Zimmerman left his car of his own free will and against the advise of the dispatcher so his right to defend him self when again willingly confronting someone is not protected. He was no cop had no right to even question Martin as to what he was doing. All he could do legally was call the police and report it and keep going.
#376 Mar 30 2012 at 7:13 PM Rating: Good
gbaji wrote:
I'm just asking people to use their brains here.


Ironic, considering your inability to do the same.
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