Zimmerman TrialFollow

I haven't been following the trial too closely, but Zimmerman really doesn't seem to be doing himself any favors. He testified that he had never even heard of the stand your ground law... so they brought in his criminal justice professor who testified that they had spoken at length about it.

I just don't understand why he'd tell such an obvious lie.

This is not a guy who thinks very well. Are you really surprised?

Yes, I did. Did you? Let me refresh your memory:



Again, neither were in their home, so 776.013 does not apply. So are you arguing that Zimmerman following Martin represents a reasonable belief by Martin that he's in risk of "imminent death or great bodily harm", or to prevent the "imminent commission of a forcible felony"? The law does not allow you to speculate that someone might do something bad and then attack them first. It requires that a reasonable person should believe they were in imminent danger in that circumstance.

You're also repeating the same ridiculous double standard I spoke of earlier. So Martin is justified to use force, even deadly force, based merely on the fact that Zimmerman followed him, but Zimmerman is *not* justified to use deadly force when he's actually being pinned to the ground and punched in the face? That makes no sense at all. No reasonable person assumes they're in imminent risk of great bodily harm or death just because someone is following them. Most reasonable people would assume so once they're on their back and being punched in the face by an assailant.



Sure. But it requires a reasonable belief that this will happen. I don't think being followed meets that criteria. You have a point *if* the jury believes that Zimmerman actually took a clear act against Martin that would indicate this, but even Martin's girlfriends testimony doesn't come close to proving that. I've acknowledged all along that if the jury believes that Zimmerman took the first aggressive act (throwing a punch, trying to grab Martin, etc, not just following him), then they have a chance with this. But again, it comes down the the later section of the law. If we assume that Zimmerman was the aggressor, this gives Martin the right to defend himself, but the moment he pinned Zimmerman down and continued attacking him, Martin became the attacker and Zimmerman now has the right to defend himself.

Put another way, if Zimmerman attempted to grab or otherwise attack Martin, and Martin was armed, Martin would be within his rights at that moment to pull out his weapon and shoot Zimmerman. That's the use of deadly force. But he can't punch Zimmerman with his fists, then get the upper hand in the fight, and then pin him and continue punching him. Remember that the use of deadly force is still restricted to that force which the person believes is necessary to protect him from great bodily harm or death or to prevent a forcible felony. Once he's knocked Zimmerman to the ground, he's no longer in imminent danger of great bodily harm or death and cannot continue to attack Zimmerman under a claim of self defense.




It's funny because you (and a lot of people) keep trying really hard to inject race into this, and claim that those who defend Zimmerman do so out of some innate racial need to defend the white guy against the black guy. But it really looks like you're the one racially biased here. No matter how incredibly skewed the facts are, you can't drop the assumption that this must have been a case of white racism targeting a black teenager. You just can't see past the narrative of "white guy shoots black kid". It's an incredible case of projection on your part.

Remove the race of the two involved, and no one would be arguing that Zimmerman was guilty. Hell. If we reversed the races of the two, my position would be exactly the same, but you'd be arguing the opposite. So maybe you need to stop looking at this through race tinted glasses?

No. It's pure CYA. Police dispatchers are trained to tell anyone on the other end of the phone line to not do *anything* and to wait for police to arrive on the scene. It's their automatic response to any action the person proposes because if they don't do that, they can be sued for not telling the person "we don't need you to do that" if that person gets hurt. It's about getting on record that the dispatcher did not tell the person to do something. Don't read anything more into it than that.



At the end of the day, we have to weigh relative responsibility here. Zimmerman's responsibility for the outcome is no greater than any person walking through their own housing complex at night. Martin died because he pinned Zimmerman to the ground and beat him in the face with no sign of stopping. That's much more directly responsible for his death than the fact that Zimmerman was there to be pinned to the ground and beaten in the face. Don't you agree? You're trying to effectively blame the victim of a mugging for being mugged because if he hadn't walked down that street late at night, he wouldn't have been mugged. Then trying to blame him for shooting his mugger because he's somehow in the wrong for walking down a street late at night, knowing there's a possibility he might get mugged and then having the audacity to carry a concealed weapon just in case he is.

That's nutty thinking.



He followed someone. That he had a concealed weapon is irrelevant. There is no evidence he drew his weapon or made the presence of the weapon known until after he was pinned to the ground. His action is not made any more or less legal based on the presence of his weapon.



Uh. No. I was at someone else's house (condo actually). I parked my car in one of the open spaces on the side of the complex and started walking towards my friends house, when this guy walked up and started asking me what I was doing in the complex, why I was there, which unit was I visiting, etc. I gave him the information and continued walking on. When I got to the friends house, I mentioned it and they kinda rolled their eyes because this particular guy was known to randomly wander around bugging people visiting the complex and to pay him no mind.

This is more or less the exact same scenario Martin found himself in, yet it never once occurred to me to flee this guy, or to be concerned about him. My immediate assumption was that he was someone who lived in the complex, and was part of the neighborhood watch (which they had, but he apparently wasn't part of it, but was just a busybody), and it was at worst a minor annoyance to me. The point is that Martin's reaction was ridiculously out of proportion to what Zimmerman was doing.



First off. I know that this has been misreported at length, but at no point did Zimmerman follow Martin "in his car". His car was parked the whole time. Second, as I pointed out earlier, Martin did not flee when Zimmerman followed him. Martin fled as soon as he saw Martin sitting in his car talking on his cell phone. So let's put this in perspective. You're visiting a friend. You're walking alone back to that friends house through the complex at night. At some point, you realize there's someone sitting in a car on the side of the road talking on their cell phone. Do you run away to hide from this person, or do you just continue walking?

Most normal people just continue walking. Now, if that person got out of his car and started walking towards me, I would make note of it and say something to get a feel about what he wants. I'd expect him to say something about why he got out and is walking towards me. I'd be wary, but I wouldn't start running unless the guy pulled out a knife and started talking about sacrificing me to his god Bobo or something.

Martin, if we assume he wasn't doing anything wrong, way overreacted. His actions just don't match those of someone who's actually just walking home and not doing anything wrong. They perfectly match the actions of someone who was doing something he wasn't supposed to and realized that he'd been spotted doing it. And this part of the encounter is part of the recorded call to police, so we're not relying on Zimmerman's word for it. Martin ran before Zimmerman got out of the car, much less followed Martin. So let's stop pretending that Martin did what he did because he was being followed. He was only followed *after* he did something that looked incredibly suspicious.



Huh? I didn't say "walking away". I said "walking on by". You're walking down a street. You see someone sitting in a car on the side of the street talking on a cell phone. Why the hell run from that? You'd just keep walking in the direction you were walking, right? That's what a "reasonable person" would do. You only might consider running away *if* the other person does something to make you think he's a danger to you, but at that point, Zimmerman was just sitting in his car.

And are you seriously about having the cops called on you for not doing anything wrong and running? That's also wrong. Someone calls the cops on you and you actually haven't done anything wrong, you continue doing what you're doing (which is presumably "not wrong") and if the cops show up, you explain to them how you're not doing anything wrong and you let the other guy get the heat for wasting the police's time. WTF? You seriously run and hide in that situation? Or is this one of those situation where "not doing anything wrong" really means "I was doing something wrong, but I didn't think it was a big deal, so boo hoo, he shouldn't call the cops on me"?

How'd you know someone called the cops on you in the first place? And are you aware that the fastest way to make yourself look guilty is to run and hide when the cops show up (or are on the way)? Maybe more people need to learn how to act like law abiding citizens to get this.



Which, ironically, is precisely what he's supposed to do as part of the watch. Remember, he called the cops and reported the behavior. That's it. He only followed Martin after Martin ran away from him. Was he supposed to ignore the guy wandering back and forth through the area in the rain? No. He's supposed to call and report it. And if the person runs away once he realized Zimmerman is there? Sure, he's not required to follow the person, but if he does, he can give the police a better idea of where he is in the complex and maybe make it possible for them to catch someone. Remember, Zimmerman doesn't know who Martin is. He sees someone acting suspicious. He calls the police to report it, and then the person does something even more suspicious. Martin basically confirms to Zimmerman that he was doing something he shouldn't have by running. Fair or not, that's the reasonable assumption based on Martins reaction.

Remember also that the watch was formed because there were break ins and vandalism going on. So if he can assist in catching whomever is doing it, he's doing his job. Remember also that there's next to zero evidence that Zimmerman did anything other than just follow Martin. Which he's well within his right to do.



Other than the fact that he ran. The claims of the girlfriend are her claims. The police dispatch recording clearly shows that Martin ran from Zimmerman prior to Zimmerman doing *anything* other than sit in his car and talk on his cell phone. So the question becomes "what did he suspect about Zimmerman"? Did he really think "this is some crazy stalker guy planning to kill me?", or did he think "this guy might be part of the neighborhood watch, and saw me poking around the neighborhood".



Except that Martin didn't know that until after he ran. So why did he run in the first place? Do you run away every time you see someone sitting in a parked car? Seriously? That behavior makes no sense if we assume he was just innocently walking home from the store. Everything Martin did that night screams "kid up to no good, trying to avoid getting caught".



Watched doing what though? Realizing you're being watched doing nothing wrong should not be a concern. What makes him appear to be a criminal is when realizing he's being watched prompts him to run away from the person watching him. So yeah, running in that situation doesn't "make him a criminal", but it sure does look suspicious.

[quote]Also remember, Martin RAN. If he wanted to fight, especially if he were a thug, he would have waved his glock and threatened him. By Martin running, that is an action of him not wanting to get involved. By Zimmerman chasing him, that is an action of him wanting to get involved.[/quote]

We can debate that, and no one knows for sure what happened to cause them to meet, but given their relative physical statures, if Martin really just wanted to run home, he could have made it in under a minute and Zimmerman would never have caught up with him. If you've looked at the map of the complex, there was no reason for Martin to turn around, yet where the fight occurred is very near to the road where Zimmerman's car was parked. Martin's father's house was in the opposite direction. Martin could have simply run through the complex, hung a left at the end of the interior rows with the grass and sidewalk, and been like 2 houses from his dad's place. Yet the spot where he was shot was in the other direction. It suggests he ran into the complex, then took two left turns and came back out towards the main road. Which makes no sense if you're trying to evade someone.

It makes complete sense if your intent is to double back around behind someone who followed you for a short distance and is now heading back to hiss car (as Zimmerman claims). Martin was a 17 year old football player. Zimmerman was a 29 (28 then?) year old some what out of shape guy. No way does he catch up to Martin if Martin is running away from him. And no possible way that he catches him where they ended out if that's how it went down.

It's just that all the physical evidence corroborates Zimmerman's story. The claims being made by the prosecution require some incredible stretches of possibility to even entertain. We have to assume that Zimmerman somehow magically became a track star and caught up with Martin, despite Martin having a head start and running straight home. We have to also assume that "straight home" for Martin consisted of taking a U turn through the complex and going back to the same road where he first ran into Zimmerman about 80-100 feet from where he first entered the complex rather than running out the other side of the interior where it opens out near to where home is. It requires that we accept that its perfectly reasonable for someone to assume grave danger presented by a person sitting in a car talking on their cell phone, yet at the same time insist that having suffered a bloody nose and contusions on the back of your head doesn't qualify as being in grave danger at all.

It's just bizarre the lengths people seem to need to go to with regard to ignoring or twisting the facts of this case in order to make it fit a "white racist kills innocent black teen" narrative. At some point, don't we stop and look at the facts and evidence and ignore people's skin color? Is that even possible?

Oh, and because I still think it's strange as hell: No. I have never hidden in the bushes because I saw someone nearby. Ever. If I'm perfectly in the right to be where I am, why the hell would I hide? That's not normal behavior.

I think if I saw someone following me at night, trying to hide from them would not be completely out of the question. A coworker of mine did exactly that as he was was being followed at night by someone while we were out of town for a work related thing. He noticed he was being followed, turns a corner, ducked down behind a bush and watched as the person came around the corner, stopped, looked around (presumably for him) then after a few moments being unable to see him, continued on.

Now, when he told us the story the following morning on our way to work, we did not think that he did anything abnormal. We all thought the person following him was some sort of creep.

People are choosing to take the time to consider whether or not race could be a factor because, shocker, racism is still alive in our culture and it needs to be examined if this could have been a case of racially-motivated profiling.

The fact of the matter is that Zimmerman profiled Martin as being a potential threat to the neighborhood. If his race was a factor, it's relevant. If his race wasn't a factor, it's not relevant.

The only way you can find out if it was a factor is to examine that at trial.

Why is that a difficult concept for you?

People are choosing to see this through the lens of race. The fact that one person is black and another white (hispanic actually), doesn't mean that the issue is about race. But many people just can't get past the fact that Martin is black, and therefor we must assume a racial motive for his death.

Naturally not. A white kid in a sweatshirt walking around in the rain totally gets followed by a wannabe cop neighborhood watch guy then shot and killed. Happens all the time. Then after he's killed, the black guy who shot him is cleared by the police immediately. You just need to embrace your racism. It's ok, little fella, we know you're scared of the coloreds, you don't need to pretend any more.

To better answer his question, the difference is with intent. If someone were walking towards you, playing Angry Birds or listening to music, not paying attention to his surroundings, you wouldn't think anything about it. If that same person were walking towards you, looking directly at you, without taking his eyes off of you, you would think something was up.

I'm not sure why Gbaji is trying to paint Zimmerman as a person with absolutely no fault, while at the same time criticizing others for doing the same thing with Martin. Both were at some fault. To believe that Zimmerman did absolutely nothing suspicious to cause Martin to run asserts that Martin runs from random people. Given that there is no evidence of Martin committing a crime, it would only make sense that Zimmerman did something to scare Martin. That doesn't mean Martin should have ran, but that doesn't take away the fact that Zimmerman was acting just as suspicious as he portrayed Martin.

To many cries of him being an evil Kenyan muslim terrorist. Yep, no racism there.

People here say you're stupid, but I always like to give the benefit of the doubt. It seems that no matter how many times it's been mentioned, you keep missing it. Zimmerman briefly pursued Martin, but lost sight of him quickly. It was while he was returning to his vehicle that he was "jumped" by Martin. At this point, Martin becomes the aggressor. If this is "in fact" how it happened, then Zimmerman is within his rights to use deadly force to defend himself. You don't know exactly what happened. I don't know exactly what happened. Let's wait for more evidence to be released at trial before we condemn this man, unlike what most of the country has already done.

I'd be surprised if he doesn't get convicted. public opinion isn't on his side, he's not exactly all that smart and he's had that money laundering problem right after it happened as well.

The dispatcher call won't do him any good either.