I am very dismayed about the George Zimmerman verdict. I think it was a bad one and sets a terrible
legal precedent. Zimmerman got off on a “stand
your ground” defense. His lawyers kept
trying to make a case that he was defending himself against Trayvon
Martin. And one lawyer got on CNN last
night and said that he thinks what “people are confused about” (I am NOT
confused—I think I understand the law better than this condescending fool, but
moving along…) is that they (“we”: the
so-called “confused people”) are taking into account that Zimmerman was
pursuing Martin, and we shouldn’t do that, because, according to this fool, the
law only looks at what was going on in the moment of the struggle. You know what I say to that? BULLSHIT:
the last time I looked, the law looks at the WHOLE scenario. And if we look at the WHOLE incident, start
to finish, it is documented heavily that, every step of the way, George
Zimmerman was pursuing Trayvon Martin and it was Trayvon Martin who felt
threatened! So IF Trayvon Martin did
turn around and attack George Zimmerman at one point, then it was HE who was
standing his ground, not Zimmerman! It
was Trayvon who clearly should have been protected under any “stand your
ground" law! Yet Zimmerman is not
the one dead, Trayvon is, and Zimmerman walks free under some overly broad and
misapplied “stand your ground” law.
Let’s look at some of the clearly documented facts that we
know:
1. Trayvon
Martin is dead and George Zimmerman killed him.
2. George Zimmerman pursued Trayvon Martin (to me,
this is the key point), even after the police dispatch operator TOLD HIM “we
don’t need you to do that.” They asked,
are you following him? Zimmerman said
yes. They said, as I just wrote but
bears repeating: “we don’t need you to
do that.”
3. Trayvon Martin felt threatened. This is DOCUMENTED in his phone call with his
friend. He said there was a creepy white
guy following him. HE had cause to “stand
his ground” under Florida law, NOT Zimmerman!
How was Zimmerman threatened? He
could have turned back at ANY TIME until the actual struggle, and the actual
struggle was because TRAYVON felt threatened!!!
And that is ASSUMING that Trayvon started the actual physical
struggle: we don’t know that, it could
have been Zimmerman who started it. But
to give Zimmerman the benefit of the doubt on that one, just say Trayvon started
it: that would be legal under the “stand
your ground” law! Trayvon felt
threatened and fought back. He wound up
dead.
The “stand your ground” law has been turned on its head here
and misapplied. It is an overly broad,
dangerous, pro-gun law in the first place, but in this case it has been horribly
perverted. This is a travesty of justice
and a sad day for my state of Florida and our country.
