Travesty for Trayvon

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.