George Zimmerman, the guy who shot Trayvon Martin,
supposedly in self-defense, has finally been arrested and charged with second
degree murder after initially being released by the police who decided the
shooting was in self-defense and therefore justified.
There are problems with this case on a number of levels.
Zimmerman, as part of a neighborhood watch program, was
“patrolling” the neighborhood, looking for suspicious characters, which is
legitimate BUT he had a gun which is not AND he was actually “following”
Trayvon when all he was obligated to do was to “report” a suspicious character
in the neighborhood.
Trayvon noticed he was being followed / stalked and instead
of running away, confronted his potential attacker and fearing for his life,
attacked his stalker who then shot him in the chest and killed him.
Was Zimmerman breaking the law by stalking a suspicious
character? He probably broke the rules of the Neighborhood Watch association
which prohibits the carrying of a weapon and prohibits stalking but other than
that…I don’t think so.
Was Trayvon breaking the law by attacking Zimmerman? In his
own mind, he was defending himself from a possible attacker but to the police
that came upon the scene, he was the attacker and Zimmerman was the victim and
he was justified in protecting himself.
So here we have one of those surreal situations that you see
on TV except in this one, a young man really died and people want that death
explained and they want who ever caused that death to be punished so…
Did the police do something wrong? If they followed
procedure for incidents like this one, they are in the clear.
After much national protest which seemed to suggest race as
an issue (which it was not) a special prosecutor has charged Zimmerman with 2nd
degree murder and had him arrested.
The prosecutor is obviously playing to the national audience
because 2nd degree murder is a big stretch even for those not versed
in law; manslaughter seems the more appropriate charge but it all depends on
what the prosecutor will try to prove was Zimmerman’s intent.
This will be like the O.J. Simpson trial but in reverse. OJ
killed his girlfriend and her friend without any question but a racist jury,
high priced defense attorneys and sloppy detective work let a murderer go free.
Zimmerman may have made some mistakes but he did not aim to
kill anyone but a jury aware of what the country expect from them and a
prosecutor willing to do anything and everything to win this case and become
famous, may put a man in jail for something he should not have been charged
with.
I guess the problem I am having with all this is how did all
this turn into such a fucking circus?
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