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I did not know that the case was going before the grand jury. Thanks for telling me. Do you know if prosecutors decided to present it to the grand jury before or after all the publicity?
I have no interest in skinning Zimmerman alive. I'd like to see him tried for murder and have a jury decide the outcome.
It is not unreasonable to argue that police officers should have arrested him at the scene for murder when they had probable cause to do so. At least where I live (Texas), the normal routine would have been for him to be arrested for murder because the police had probable cause and he would have been able to post bond pending trial. It's the failure to arrest him that is alarming.
All indisputable, but you will have people with oppositional personality disorder diputing this nevertheless.
You actually think i'm a Stormfronter? I held you to higher esteem then that on this forum. Perhaps I should re-analyze.
If calling for due diligence, due process, and the plethora of other Constitutionally guaranteed legal protections for an American citizen makes me a racist, then i'm the biggest racist on the planet. And proud of it.
And believe it or not, i'd be calling for those protections for you too should you ever find yourself in a bad place in life.
The lack of compassion never ceases to disgust me. Rather than address the real issue, they prefer to bash Sharpton and Jackson.
[SARCASM] The audacity of those black people to protest. I mean all blacks are criminals and welfare queens (except the Republican ones), so they should expect this treatment. They should just sit back and take it. They don't deserve the same rights and privileges as law abiding whites since the contribute so much to the crime rate. Trayvon deserves what he got and should be punished for the few black people who committ crime and get government assistance. The nerve of Al Sharpton and anyone else who protets![/SARCASM]
You don't build a bridge between young black men and a community of mostly-white retirees by delivering the message through a rap "singer?".
Not pointing fingers at you directly, but that's part of the problem. There's so much disinformation about the Martin case that it's nauseating. We can all agree that the police department might not be the most competent in the world, but insisting that Zimmerman should have been arrested without proper evidence to charge him with an actual crime just screams that cooler, rational minds are not driving this debate.
Al Shartpon on the scene does NOTHING to help clear things up. Absolutely nothing. Why? Because Al Shartpton is not a purveyor of trurth or fact. Watch his show on MSNBC just once and you'll see what i'm talking about. People think that Sharpton brings clarity and purpose to this protest.....that's as far from the truth as one could possibly get.
This is where you and I disagree. The police had probable cause to arrest him and probable cause is not a very high standard. Generally it's something like "a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed." They had a dead, unarmed teenager and an armed man who admitted to shooting him. That was plenty.
I agree that Sharpton often shows up just to be part of the circus. But in this case, if it weren't for the public outcry nothing at all would be happening in this case. Sharpton may not be helping, but he's not hurting anything either.
While I think that the situation in Sanford is a bit alarming and I'm glad that attention on the issue has driven further investigation & action - even if the end result is a better explanation on why there shouldn't be any further action.
However, I see no purpose in Sharpton going down there. It's not like he needs to drum up attention. That has already been accomplished and the correct parties are now involved.
Him stoking racial flames or making it about him or anything other than a kid being shot that needs to be accounted for will only do a disservice to the kid, their family and the entire situation.
The only person who can benefit in all of this is Sharpton
I don't know why they're put up in ghettos. I've never seen them myself and I was raised in the projects.
But, I am familiar with middle/upper-class gated communities. The purpose is to reinforce exclusivity and keep unseemly people out. So, when someone is seen who doesn't "fit in", they are quickly identified and/or questioned about their presence in the neighborhood.
IME, folks who live in these types of neighborhoods are paranoid about the risks of becoming victims to violence. When you add in a gun and FL's SYG law, it becomes a big problem. It's obvious from Zimmerman's repeated calls to 911 to report "undesirables" in the neighborhood that he suffered from this same paranoia.
I understand that the above may be your experience...But I don't see anything wrong with community outlook. It is a great thing. Zimmerman doesn't represent all "neighborhood watchmen"..
I don't know why they're put up in ghettos. I've never seen them myself and I was raised in the projects.
But, I am familiar with middle/upper-class gated communities. The purpose is to reinforce exclusivity and keep unseemly people out. So, when someone is seen who doesn't "fit in", they are quickly identified and/or questioned about their presence in the neighborhood.
IME, folks who live in these types of neighborhoods are paranoid about the risks of becoming victims to violence. When you add in a gun and FL's SYG law, it becomes a big problem. It's obvious from Zimmerman's repeated calls to 911 to report "undesirables" in the neighborhood that he suffered from this same paranoia.
There's a lot of that here, too. Gated communities full of scared people. Arizona and Florida each have a large share of the retired (generally retired people with at least some money), and retired people tend to get more scared as they get older. I'm watching it happen to a couple of my relatives, who are starting to see their youthful strength slip away, and feel vulnerable, which is now segueing into low-grade paranoia.
With the other incident that someone brought up where a neighbor killed another neighbor over a teenager riding his skateboard, it was pressure from the public that got the police to file charges. I believe that if no one said a word about Trayvon's death, Zimmerman would never be charged or arrested. I understand waiting for the facts and investigation, but some people are insinuating that the police are always right and use "due process" as an excuse. They are human like everyone else and far from perfect. If some of the racists that post in these threads were police officers, they would probably let the killer skate too.
I agree with those that say they don't know if Zimmerman was motivated by racism, but the police department certainly showed a lack of concern for the Trayvon by disregarding witness testimony and not even giving the killer a drug test, which are standard procedures. I am sure that the mayor reviewed all of the evidence before giving a vote of no confidence and clearly he also felt that this was handled incorrectly. It looks like the police department was going to sweep this under the rug and let the murder walk with no questions asked - there wasn't going to be any "due process". This is why Al Sharpton is there and this is why so many people are angry, period. If we all sat back and shut up, nothing would have happened. There would be no justice.
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