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ITA! Following someone is not a crime. Attacking someone who is following you is.
Not if the person doing the attacking is in fear of their life or of great bodily harm. Zimmerman chasing after him and then reaching quickly into his pocket or indicating he has a gun would be sufficient for Martin to fear for his life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
When I took self defense, I was taught to walk quickly to somewhere where I could get help if I was being followed. Turning around and attacking could be a death sentence.
Yeah, so would getting out of your car and chasing someone in that dark that you have already stated might be "on drugs" or might have an unknown object in their pants. And which of the two had the neighborhood watch/self defense training? If Zimmerman had an ounce of common sense, all of this would have been avoided.
So much conjecture here, I don't even know where to begin. There is only one person who knows exactly what happened. Anyone else concocting a storyline is speculating at best, and making s**t up at worst. About 99% of the comments on city-data regarding this case are the latter.
All we know for sure is that (1) George Zimmerman was following Trayvon Martin (against the advice of the police dispatcher); and (2) George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin to death. A jury (presumably) weighed the evidence and decided it was self-defense. That doesn't mean any of them know exactly what happened.
FOLLOWING SOMEONE IS NOT ILLEGAL!!! Drop this issue already.
DISOBEYING THE POLICE DISPATCHER FOR DOING SOMETHING PERFECTLY LEGAL IS TOTALLY WITHIN YOUR RIGHTS. Please drop this too.
Nobody in the world can order you to stop doing something that is perfectly legal! We are not slaves of anybody, certainly not of the police or the police dispatcher.
FOLLOWING SOMEONE IS NOT ILLEGAL!!! Drop this issue already.
DISOBEYING THE POLICE DISPATCHER FOR DOING SOMETHING PERFECTLY LEGAL IS TOTALLY WITHIN YOUR RIGHTS. Please drop this too.
Nobody in the world can order you to stop doing something that is perfectly legal! We are not slaves of anybody, certainly not of the police or the police dispatcher.
I think you need to calm down. Nowhere in my message did I say that following someone is illegal.
So much conjecture here, I don't even know where to begin. There is only one person who knows exactly what happened. Anyone else concocting a storyline is speculating at best, and making s**t up at worst. About 99% of the comments on city-data regarding this case are the latter.
All we know for sure is that (1) George Zimmerman was following Trayvon Martin (against the advice of the police dispatcher); and (2) George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin to death. A jury (presumably) weighed the evidence and decided it was self-defense. That doesn't mean any of them know exactly what happened.
That's what we do when we try a case. We try to figure out what most likely happened. The most likely scenario here is the one Zimmerman says happened. There was a witness that saw TM on top of Zimmerman beating him. Zimmerman's injuries and TM's lack of injuries are consistent with TM beating Zimmerman. While we'll never know for sure, under our legal system, the benefit of a doubt goes to the defendant and there is reasonable doubt here that this was self defense. You are forgetting that all we need is reasonable doubt. We don't need to know exactly what happened to rule on this.
Last time I checked, following someone did not give them the legal right to beat you nor did it mean you forfeit your right to defend yourself if they chose to beat you. What harm was done by GZ following TM? What if GZ had followed him all the way home? What horrible thing would have happened?
I agree, the prosecution on this case was horrible. It should have been fairly easy to paint Martin as the victim and Zimmerman as the assailant but they didn't and the jury had no choice but to let the Zimmerman go free. And now thanks to the prosecutors, he can even get his gun back.
That's what we do when we try a case. We try to figure out what most likely happened. The most likely scenario here is the one Zimmerman says happened. There was a witness that saw TM on top of Zimmerman beating him. Zimmerman's injuries and TM's lack of injuries are consistent with TM beating Zimmerman. While we'll never know for sure, under our legal system, the benefit of a doubt goes to the defendant and there is reasonable doubt here that this was self defense. You are forgetting that all we need is reasonable doubt. We don't need to know exactly what happened to rule on this.
Last time I checked, following someone did not give them the legal right to beat you nor did it mean you forfeit your right to defend yourself if they chose to beat you. What harm was done by GZ following TM? What if GZ had followed him all the way home? What horrible thing would have happened?
The bad thing is, Zimmerman is a known liar, he lied to the grand jury about his money, so how can you trust his version? The prosecutors should have slammed him for that.
Not if the person doing the attacking is in fear of their life or of great bodily harm. Zimmerman chasing after him and then reaching quickly into his pocket or indicating he has a gun would be sufficient for Martin to fear for his life.
Yeah, so would getting out of your car and chasing someone in that dark that you have already stated might be "on drugs" or might have an unknown object in their pants. And which of the two had the neighborhood watch/self defense training? If Zimmerman had an ounce of common sense, all of this would have been avoided.
Excellent post - would have repped you but couldn't.
One of the key timeline issues the defense pointed out was the amount of time Martin had to get home after initially running from Zimmerman. This allowed the defense to separate the two incidents... i.e. Zimmerman profiling/following Martin was disconnected from Martin "assaulting" Zimmerman. Combine that with the physical injuries that Zimmerman received and the lack of injuries (other than the GSW) to Martin, and it's easy to see how the defense won the trial.
In hindsight, do you think the prosecution should have more forcefully introduced the theory that it was Martin who was acting in self defense? After all, the Florida self defense/stand your ground law doesn't require a person in fear of their life (evidenced by Martin initially running from Zimmerman) to retreat... thus there was no requirement for Martin to run home, and he was well within his rights to lay in wait for Zimmerman and jump out in self defense as Zimmerman walked through the neighborhood searching for Martin.
It just seems to me that the defense was able to win this case by separating the two confrontations between Zimmerman and Martin... and the prosecution, by sitting idly, allowed that swap of aggressor/self defender.
That sounds about right to me, Zim was the aggressor and Trayvon was standing his ground. After all, it wasn't Trayvon following Zim, Zim was deliberately following Trayvon to invoke a confrontation, even after the dispatcher told him not to pursue that individual.
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