The legal system failed Trayvon Martin (Maryland, elect, program, FBI)
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A great article by Charles Blow in the NYTimes about how the legal system failed Trayvon Martin.
"The system began to fail Martin long before that night.
The system failed him when Florida’s self-defense laws were written, allowing an aggressor to claim self-defense in the middle of an altercation — and to use deadly force in that defense — with no culpability for his role in the events that led to that point.
The system failed him when the neighborhood watchman grafted on stereotypes the moment he saw him, ascribing motive and behavior and intent and criminal history to a boy who was just walking home.
The system failed him when the bullet ripped through his chest, and the man who shot him said he mounted him and stretched his arms out wide, preventing him from even clutching the spot that hurt.
The system failed him in those moments just after he was shot when he was surely aware that he was about to die, but before life’s light fully passed from his body — and no one came to comfort him or try to save him.
The system failed him when the slapdash Sanford police did a horrible job of collecting and preserving evidence.
The system failed him when those officers apparently didn’t even value his dead body enough to adequately canvass the complex to make sure that no one was missing a teen.
The system failed him when he was labeled a John Doe and his lifeless body spent the night alone and unclaimed.
The system failed him when the man who the police found standing over the body of a dead teenager, a man who admitted to shooting him and still had the weapon, was taken in for questioning and then allowed to walk out of the precinct without an arrest or even a charge, to go home after taking a life and take to his bed.
The system failed him when it took more than 40 days and an outpouring of national outrage to get an arrest.
The system failed him when a strangely homogenous jury — who may well have been Zimmerman’s peers but were certainly not the peers of the teenager, who was in effect being tried in absentia — was seated.
The system failed him when the prosecution put on a case for the Martin family that many court-watchers found wanting.
The system failed him when everyone in the courtroom raised racial bias in roundabout ways, but almost never directly. "
I agree, and I hope that Trayvon's death serves as a rallying call for change.
The question is: what can we as individuals do about this?
Embarrassed by the facts of the case, the race baiting pimps and hustlers have rushed to concoct new lies in their wild imaginations to explain away self defense. And to compound their vile evilness, they have stirred others to commit felonies on behalf and in memory of their dearly departed felon. Shameful. But not new. Blacks have been fodder for those seeking notoriety, power and wealth for generations.
“.... There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
- - - Ch. V: The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob (pg. 118)
“..... I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
My experience is that people who call themselves "The Intellectuals" understand theories, but they do not understand things. I have long been convinced that, if these men could have gone into the South and taken up and become interested in some practical work which would have brought them in touch with people and things, the whole world would have looked very different to them. Bad as conditions might have seemed at first, when they saw that actual progress was being made, they would have taken a more hopeful view of the situation.”
- - - Ch. V: The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob
- - - Booker T. Washington Booker T. Washington - Wikiquote
The attempt to ascribe criminality to Mr Z is absurd. A criminal does not CALL for police before a crime. A criminal attempts to AVOID the police at all costs. And all the fabrications are questionable in light of that one fact. Furthermore, when told that a video recording existed of the episode, Mr Z was HAPPY. A guilty felon would not be elated that his actions were captured for all to see.
Last edited by jetgraphics; 07-17-2013 at 04:38 AM..
Why are you so against a research project that can be applied when the testing is required for a specific reason? If an outside agency or institution needs the tools to collect info for their data and stats, there are always research studies that provide the template. Who would have a problem with something so innocuous and ubiquitous? These types of studies are nothing new and even focus groups are held to provide information such as this.
How about IQ tests that show negroes have the lowest average IQ of all races?
You don't like that, do you?..I suppose THOSE tests are all "racist" and "biased" right?
"As a parent, particularly a parent of black teenage boys, I am left with the question, “Now, what do I tell my boys?”
We used to say not to run in public because that might be seen as suspicious, like they’d stolen something. But according to Zimmerman, Martin drew his suspicion at least in part because he was walking too slowly.
So what do I tell my boys now? At what precise pace should a black man walk to avoid suspicion?
And can they ever stop walking away, or running away, and simply stand their ground? Can they become righteously indignant without being fatally wounded?"
They can tell their boys not to assault someone who looks like a cracka, gay rapist. Its EVERYONES fault but Martin's if you listen to the media and race hustlers.
If Zimmerman was a black neighborhood watch, who profiled a guy who was white in a hoodie as a punk and suspect, and Trayvon was a white guy on the phone with his g/f both profiling Zimmerman as a creeps ass black guy and potential gay rapist...what would be the reaction?
All those slamming Zimmerman as a racist, profiling murderer would have nothing but great things to say about him, meanwhile they would destroy Trayvon. They would call Trayvon a racist who profiled, and deserved it for being a racist.
There would be no calls by the CBC or NAACP to persecute Zimmerman. The DOJ wouldnt be "investigating".
Stand Your Ground was never part of the case and it applies equally to everyone, but even if it didn't exist and Zimmerman had a duty to retreat how in hell do you retreat when some guy's straddling you and beating the snot out of you?
Another bleating, ignorant, whiny article from the nation's leading bird cage liner.
Thread fail.
You didn't hear the interview of jury member D-37 if you think Stand Your Ground wasn't part of the case. It was included in the jury instructions. As for Stand Your Ground applying equally to everyone, that isn't exactly true, is it. It doesn't apply to someone who isn't carrying a gun, who is using his fists to defend himself against a threat. There was plenty of evidence that Martin was scare of Zimmerman and that Zimmerman was the aggressor following someone in the dark which started the whole thing but a gun trumps fists with the law and when dead men can't tell their side of an altercation.
"As a parent, particularly a parent of black teenage boys, I am left with the question, “Now, what do I tell my boys?”
We used to say not to run in public because that might be seen as suspicious, like they’d stolen something. But according to Zimmerman, Martin drew his suspicion at least in part because he was walking too slowly.
So what do I tell my boys now? At what precise pace should a black man walk to avoid suspicion?
And can they ever stop walking away, or running away, and simply stand their ground? Can they become righteously indignant without being fatally wounded?"
This is a free country, young hoodlums are free to meander around wearing hoods and peeking in windows and watchmen are free to approach suspicious individuals in hoods to *axe* them "what you doing here homes?"
Keep raising kids to idolize gangster rappers and let them wear hoods that cover their features like little hoodlums and you can expect more of the same.
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These types of studies are nothing new and even focus groups are held to provide information such as this.