Justice and Security: Neighborhood Watch Captain Attacks, Kills Unarmed Teenager

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Mar 13, 2012.

  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Saturnine Pariah:

    Are you threatening me?

    Because I could be the next victim of some vigilante with a gun like this neighbourhood watch guy. You could be too.

    Society needs to deal with these issues to protect citizens.

    Can't you multitask?

    But obviously you do give a fuck, or you wouldn't have posted here in the first place. From my point of view, it looks like you're just cheer-leading for the NRA or something. Is that it? Guns are good - point made?

    You seem very angry for somebody who says he doesn't give a fuck.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    Even the nuts at the NRA are condemning this, even the republicans who wrote the laws are condemning this. My cynical side says this is because if they don't then they will become the targets but they are still condemning this
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,461
    The Defense has a witness:
    .

    http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/state/witness-martin-attacked-zimmerman-03232012
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    Even if true so what? That shows that the teen was defending himself as HE is allowed to under the don't back down laws. It's still murder
     
  8. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    And yet other witnesses who have come forward as well as the parents and people who knew Martin advised that the person yelling for help (which was recorded in the many 911 calls that were being made at that time) was in fact Martin. There are actual recordings of Martin screaming for help a few seconds before he was shot. Other witnesses also saw the scuffle and at no time was Zimmerman walking back to his car.
     
  9. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    didn't you flip a shit when i said floridians called the law the shoot first ask questions later law?


    Shoot first ask questions never


    thank you for proving that this law needs to be repealed and you CCW and gun license need to be revoked.
     
  10. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    If what I read this morning is correct, Zimmerman also had a broken nose (agrees with early police reports that he had a bloody face) and a gash in the back of his head, which would be corroborating physical evidence that backs up Zimmerman's claim that the shooting was to prevent serious personal injury, which is all that is required by Florida law to allow him to legally use his weapon. (The FL law does appear to be quite lenient in this regard).

    PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS:

    I think, from what I've read that Zimmerman was not a racist. He was acting appropriately in his "Watch Captain" role, he's been at it for nearly a decade and friends and family say adamantly that he is not a racist.

    BUT

    I think he was probably not a trained in martial arts either, and his confidence and courage was artificially bolstered by the gun he carried with him (which a close friend said this morning that he didn't even know he had)

    AND

    I think he really pissed the 17 year old kid off when he confronted/stopped/questioned him when the kid was doing nothing more than returning home after a run to the store for a snack and something to drink (walking while Black).

    AND

    Something was likely said between them that quickly escalated into a physical altercation and though smaller and younger, the scrappy football playing Martin probably laid a beating on Zimmerman like he was a rented mule, knocking him to the ground and breaking his nose

    AND

    Zimmerman was hurt (not that bad but a broken nose really hurts) and was crying and it was hard to breathe and he panicked and stopped the beating Martin was giving him the only way he could (his picture seems to be more of a "dough boy" then a scrapper) and he pulled his gun and shot Martin dead.

    AND

    Even though he followed Martin when the police told him they "didn't need him to do that" it would appear that unless someone saw Zimmerman pointing the gun at Martin BEFORE the fight started, that with the injuries he sustained that the existing FL law will come down on Zimmerman's side.

    The law needs to be reworked.

    The regulations/training for someone who has a permit to carry a gun and is ALSO in a quasi law enforcement role needs to be looked at. It's one thing to carry a gun for self protection but this is quite different than carrying a gun in a role where you make 40+ calls to 9/11 over an 8 year period. The likelihood of getting into an altercation like this goes way up and so the required training (so as to not to need to use the gun) also goes up.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2012
  11. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    If the law gives "self defence" to someone ON A PUBLIC STREET, who stalked and confronted a CHILD with a gun then the law is fucked up. The person who had the right to defend himself should have been with the child who wasn't the aggressor. You know reading your post I thought back to the school bully, when the child finally fights back all of a sudden the bully shoots him and claims self defence. That's what your arguing
     
  12. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    What part of "The law needs to be reworked" did you not understand?

    I didn't write the law and I'm not arguing that the law was well written either, but the existing law is what this event will be judged on and so far it appears to me that the law slightly favors Zimmerman.

    Remember, he's presumed innocent, and if this morning's report is correct, that he had a gash on the back of his head, his clothes were grass stained and he had a broken nose, then use of the gun will likely fall within the lenient requirements of Florida's laws allowing use to prevent serious personal injury.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2012
  13. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    It occurs to me that one of the major things that the police have, that Zimmerman didn't have in his quasi law enforcement role, was anything but a gun.

    In other words no other means of escalating force but a lethal one.

    Seems a reasonable requirement for carrying a gun in this situation would be to also have sufficient martial arts training to defend oneself and to be carrying other less lethal weapons as well.

    Mace, Batons and Tasers all come to mind as something which a trained officer would probably deploy in this situation well prior to pulling their gun.

    Wouldn't similar situations occur much more frequently if the only weapon the police carried were their guns?
     
  14. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
  15. Rhaedas Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,516
    Plus the training, not only in proper weapon use and when to use them, but in how to handle situations so they don't escalate into a problem.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    He is probably racist, anyway. That would be the way to bet - what exactly was suspicious about a teenager walking down the sidewalk?

    That's a good point.

    It applies to almost all the normal justifications for concealed carry, handgun and gun ownership in general, and so forth - it seems reasonable to put extra restrictions on gun use, beyond ordinary self defense, when the one step of escalation is so steep.

    Whether it applies to this is kind of uncertain - what escalation of force would have been proper for Zimmerman? If he had tased the kid for walking down the sidewalk, would that have been more appropriate?

    I'm not clear on exactly how Zimmerman obtained the status of "quasi law enforcement" in all this - there appears to have been no actual Neighborhood Watch to be "Captain" of, for example, so where did that kind of language come from?
     
  17. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    Well his friend that has been speaking up on his behalf is black and him and his wife have been apparently "mentoring" two black kids, so it argues against him being racist.

    Well yeah, in that the kid would still be alive and could tell his side of the story.
    In this case we won't ever get Martin's version of what happened that night.

    Just repeating what I've read/heard several times about him being a "watch captain":

    http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-n...s-attorney-zimmermans-not-a-racist-ar-384482/
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    I don't think what Zimmerman did was justifiable, but you do have to understand what a shitty and dangerous place Florida has become. My grandfather moved there in the 1950's and built his own house. It was an idyllic existence until the early 90s, by which time his neighborhood had abandoned crack houses in it, and my grandmother got mugged (by a black guy) in her front yard, breaking her arm. If my grandfather made it outside with his .45 in time, he would have killed the guy, no question, but he got away. Zimmerman was not entirely unjustified in his paranoia, he just happened to pick the wrong person for his suspicions.
     
  19. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    So the kid was getting the better of the older man. How is that justification for lethal force? I thought the law stated there needed to be a reasonable belief that your life was in danger, not "I'm getting my ass handed to me be a teenager".
     
  20. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    I'm not sure I'd use the term "justification" either, but as I said, the FL law seems pretty lenient in that regard and apparently doesn't require you to think your life is actually in danger.

    According to what was posted earlier on the Concealed Weapons FAQs:

    Florida law justifies use of deadly force when you are trying to protect yourself or another person from death or serious bodily harm.

    Well if the guy does have a gash on the back of his head and a broken nose, he probably has a reasonable legal argument that he was protecting himself from serious bodily harm.

    I'm just presuming here, but I think that it's the extent of his injuries and not his story alone, that has kept him out of jail so far.
     
  21. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    The bigger question is why was he following Martin in the first place? The boy was merely walking home while talking to his girlfriend on the phone. Was he racially profiled by the self appointed neighbourhood watch 'captain', Zimmerman? With his uttering the racist comment on the phone to the 911 operator as he took chase, that is quite likely.

    Martin's girlfriend who heard the start of the altercation and had heard Martin say to her on the phone that a person was following him and she advised him to run and he said he was walking really fast and running.. away from Zimmerman.. corresponds with the 911 call where Zimmerman is heard to get out of breath as he chased Martin.. She then apparently heard the altercation where Martin was heard asking 'why are you chasing me' and then she heard scuffling and the phone went dead.. Which also corresponds to other witnesses who saw them fighting, one witness saw them fighting on the ground and then separate immediately before Martin was shot in the chest and Zimmerman was immediately found standing over the boy. Just prior to the gunshots, Martin is heard on the many 911 calls made at this time, screaming for help. This is based solely on what I have read and what has been linked in this thread..

    In short, put yourself in Martin's shoes. You are a teenage boy, walking home on darkened streets and you see a man get out of his car and start chasing you. What would you do? The fact that Zimmerman chased him (while carrying a gun mind you) would make Zimmerman the aggressor in the first instance. If you go out of your way to aggressively chase and engage someone else who had been walking away from you in the first instance (remember, he got out of his car against police orders and chased Martin for no reason than that he was a black kid walking down his street), it cannot follow the stand your ground rules. If we follow those rules, it is Martin who stood his ground.

    Also, the manner in which the police handled this case raises questions..

    Attempting to alter people's statements to police by correcting witnesses when they recounted what they had seen, so that it fit in to Zimmerman's statements, which he gave by being led through his questions by a narcotics detective and not a homicide detective. The lack of gathering evidence at the scene (ie primarily his clothes and I believe Zimmerman is still allowed to carry a weapon on his person in public?.. Not to mention their failure to drug and alcohol test Zimmerman that night), along with failing to even bother trying to identify Martin, who sat in the morgue for 3 nights while the parents were filing reports. And then we look at the fact the police attempted to hide the 911 tape where Zimmerman is heard making racist comments, and those tapes were withheld not just from Martin's family lawyers, but also from the public when they released the tapes to detail what had happened. And the lies the police told Martin's family that Zimmerman was as clean as they come when he had been arrested for assault in the past. And then of course the tapes where it is Martin heard screaming for help and not Zimmerman, as they tried to portray it was Zimmerman based solely on what he told them.. Either the police in that part of Florida are completely incompetent or they are covering up for Zimmerman..

    This case is ugly and bizarre and I suspect whatever happens, we will never truly know why the police did what they did..
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    We all have - that kind of language was the frame of most of the early news reports.

    Where did it come from?

    Not in comparison with his actions in following, calling the police on, and eventually confronting someone on the sidewalk for what - in the absence of racism - appears to have been no reason at all, at least none that we have heard of yet.
     
  23. Nasor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,231
    Zimmerman claims that Martin attacked him from behind as Zimmerman was walking back to his car. If that's true, than Zimmerman would probably be justified in killing Martin in self defense. Although Zimmerman's behavior in following Martin would have been creepy/suspicious to Martin, that doesn't justify attacking someone. Of course that doesn't mean Zimmerman's claims are actually true, but it would probably be hard to prove that he's lying.
     

Share This Page