Shooting of Trayvon Martin - Page 17

On March 30 2012 04:12 BlackJack wrote:


Putting a logo on a video is not "doctoring" it by any definition of the word that I am familiar with. Maybe that's where they put the logo because they knew that's where everyone would be looking and they wanted the most publicity for their company. I noticed the anomaly on the back of his head as well but it's also possible that it's just a natural groove on his skull instead of a gash. In other words, the Daily Caller story is more biased than the story that is calling biased.

On March 30 2012 03:02 BrownBagin wrote:
One thing i think a lot of people need to do is put themselves in Zimmerman's shoes, and put yourself in the same situation and play it out the exact way up to the point of the shooting. As a person who works under a law enforcement agency in Texas in the 3rd largest county jail in the U.S. by Zimmerman's story and witness's statements i would have done the same thing. My training has told me when in an altercation with an inmate an officer must keep the level of force just above that of the inmate. Now by Zimmerman's and the witness's statements he was underneath Trayvon and being beating, if he used a gun my conclusion is he could not fight back well enough to get Trayvon off and control him. I have two examples of inmate fights i was in the past two weeks that show the amount of force that is required to control another that is fighting. The first was a week ago, while i was doing a cell search we got a call that there was an inmate fight. I ran to the fight were 2 black males were punching each other, me and my sergeant fought to control and handcuff one inmate who was resisting to put his hands being his back. The second the inmate pushed back on my sergeant i grabbed him by the collar and put my leg on the inside of his thigh and pulled him down to the ground where we were able to handcuff him. My level of force went up above that of the inmates as soon as he raised his level of aggression. Now two nights ago i had another fight between two black males, i went into the cell and grabbed one of them from around his back and pulled him off the other inmate and brought him to the closest wall. The inmate did not fight back so i let go he did not resist so i did not have to use any other force to control him. Now ask was Zimmerman able to control Trayvon while being hit, so was his level of force being raised up to deadly force justifiable? If he did not pull his gun out would Trayvon have beaten him to death? These are very hard questions to ask from looking on the outside in.

Now on the whole racial subject of Zimmerman going door to door. If the neighborhood was known to have black males committing crimes what is wrong with him letting people know to keep a look out for suspicious black males?! The jail i work in has over 15,000 inmates, over 90% of these inmates are black, 5% are hispanic, and the other 5% are split between whites and asians. Now seeing as most of these inmates are black i would assume the same thing if i saw a black male walking in the rain with his hands in his pockets looking at houses. Does that make me a racists? Or does it show that i have experienced enough to know that the chances a white/asian/hispanic males walking alone versus a black male walking alone and possibly them being up to no good are vastly great. Could Zimmerman also have been experienced enough to know about his neighborhood to know that he in fact did look like he was up to no good? From what the facts have shown that the neighborhood has had a huge amount of crimes from black males. So Zimmerman saw a black male walking alone at night, suspicious? Not really who cares. Now take it even further, Zimmerman seeing a black male walking alone at night while raining, suspicious? A little but not a lot. Once again even further! Zimmerman seeing a black male walking alone at night in the rain with his hands in his pockets, suspicious? Yes this is suspicious! Now again! Zimmerman seeing a black male walking alone at night while its raining with his hands in his pockets and looking at the houses, suspicious? YES VERY! Zimmerman found all of this very suspicious from his history and knowledge of his neighborhood previous crimes.

On March 30 2012 04:12 BlackJack wrote:


Putting a logo on a video is not "doctoring" it by any definition of the word that I am familiar with. Maybe that's where they put the logo because they knew that's where everyone would be looking and they wanted the most publicity for their company. I noticed the anomaly on the back of his head as well but it's also possible that it's just a natural groove on his skull instead of a gash. In other words, the Daily Caller story is more biased than the story that is calling biased.

On March 30 2012 04:14 dAPhREAk wrote:

the Daily Caller article is different from the article he is quoting/linking, which appears to be someone's blog.

On March 30 2012 04:13 lwwkicker wrote:


In the case where the cop pulled over the black man with a broken tail light, the cop had a concrete reason to do so. Race in that situation is 100% irrelevant. He had a broken tail light, simply put. Zimmerman had zero concrete facts/details. He was suspicious of a black man. Trayvon didn't do anything other than walk down the sidewalk.



I would absolutely never think a white male who was alone in a park watching kids was a child molester. You are imposing your own bias on me. Depending on his mannerisms, I might think he was creepy or something. Now, if he was touching himself, then I might come to the conclusion that he was a child molester.

You fail to see the difference between bias and objective fact. Statistics are your means of rationalizing profiling, period.

On March 30 2012 04:14 dAPhREAk wrote:

the Daily Caller article is different from the article he is quoting/linking, which appears to be someone's blog.

On March 30 2012 04:13 lwwkicker wrote:


In the case where the cop pulled over the black man with a broken tail light, the cop had a concrete reason to do so. Race in that situation is 100% irrelevant. He had a broken tail light, simply put. Zimmerman had zero concrete facts/details. He was suspicious of a black man. Trayvon didn't do anything other than walk down the sidewalk.



I would absolutely never think a white male who was alone in a park watching kids was a child molester. You are imposing your own bias on me. Depending on his mannerisms, I might think he was creepy or something. Now, if he was touching himself, then I might come to the conclusion that he was a child molester.

You fail to see the difference between bias and objective fact. Statistics are your means of rationalizing profiling, period.

On March 30 2012 04:14 BrownBagin wrote:



I could see it being racial profiling if all Zimmerman stated is he saw a black male walking and to him that was suspicious. BUT Zimmerman stated he was walking alone in the rain with his a hand in his pants and a hand in his hoodie while looking at houses. Now once again by the FACTS from the neighborhood's crime, they show most of them have been committed by black males. Zimmerman saw a black male looking at houses with his hands in different places hidden looking at houses. He did not call the cops just because he was black.

On March 30 2012 04:30 Felnarion wrote:


You're arguing against nothing. Zimmerman didn't state that it was a black male and that made him suspicious.

He stated:

1. He thought he was a black male at first, which he later confirmed.
2. He's looking around a lot
3. He looks like he's on drugs
4. The kid is walking around at night, in the rain, in a neighborhood that's been hit with burglaries frequently.
5. He's got his hand in his waistband
6. He ran.

Stop trying to paint him with your view based on a single detail that really is irrelevant to the case. He thought he was suspicious based on a number of other observations independent of race, all of which would make me equally suspicious.

On March 30 2012 04:16 BlackWhole wrote:



but he was asked not to follow, has no documented training for dealing with the situation he put himself in, and the evidence presented so far, most notably Zimmerman's words on the tape, don't indicate Martin did anything seriously suspicious enough to warrant a neighborhood watch to pursue him. Anecdotal evidence about working as a CO in a prison or jail has very little to do with what goes on in the real world, where people aren't supposed to be treated as "inmates"....we all (at least Americans in thread i hope) are aware of the disproportionate amount of blacks in the prison system; but that is a highly complex topic with a lot of factors; to justify profiling based on this "statistic" alone just doesn't seem right to me from a civil liberties standpoint. Perhaps dAPhREAk can speak to say, the validity of using this as a means to defend Zimmerman's (this wasn't a profiling event, he seemed suspicious because he fit the description of most recent break ins)



we are supposed to treat people like individuals, for example it wouldn't be right if my employer said to me "your programming skills are amazing your portfolio is great buuuuuuuut, we can't hire you because Blacks disproportionately steal and commit crimes more than other races, sorry". this idea can perhaps get lost working with inmates which while seeming like a stressful job (had an uncle who did it for 20 years in NY, has drinking problem now) under our constitution its not cool to do this. its profiling, it's bigoted. like the analogy someone gave earlier, does every disheveled middle-aged white man walking around at night get followed or deemed "suspicious" in hopes of finding his mass serial killing grave under his house? i mean, everyone knows that white males are disproportionately more likely to be serial killers, am i right???


one thing is for certain; there is no need to relate Zimmermans actions to those of a correctional officer dealing with inmates.

On March 30 2012 04:30 Felnarion wrote:


You're arguing against nothing. Zimmerman didn't state that it was a black male and that made him suspicious.

He stated:

1. He thought he was a black male at first, which he later confirmed.
2. He's looking around a lot
3. He looks like he's on drugs
4. The kid is walking around at night, in the rain, in a neighborhood that's been hit with burglaries frequently.
5. He's got his hand in his waistband
6. He ran.

Stop trying to paint him with your view based on a single detail that really is irrelevant to the case. He thought he was suspicious based on a number of other observations independent of race, all of which would make me equally suspicious.

Nevermind that it isn't racial profiling if you're looking for kids you've seen before who happened to be black. We know it is a fact that Zimmerman had caught/seen black males around the neighborhood, scoping houses.

On March 30 2012 04:31 Crushinator wrote:


It becomes racial profiling when the fact that the kid was black is a consideration (AND he wasn't looking for a specidic black offender for a specific crime). Nobody is claiming that he was trying to warn the police about a black man being black. I believe you have already said quite clearly that it would be a consideration for you, and that you suspect it was for Zimmerman. I wish you wouldn't make things so difficult, you are quite clearly in favor of racial profiling in some instances but dont seem to like that the word has negative connotations.

On March 30 2012 04:21 BrownBagin wrote:


So tell me if your neighborhood was exactly like this where break-ins by black males you would not find a black male with one hand in his pants and one hand in his hoodie looking at houses at night suspicious to you? I would call the cops for the same thing that Zimmerman saw. Although i would not follow the kid because that is something the cops can take care of.

On March 30 2012 04:40 BrownBagin wrote:



Felnarion and dAPhREAk just pointed out what im trying to say. and said it better than i could. Those are the reasons why he was not profiling but calling the cops on a suspicious black male.

On March 30 2012 04:43 Crushinator wrote:


No, they have stated the beliefs Zimmerman had when he came to the conclusion that Martin was suspicious, they have not at all established that he definitely was not profiling. It is perfectly possible for a person to have all those beliefs and still be engaging in racial profiling.

On March 30 2012 04:50 BrownBagin wrote:


Ok yes they have not stated that he was/was not profiling, but Felnarion and your statements as to why he called the cops.

On March 30 2012 04:33 dAPhREAk wrote:

i would like to add that this is a gated community, zimmerman is a frequent neighborhood watcher (watchman?), he likely knows most of the residents due to his neighborhood watching and he didnt recognize the kid. this is more than just a "i saw a black guy and called the cops."

BrownBagin wrote:
I agree that Zimmerman should not have followed he was told not to and defied the orders of law enforcement. Now as to the CO to Zimmerman's correlation i was making the reference that another person also posted about of the amount of force to be used. Law Enforcement have almost the same restrictions on the amount of force to be used. My examples were to show the amount of force ive used in my past two situations and the amount of force the inmates were using. Am i treating civilians like inmates no i am not, i was stating that Zimmerman used the amount of force he deemed fit to prevent bodily injury from occurring to him, and it happened to be deadly force. The amount of force Zimmerman used and the force a CO uses was my comparison. Also it wouldnt be right to for your employer to do that, i dont even talk to the inmates like an inmate unless i need to. Almost all of the time i treat them like a regular human being not even thinking about that they are a criminal.