Shooting of Trayvon Martin - Page 449

On July 14 2013 18:30 Irave wrote:

I suppose I should have posted the Oakland PD scanner sooner, its a real bore currently. Oakland Scanner


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On July 14 2013 18:49 DeepElemBlues wrote:


After the police came Zimmerman told a woman cop it didn't matter if he killed Martin in self-defense or not, according to his (Zimmerman's) religion (Catholicism) it was just as bad to kill him no matter the reason. Police testified that they believed Zimmerman was truthful (or a "pathological" aka nearly perfect liar).

Zimmerman doesn't seem to be a pathological liar or some kind of criminal genius to me. Doesn't seem possible that he formed the idea and the plan for the perfect crime in the space of a few minutes and then pulled it off perfectly.

On July 14 2013 19:03 DemigodcelpH wrote:


Traits of psychopathy (and the lessor anti-social disorder) are actually relatively common in the general population, and someone who made 46 prior calls to the Standford police and actively ignored direct police orders to stay in his vehicle and stop following the citizen (this was before any confrontation happened) is definitely more on the calculating side.

On July 14 2013 19:13 rasnj wrote:

There is no evidence that GZ actually followed Trayvon. There is a difference between "traits of psycopathy" and being a perfect liar, and the vast majority of people are not perfect liars nor do they have significant traits of psycopathy. I would argue that being part of a neighborhood watch program, actively trying to make his neighborhood safer and on 46 occassions calling suspicious activity does not really scream psycopath. Even if this had a 1% chance of being the case (which I believe to be a way too high probability), then it is not really relevant because we don't judge people on our own wild speculations. If the prosecution had any indication that Zimmerman had psycopathic tendencies surely they would have tried to document it.

On July 14 2013 19:03 DemigodcelpH wrote:


Traits of psychopathy (and the lessor anti-social disorder) are actually relatively common in the general population, and someone who made 46 prior calls to the Standford police and actively ignored direct police orders to stay in his vehicle and stop following the citizen (this was before any confrontation happened) is definitely more on the calculating side.

On July 14 2013 19:17 DemigodcelpH wrote:


If he wasn't following Trayvon then the officer on the phone wouldn't have told him to stop following Trayvon. The rest of your post is unsubstantiated, as you're making up statistics and downplaying details that don't match your preconceived notions. 46 calls to the police is definitely abnormal and screams "vigilante obsession" even when looking at it from a conservative viewpoint.

On July 14 2013 11:25 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Yeah Zimmerman can easily sue, and win, a suit against NBC.

On July 14 2013 18:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
I love reading this thread. You can tell who watched the trial and who didn't within 10 words of the post.

On July 14 2013 19:58 Grimmyman123 wrote:


Sorry, I missed it - did NBC do or broadcast something against him? Libel/slander?

On July 14 2013 14:06 dAPhREAk wrote:

if you assume its not self defense then of course you cant understand it. the jury found it was self defense.

On July 14 2013 20:51 Leporello wrote:


This has been repeated all thread, and it irritates me. It's half a lie, really, or half a truth -- it's people talking about reasonable doubt when it comes to the verdict, but then using that verdict to make statements of a much more absolute nature...

I got banned earlier arguing about this, and I can see people are just going to keep repeating it, even the lawyers...

It was not proven to be self-defense -- rather nothing was proven at all. There is simply enough reasonable doubt to suggest it may have been self-defense. It is reasonable doubt that gave Zimmerman a "Not Guilty" verdict. It wasn't proof or evidence that let Zimmerman shoot an unarmed teenager without being convicted of a crime, it was the lack thereof -- and that is what disturbs people.

Several times in this thread, more than I could care to count really, people have said that self-defense has somehow been "proven", or in this case, that "the jury found it was self-defense".

That's not really true, though, is it? We don't know if this was self-defense, and the jury's decision does not say anything with certainty -- there is a reason they call it "not guilty" instead of "innocent". It's just a matter of not knowing. What this verdict says is that it simply MAY have been self-defense. That's enough to avoid murder, as well manslaughter charges to my surprise, but I still feel that Zimmerman's irresponsible behavior in pursuing somebody by himself, with a weapon, should carry at least some charge of negligence. Shooting an unarmed man under pretenses of self-defense is one thing, but when you admittedly were following this person, by yourself, and had all the time to wait for police or even a friend but didn't, then you're being reckless with people's lives.


A lot of half-truths in this thread from all sides.

On July 14 2013 20:41 Iyerbeth wrote:
"We believe this case all along was about boundaries, and George Zimmerman exceeded those boundaries." - BBC News

I still think it comes down to this. The legal experts (rather than random people given the title 'peers' and expected to make a legal judgement without any legal training) with all the evidence still believe he should have been prosecuted. I'm really just glad I live in a country where this particular event couldn't happen, I think. I imagine that cultural difference makes it even harder for me to empathise with someone in his position though.

On July 14 2013 20:51 Leporello wrote:


This has been repeated all thread, and it irritates me. It's half a lie, really, or half a truth -- it's people talking about reasonable doubt when it comes to the verdict, but then using that verdict to make statements of a much more absolute nature...

I got banned earlier arguing about this, and I can see people are just going to keep repeating it, even the lawyers...

It was not proven to be self-defense -- rather nothing was proven at all. There is simply enough reasonable doubt to suggest it may have been self-defense. It is reasonable doubt that gave Zimmerman a "Not Guilty" verdict. It wasn't proof or evidence that let Zimmerman shoot an unarmed teenager without being convicted of a crime, it was the lack thereof -- and that is what disturbs people.

Several times in this thread, more than I could care to count really, people have said that self-defense has somehow been "proven", or in this case, that "the jury found it was self-defense".

That's not really true, though, is it? We don't know if this was self-defense, and the jury's decision does not say anything with certainty -- there is a reason they call it "not guilty" instead of "innocent". It's just a matter of not knowing. What this verdict says is that it simply MAY have been self-defense. That's enough to avoid murder, as well manslaughter charges to my surprise, but I still feel that Zimmerman's irresponsible behavior in pursuing somebody by himself, with a weapon, should carry at least some charge of negligence. Shooting an unarmed man under pretenses of self-defense is one thing, but when you admittedly were following this person, by yourself, and had all the time to wait for police or even a friend but didn't, then you're being reckless with people's lives.


A lot of half-truths in this thread from all sides.

On July 14 2013 18:29 DemigodcelpH wrote:


I never said it was an American thing.



The point is legitimate because, while we don't objectively know what happened in the dark, the point remains that Zimmerman followed a minor and killed him. However because of a good defense/bad prosecution, things we can't confirm, and the rules of the system, the idea of "Zimmerman acted in self-defense" (I'm not denying this didn't happen, however the fact remains that even if it was self-defense Zimmerman was still the one who started the incident by stalking someone in the dark. If it was a athletic 17 year old female who died, but Zimmerman still had a bleeding nose and cuts on his head because she had paid defense training, objectively the situation would be about the same because she could have turned on him before Zimmerman got physical thus making her the "attacker". However it would undoubtedly would be treated differently.) is something we can't deny thus even if he did murder him it's not something we can do anything about. On the other-hand someone like Snowden is someone that is/was at a reasonable risk of being "silenced" by the government, however he has a lot of immunity because he made himself famous.

From these we can conclude that "what happened" doesn't necessarily matter in a lot of situations, but how the rules of the system(s) are approached/prodded/used after the fact. I call this flaky. I'm not making a statement about the case; I'm just saying that edlover420's point about flakiness has merit.

On July 14 2013 20:51 Leporello wrote:


This has been repeated all thread, and it irritates me. It's half a lie, really, or half a truth -- it's people talking about reasonable doubt when it comes to the verdict, but then using that verdict to make statements of a much more absolute nature...

I got banned earlier arguing about this, and I can see people are just going to keep repeating it, even the lawyers...

It was not proven to be self-defense -- rather nothing was proven at all. There is simply enough reasonable doubt to suggest it may have been self-defense. It is reasonable doubt that gave Zimmerman a "Not Guilty" verdict. It wasn't proof or evidence that let Zimmerman shoot an unarmed teenager without being convicted of a crime, it was the lack thereof -- and that is what disturbs people.

Several times in this thread, more than I could care to count really, people have said that self-defense has somehow been "proven", or in this case, that "the jury found it was self-defense".

That's not really true, though, is it? We don't know if this was self-defense, and the jury's decision does not say anything with certainty -- there is a reason they call it "not guilty" instead of "innocent". It's just a matter of not knowing. What this verdict says is that it simply MAY have been self-defense. That's enough to avoid murder, as well manslaughter charges to my surprise, but I still feel that Zimmerman's irresponsible behavior in pursuing somebody by himself, with a weapon, should carry at least some charge of negligence. Shooting an unarmed man under pretenses of self-defense is one thing, but when you admittedly were following this person, by yourself, and had all the time to wait for police or even a friend but didn't, then you're being reckless with people's lives.


A lot of half-truths in this thread from all sides.

On July 14 2013 21:19 Brett wrote:

If you want to distill this incident down to 'Zimmerman followed and killed a person' whilst ignoring everything else that went on, you can expect people to be pretty uninterested in your opinion on the 'flakiness' of the system.

Phone conversation with Standford Police:
Zimmerman: Okay. These assholes, they always get away. When you come to the clubhouse, you come straight in and make a left. Actually, you would go past the clubhouse.[Note 3, 3rd picture]
Dispatcher: So it's on the lefthand side from the clubhouse?
Zimmerman: No, you go in straight through the entrance and then you make a left...uh, you go straight in, don't turn, and make a left. Shit, he's running.
Dispatcher: He's running? Which way is he running?
Zimmerman: Down towards the other entrance to the neighborhood.
Dispatcher: Which entrance is that that he's heading towards?
Zimmerman: The back entrance...fucking [disputed/unintelligible]
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay, we don't need you to do that.

After Zimmerman ended his call with police, a violent encounter took place between Martin and Zimmerman, which ended when Zimmerman fatally shot Martin 70 yards (64 m) from the rear door of the townhouse where Martin was staying.