This post is an attempt to provide some much needed clarification regarding the unjustified murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford Florida last month. First of all there have been at least three murders of innocent young black men in various small southern towns. The circumstances in each case had one common factor and that consisted of three deliberate actions by the local police chiefs as follows. First, no investigation follows the reported killing from the public. Second, the police chief issues his opinion as to the probable cause of death and if anybody was responsible. Third, the police chief then announces that the case is closed. Sanford’s police Chief Bill Lee was following this southern “justice” scenario for young African American men when he was interrupted by an avalanche of national protest via the Internet. Folks who grew up and live outside of the southern states may have some very limited comprehension of the way African Americans are mistreated by white southerners, but they generally have absolutely no real understanding of the concept of southern justice as it is applied to the American Negro. This discussion continues in the paragraphs below.
It is important to separate out two major factors in the death of Trayvon Martin. The first can be kept fairly simple and straight forward in that we are dealing with the murder of a 17 year old unarmed schoolboy by a 28 year old grown man. It has been well established that the boy was walking home from the store when he entered the grounds of the gated community where he was on a live in visit with his father. Upon entering the community the youth was immediately spotted and pursued by George Zimmerman a “neighborhood watchman” who was armed with a pistol. The only chronicle of the subsequent events leading up to the murder of Trayvon Martin were the Sanford police department 911 tapes which recorded conversations between Zimmerman and the police dispatcher. Zimmerman was told to stay in his car and not confront the “suspicious” person (Trayvon Martin on foot) that Zimmerman was reporting to the police. However, Zimmerman left his vehicle and went after the boy, who upon seeing the man coming after him instinctively started to run, most likely towards his house. Zimmerman caught up with the boy, a scuffle ensued and Trayvon was then shot dead after pleading for his life. The above sequence of events constitutes the major details as currently deduced from the Sanford 911 tapes. All investigations will likely proceed to magnify and intensify the details in an effort to solidify and prove exactly what transpired on that rainy night in Sanford.
In most other non-southern communities, the local police would have conducted a thorough investigation once it was reported that the teenager had been shot to death. Even the most preliminary police investigation would have (a) secured the area and documented the location of the body as a crime scene, (b) held the shooter (Zimmerman) for drug and alcohol testing, (c) held Zimmerman’s weapon for ballistic testing to verify that it was the weapon that killed the deceased, (d) called the phone numbers on Trayvon’s cell phone in an effort to locate the child’s parents or guardians so that they could be notified immediately of their son’s death. Trayvon’s body lay in the medical examiner’s office for three days before his parents were notified. During this period of time the parents were frantically searching for him and had even reported him missing to the Sanford police. These facts not only illustrate the worst type of police behavior in a mortality event such as described above, but they also provide an excellent bridge to the other side of this discussion which is the concept of southern justice for the American Negro.
Some of my friends get upset with me when I use the word Negro instead of African American in some of my posts, so let explain my intent here. If one considers the mindset of most southern small town white policemen the ethnic identification of “African American” would never exist. To these people a Negro is a Negro is a Negro. As I had the police chief of Biloxi Mississippi tell me some three score years ago; “They may call you something else up north, but down here you’re just another Ni###r!” Judging from all the advertisements that BP is running to promote tourism in the gulf states I am sure that the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce would be quick to reassure me that three score years was a long time ago and things have really changed in Biloxi, and today I would be most certainly welcome to come and stay at the Hotel Buena Vista (or whatever is the current name). Biloxi may have changed but I seriously doubt if any of the small towns outside of Biloxi have changed, especially their police departments.
So here with the minimum of hyperbole is the model of southern justice for the Negro (southern includes the state of Florida). As a hangover from the days of slavery; no white man shall ever be arrested for inflicting pain, injury, or death upon a Negro. During the era of slavery Negroes were considered chattel and as such had only one value to be respected by white people and that was monetary. So if a slave owner inflicted injury or death upon his one of his own slaves, the legal system saw it as essentially his own personal monetary loss. If the injury or death was inflicted by a white man on a slave that was owned by someone else, then he was liable only for the monetary loss to the slave’s owner. Therefore since the Constitution freed the Negro slave, southern law courts still de-facto recognize the provisions of the unwritten law from the days of slavery “guaranteeing legal immunity for any white man from inflicting injury or death upon any Negro”. However, since the Negro is now free the provisions of paying the monetary value of the slave’s productivity worth is now null and void as there is no slave owner/payee.
I will not attempt to chronicle here how southern law was used for decades after Reconstruction to trap unsuspecting young Negro men into forced slave labor. This required close collusion between the local police chief and the local judge to bring some phony misdemeanor charges against some healthy young Negro male and use these charges to force him to “work off” the court rendered fines for any particular white man who stepped forward to pay the court fines and fees in advance. For example there were many instances in the post Reconstruction era where a Negro man forced to pay off $12 court fees and fines actually wound up working over TWO YEARS in order to satisfy the white man who initially paid his $12 court fees and was holding the indentured Negro’s debt payoff obligation. For anyone interested in reading a superb documentary history of this era and this practice which led to the deaths of over 800,000 innocent Negro men; I suggest reading the book “Slavery By Another Name” by Douglas Blackmon.
You will note that the unwritten southern justice for Negroes laws as described above was actively enforced throughout the south LONG BEFORE the recent Florida “Stand your Ground” or “Castle Protection” law was passed and signed into law. Therefore I submit that the behavior of the Sanford police in the instance of Trayvon’s shooting death would have been NO DIFFERENT if the so-called “Stand your Ground” law was not a legal statute in the state of Florida. In this instance this new law just provided an easy out for the police who were determined to release Zimmerman anyway most likely on some other illogical grounds.
In an interview by the press after he released Zimmerman, Chief Bill Lee was asked why it was that he refused to at least temporarily hold Zimmerman while an investigation was being conducted. The police chief said that he let Zimmerman go after Zimmerman claimed self-defense, and he (the chief) was concerned about being sued by Zimmerman if the police held him. Did you get the echo of southern justice for the Negro from the days of slavery in Chief Lee’s response to the question asked by the press? Chief Lee was not the least bit concerned about the murder of this young 17 year old Negro boy simply because of the unwritten southern justice statue listed above, and in keeping with this centuries old custom, chief Lee was only concerned about the possible MONETARY OBLIGATIONS that this killing incident might create, and out of his own mouth he stated that he was concerned about possibly being sued by Zimmerman if Zimmerman was not immediately released.
Ultimate justice for Trayvon Martin will be decided by the amount of real intensity the FBI chooses to put into its investigation, for everything hinges on the veracity of the Zimmerman 911 tape recordings of that night. The FBI labs have the capability and advanced technology to determine if the original 911 tapes given to the investigators are edited copies with extensive erasures. Their labs also have the capability of analyzing every sound recorded on the tapes that night. This will take time, but I am betting on the FBI to have the more sophisticated digitally enhanced tape processing systems, than the local yahoos in the Sanford police department. I have a feeling a lot more stuff will ultimately become unraveled concerning the behavior of the Sanford police chief and his department.