One of the amazing things about the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case is how quickly it all unfolded. Zimmerman’s phone call to the non-emergency number began at 7:09:34 and the fatal gunshot went off six minutes and twenty-two seconds later at 7:16:55. In fact the time between the end of Zimmerman’s phone call (7:13:41) and the gunshot (7:16:55) was a mere three minutes and fourteen seconds. The time between the end of Zimmerman’s phone call and the first witness 911 call (7:16:11) was two minutes and thirty seconds.
What’s more, Trayvon Martin was on the phone with his friend during the majority of Zimmerman’s non-emergency phone call. Martin and Rachel Jeantel were on the phone from 6:54 to 7:12, when the call was dropped roughly halfway through Zimmerman’s (7:09:34-7:13:41) call. She called him back immediately. And she was still on the phone with him at least at the beginning of the fatal 7:16 minute.
When you read the earwitness and one witnesses’s testimony, they talk about an altercation that began with heated words, then moved to grunting, then to yelps, then to cries for help, and finally a gunshot. But the whole thing seems to have taken no more than about 50 seconds. I say that because the first witness 911 call happened a mere 44 seconds before the gunshot, and yet Martin was still on the phone at the beginning of the 16th minute.
Meanwhile, Zimmerman claims that he walked down the sidewalk past where the shooting would shortly take place to Retreat View Circle and back to the T, all in this short period of time. That’s why it matters that you don’t hear any wind on his telephone past the (roughly) 7:12:19 point of his non-emergency phone call. It appears that he was back in his car at that point, and he remained there until the end of his call at 7:13:41. I don’t think he had time to exit his vehicle and walk past the ‘T’ all the way to Retreat View Circle and back to the ‘T’ in a mere two minutes and twenty seconds. But he wanted to say that he wasn’t pursuing Trayvon and that he was retreating to his car.
In fact, he lied to the police when he said that he had arranged to meet the police at his car. In fact, he had arranged for the police to call them when they arrived so that he could tell them where he was precisely because he did not plan to be at his car.
If you look at his reenactment video, you can that his lies are even more obvious.
His credibility is pretty much shot, and it’s astounding that he wasn’t arrested initially. The Second Degree murder charge is still hard to prove, but it isn’t hard to prove that he lied his ass off about what happened immediately prior to their confrontation.
Now why would an innocent man have “lied his ass off about what happened immediately prior to their confrontation”?
So what, the dirty piece of shit is gonna get off.
Sure hope someone’s planned something for him in that event.
If he gets off, Florida will have said it’s legal to stalk and corner someone, and then shoot him when he tries to defend himself. I’m guessing a good number of people will realize this, and George won’t be at all safe there.
If George Zimmerman is acquitted, it will be African American men and boys who will be in still more danger than George Zimmerman ever would be.
That is always true, unfortunately. I just hope Zimmerman gets a feel for what it’s like to be them.
The rhetoric is getting a little heated here. People are going to react strongly to the verdict, no matter what it is. We don’t need to contribute to that by exaggerating the strength of the prosecution’s case or by suggesting that vigilantism is a responsible reaction to a verdict that we don’t like.
No one is saying vigilante behavior is responsible. In fact, isn’t that what this trial is about? When is an armed citizen a vigilante?
To ignore the historical and contemporary reality of “sundown” deaths is the talk of polyannas.
Pollyannas
Even at the beginning of the recording he is thinking about his defense “a black male with his hand in his waistband.” Then he says there is “something wrong with him.” We heard Trayvon Martin on the phone at that time. There was nothing “wrong” with him.
Its premeditated murder.
I have mentioned this before, but I think what really screwed Trayvon has the headset he was using for his phone. If he had been holding a phone to his ear, then Zimmerman would have understood why he was walking around kind of weirdly and aimlessly staring at things. I’ve had that experience where I thought someone was acting insanely until I realized that they were actually having a phone conversation with a headset or ear piece. When you are on the phone, you tend to act a certain way, and it ain’t normal, so you can look like you’re talking to yourself or like you’re just strange or on drugs. And then Trayvon ran or jogged to get away from him, which was understandable, but it raised Zimmerman’s suspicions.
Beyond that, I think he probably did punch a guy in the face who had a gun. Of course, he had no way of knowing he had a gun, so it’s the equivalent of getting killed for flipping someone off in your car. Plus, in this case, Martin very well may have been assuming a fight could not be avoided, and who knew what Zimmerman wanted?
“Getting killed for flipping someone off in your car.” If the victim is black I can see this happening with an acquittal. They thought he had a gun, you see.
We have had decades of demonisation of black males by the media, a certain political party and the criminal justice system. If every major metropolitan police force ‘profiles’ unrepentantly and then attempts to justify their results in consequence why wouldn’t every jury pool in America be similarly tainted?
In spite of your reasonable approach and touching affection for the rule of law it is the mindset of the jury which delivers verdicts, is it not?
You may be misinterpreting my feelings.
On an emotional level, I’d like to see a conviction for Second Degree murder. But what I really want is a just verdict, and when I say ‘just,’ I mean just based on the evidence at trial and the jury instructions. So, for example, if the prosecution cannot prove that Zimmerman reacted with malice, rather than just as an overreaction to losing a fight to skinny 16 year old kid, then he deserves to be acquitted of Second Degree murder because the charge requires a finding of malice.
On the other hand, I will be very upset if they can’t at least get the jury to agree to a manslaughter charge. That, to me, has already been adequately proven.
I can understand the distinction between your position and your feelings and I not only respect your position but admire it as the baseline for a substantive and rational discussion. I think you are realistic, reasonable and remarkably consistent and usually create, thereby, an excellent forum in which others have the liberty to express more subjective opinions.
As for your feelings I respect those as well but don’t expect you to always share them publicly; that is entirely your prerogative and does not reflect on the prudence of your regular commentary one way or the other.
I take your point regarding the circumstances of the case and the evidence at hand. We’ll see. The social consequences of an acquittal seem highly toxic but may be more apparent to the prosecution than the jury.
Does the jury have the option of manslaughter? I had gathered that it was second degree or nothing.
yes, it is a lesser included charge, rather than a separate charge. He can get nailed for one and not for the other.
I’m suspicious about the head wounds too. How did Trayvon manage to bounce Zimmerman’s bald head off the pavement maybe 5-6 times on top of the butterfly stitch wounds we saw in the police photo. Possibly Zimmerman added to his wounds? He went to his personal doctor 12 hours later. Something is seriously f’ed up here beyond the obvious. Trayvon was killed too fast to have inflicted much damage.
He gets out of the car while talking to police saying “they” always get away with it. Sounds like frustration with perceived police incompetence. He wanted to do this he has been thinking about it.
The scalp bleeds profusely. The wounds could have been caused by fingernails, although you’d think they would have found some DNA under Trayvon’s nails if that was the case. No blood on the sidewalk, either, although it was raining. But the wounds were there immediately after the fight, and Zimmerman didn’t have much time to injure himself. No defensive wounds on Zimmerman. No real injury to Trayvon other than the bullet hole. There just wasn’t much evidence produced.
When was the last time you were in a fist fight? They last seconds, not like a Bruce Lee scene.
About five years.
Looks like the prosecution is smelling a rat on the head wounds.
I’m thinking it was Trayvon Martin who was standing his ground.
No doubt. But he isn’t on trial.
Unfortunately he is on trial and that is why this is so painful.
Booman, I believe you’re slightly off on the timeline here. And I’m seriously upset that the prosecution isn’t making this more clear by now.
In the interview with Serino, he says that by exactly 7:12:17, he’s already walking back to his truck. His phone call ends at 7:13:41. I don’t think he ever walked back to his truck but I think he probably started the foot chase in a different location than he says, which would account for the missing time. I think he actually started running while parked at the mailboxes, which is apparently backed up by the surveillance videos. But the main issue is that he said he only traveled 30 feet from 7:12:17 all the way to 7:16, which is when Martin’s call with Jeantel disconnected. It’s likely that during this time, he was walking around on foot chasing Martin. And the phone calls prove his lies were blatant and yet neither Serino nor Singleton thought any of this was notable.
I agree though that his version is utter bullshit. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to tell what the real truth is unless de la Rionda gets his act together and brings a witness to the stand who seems to give more than two shits Zimmerman killed an unarmed kid. Today was a showing so piss poor I’m livid.
This trial is absurd. It’s based on the notion that Zimmerman was afraid for his life. If he was afraid, why did he leave his car? Why did he follow a stranger? Why did he NOT stop and wait for the police, or ask a neighbor to back him up? Why did he NOT pull out his gun earlier. At no point did Zimmerman act like a frightened man. He acted like a predator. And if he is found not guilty, Florida will have made it legal to hunt human beings.
“…Florida will have made it [again] legal to hunt human beings.
Exactly. How can civilized people stand to live there?
The legal question isn’t whether he was afraid for his life before the fight, but during it.
Meaning that if I pick up a rock, and started hitting my rapist, he could legally shoot me, because he feared for his life?
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Wasn’t the father of George Zimmerman, the judge, allowed entrance to his son in person or by phone before this interview was taped? This sounds like the whole interview with George Zimmerman was enacted and I wouldn’t be surprised some evidence was planted to make Zimmerman’s acquittal more likely. Were the head injuries sustained after police arrival and before Zimmerman got to the police station? Zimmerman was treated as a free person who had just had a minor “traffic accident” that needed some attention. What was the conclusion of the FBI investigation?
reads like everything he attributes to Trayvon is what he did – i.e. his words, his actions he attributes to Trayvon; it’s one way to minimize his liklihood of contradicting himself
THAT is what all the protesting was about . How the fuck he wasn’t arrested in the first place.
Now a stand-alone post.
Justice? For Zimmerman OR Martin? Please.
Later…
AG
Just before you hear the wind, you can hear clearly Zimmerman getting out of the truck – various noises consistent with a body moving across upholstery and the sound of a car or truck door closing. After the wind stops, you do not hear this. How and why did Zimmerman re-enter the truck without opening or closing the door or making any other noise?
There are several more likely explanations for the cessation of wind noise:
None of those explanations imply any noises not present in the recording, whereas your explanation has to account for how and why he managed to re-enter the truck in complete silence.
On the basis of something as weak as this, you have concluded that Zimmerman’s account of the timeline makes no sense.
What else? Zimmerman did not initially say Martin was circling his truck. He said he was looking at the truck and approaching it, but didn’t say circling.
He told the police to meet him by his truck, and then changed his mind and said to have them call him. Later, he reported the first direction, not the second.
Look, inconsistencies like this are perfectly normal. Serino said so himself. He thought Zimmerman was exaggerating to think his injuries life threatening, and he wanted manslaughter charges, but he said that a complete consistency in a story could be, (though maybe not) proof the story was made up (if anything, he thought Zimmerman’s story was suspiciously good). It is not normal, because we are not machines, and memories are highly flawed, particularly in high-stress situations.
FWIW, I don’t think Zimmerman is being completely straight either, but I think if he went out “hunting” Martin, he would have had his gun out in the first place and there would have been no fistfight. And there is no evidence he struck Martin at all, so Martin had to be the one who initiated the fist fight. And since Martin was winning the fist fight, indeed doing substantially all the fighting, I do believe it was Zimmerman screaming for help. Once the gun was out it was over, but the screams lasted several seconds during which Martin was pounding Zimmerman, not the other way around.
But far more important than what happens to Zimmerman is what happens to the country. The Left is painting itself into a very dangerous corner by screaming for this man’s blood, by refusing to consider any way of looking at this besides a racial murder, and by condemning anyone willing to see it another way as a virulent racist. If he is acquitted now, there could be riots. Is the Left going to cheer on the rioters? Is it going to hedge, condemning the riots, but saying they are understandable in the circumstances? With blood in the streets and buildings in flames, is the Left going to say this is what America gets for acquitting Zimmerman, something only possible because of American racism? And by “the Left”, in this context, I mean mainstream liberals, not the miniscule hard left, which doesn’t matter.
If so, the Left will be discredited. The Repubs are being forced to double down on the strategy of appealing only to whites. This strategy is doomed nationally, unless something makes more whites hostile to blacks, rather than sympathetic or voting based on other factors. The only thing I could see right now that could achieve this is the sight of the left cheering on, or hedging on, or being mumbling in its condemnation of, rioting or other violence. The Southern Strategy was born in the time or riots, and riots are about the only thing that could revive it. And it would likely cost liberal minority support as well – not black support, but other minority groups may not be inclined to side with black rioters. And as time goes on, and people look at the case more coolly, the Left’s utter certainty that this is a racial murder will look much more like prejudice itself, because the evidence of that is weak, not strong, and the left is refusing the look at it honestly, instead insisting that this conflict must be viewed in the context of racial conflict in America generally and judged as one would judged that conflict. Attempts to make very strained arguments like this post to prove things it cannot prove, and accepting calls for vigilant justice against Zimmerman should the courts not condemn him, will make the Left look very bad in the long run (just as its support of Communism did, another case where people were certain of things they had no certainty of because they were judging in terms of a broad conception of social justice, rather than staying focused on what was in front of them, and because many of the enemies of communism did indeed have bad motivations and were dishonest, just as, no doubt, many supporters of Zimmerman do and are), and will bring discredit to liberal anti-racism. A Zimmerman conviction could also bring violence from the hard right. That will not be a political problem for the left, the contrary if anything, but violence begets violence, and there will no good to come from escalating racial violence in America in either direction. Just the death of innocents and possibly the long-term demolition of neighborhoods. This is a very dangerous game, and what we should be trying to do is bring down the temperature, not raise it.
The idea that Zimmerman would have stalked with his gun out and ready for action is faulty. Power trips like vigilantism can be satisfying without gun play. “Hunting black boys who are where Zimmerman thinks they shouldn’t be” was a pastime with varying levels of participation and it had to maintain a veil of civility. The gun was for show, for bragging rights and a confidence booster (as most guns are); but they are lethal weapons and many people like Zimmerman, are too selfish & stupid to comprehend the responsibility.
In Zimmerman’s egotistical mind, he carried a gun in the hope he could use it one night-one night he would be a real live hero!
An adolescent boy is dead.
Zimmerman’s weapon and his constricted intelligence made him a Murderer. A certain fact with or without the legal trappings of American “civilization”.
Trayvon had no DNA on his hands from Zimmerman. Case closed.