I keep seeing these articles from the right about how appalling the whole Trayvon Martin case is because people are “politicizing” it, or “jumping to conclusions,” or assuming a racist motive. I find it all crushingly boring. At its simplest, this case is about a boy who was minding his own business and lost his life. But it’s also about the man who killed him and remains free. Why is he free? Is it because the police believed his story? No, the lead investigator recommended charging him with manslaughter. Is it because of the Florida Stand Your Ground law? The chief of police claimed that the same day his department asked the prosecutor to bring charges. Plus, the law doesn’t seem to apply to the facts in this case. The Stand Your Ground law would not appear to have anything to do with why Zimmerman wasn’t charged. Is he free because witness testimony backs up his story? Not that I can tell. Other than officer Tim Smith’s police report, I haven’t seen any witness testimony that backs up his story.
For some unknown reason, this man killed someone and was not charged with a crime. We know the state prosecutor made the call, and then recused himself from the case to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. But we don’t know what that conflict might be. Did he know Zimmerman’s father? Did they talk to each other the night of the incident? We don’t know.
But it isn’t appalling that people think this poor unfortunate boy’s death should be adjudicated. By all means, let Zimmerman bring forth any evidence he can to sustain his claim that he was attacked, injured, and fearful for his life. Let him prove that he received medical care, that his head had a wound so bad it ordinarily would need stitches, and that his nose was broken. He can bring forth the medical records his family says will back up his case. He can bring forth the fire department medic who supposedly tended to his wounds.
But none of these witnesses can be compelled to speak up until there is an arrest, charges are brought, and there is a discovery process.
That’s all people want. Zimmerman killed a boy. Let him explain why he had to do that to a jury of his peers. And let’s have another investigation into why the state prosecutor did not bring charges and find out why he had a conflict of interest in the case.
Is that so hard? Do we have to inject all kinds of irrelevant crap into this case?
If you shoot and kill someone, you should be arrested and tried. During the trial, you may and should present a defense. You have a right to the best counsel that can be obtained, and if you cannot afford representation, the state has an obligation to provide such.
But there is no reason on the earth that you should running around free while they are burying that kid.
A Flor prosecutor said yesterday that the video of Zimmerman entering the police station show him handcuffed which translates starkly into a fact that Zimmerman had already been placed under arrest…so once inside unusual circumstances came to bear that he became unarrested.
Add to that the Flor law starts a clock running once a person is arrested, the prosecutor explained, that gives only some 50 days for the justice system to perform OR the case is closed and the individual cannot be re-tried.
This case joins a growing line of what seem to be so starkly manslaughter cases at best that somehow become so gamed that simple justice is lost.
he killed an unarmed child that HE stalked.
let him prove it in court that he was right to do so.
This is hard because the license to kill “troublemakers” that is embedded in the Stand Your Ground laws is exposed by this case.
The powerful economic (NRA and ALEC) interests that want to profit from an escalating cycle of violence (and the resulting political instability) are perfectly aligned with the repressive, racist authoritarians who want to restore their “god-given” social dominance.
When is applying normal “self-defense” concepts easy? Here’s a case where the FL shooter claiming self-defense was arrested and charged. This shooter is black and his victim is white.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/21/tonight-on-ac360-florida-shooter-claims-stand-your-ground-defe
nse/?hpt=ac_mid
Maybe I’m watching too much TV, but I can’t help wondering at this point whether Zimmerman is/was some kind of police agent/snitch or something. Or under some kind of very heavy political protection. Yeah, it’s kinda conspiracy theory, but can anyone come up with a more credible theory of why this bizarre process is happening? Can anyone remember a case anywhere where aomebody shot someone to death and was not arrested or investigated, no matter how credible a claim they had to self defense?
looks like serious emotional problems to me (well, obviously, if he kills a child), maybe his Dad keeps covering for him, buying him out of trouble. that’s his home police dept, they must know him. maybe his Dad has been paying someone in the dept for a while. just a guess
Well said.
My impression is that there are certain people out there who just really get tired of having to defend themselves against charges of racism. They appear to believe that “bigot” is a term of abuse in the same manner as “faggot” and such like. They don’t quite seem to have grasped that people who don’t like being called bigots have an option that is not available to people who get tired of hearing racist slurs: they can stop being bigots.
So, understandably, they get a bit touchy. They will therefore tend to insist that it’s everyone else who is injecting race into this, not them. Which is true enough from their point of view, but then from their point of view all you have to do to inject race into anything is be black.
Good post–thanks!
Even my racist neighbor started a conversation about this today by saying, “Oh man, that guy in Florida really screwed up. He killed an unarmed kid and, of course, the kid has to be black and it stirs up a shit storm. This is totally whack. Why hasn’t that dude been arrested?”
When a bigoted person asks this question… It’s really NOT complicated.
Great, simple, clear writing and logic. That’s what we need in our society, period, but maybe particularly on this issue and ones like it.
I just found you, from a link at Mahablog. Great stuff. I’ll keep watching and reading.
Thanks.