It was Martin's fault that some hopped up wanna-be vigilante with an over-inflated sense of power and importance due to our gun-nut culture STALKED, HUNTED, CHASED and CONFRONTED a kid with a soda and some skittles? Um, no. That is just mind-numbingly wrong.
Oh my god he was CONFRONTED?! CONFRONTED? My GOD! By the neighborhood watch!!!! Better kill that nazi.
First point where we should have basic common sense agreement: Zimmerman stalked and hunted Martin, Zimmerman disobeyed 911 to continue hunting Martin, Zimmerman further disobeyed 911 to get out of his car to chase Martin, and
He DISOBEYED?! He followed someone and TALKED to him, clearly he is a nazi. He TALKED to other people all day in the same manner but didn't get beaten by them, or shoot them. Oh wait this is just BS.
(completely undeniable) Zimmerman shot Martin with clear intent to kill.
Then he did a bad job of it to get his ass beaten for several minutes first. Again, is there a struggle for the gun, or not? If so obviously there's no intent. If not then obviously he only pulled the gun as a last ditch effort.
Why did he look suspicious? Because he was black. Plain and simple. All that other talk-radio crap is irrelevant - Zimmerman had no idea about any of that, just that because he lives in a country where black = thug, he felt emboldened to hunt down a kid.
Just look at the real pictures of him, not him as a 12 year old.
Racism is a huge thing in this country - and it has gotten WORSE since 2008.
OK, reality check … we are all in agreement that racism is still a major factor in the country, right?
No.
That the color of the skin dictates job opportunities, treatment in stores, treatment under the law, etc? Right? We all acknowledge that the power structure in our country is white, male, Christian, and that within our lifetimes there have been legal differences based on skin color, right? Just being sure we are all operating in the same reality.
Clearly not since you seem to think anyone who has anything got it through divine favor, not hard work.
We all acknowledge that for the same crime, a black person is ~2 times more likely to go to prison, and even if both white and black are convicted, the black person gets a 25% longer sentence, right? THIS is reality. Another reality - if the races were reversed, there is absolutely no doubt that a black Zimmerman would have been held, his gun taken, questioned, tested, and on and on. The police showed both incompetence and good ole boy racism in their handling … and THAT in no small part hampered the ability to prosecute.
haha I want to learn what reality you live in. I can't remember the last time there was an outcry over a white murder with a black killer, not since OJ.
Of course there was the one where the black guy killed some white kid then barged into their home on christmas day a year later to gloat. But that was not covered by the mainstream news.
Talk radio morons like to point to the end of the Civil War as the end of racism. Um, again pure fantasy. Within my life there were laws subjugating blacks to unequal treatment, and even where there weren't laws there was tacit acceptance of racism - black & white couples were regularly beaten (the black person, of course) well into the 70s. And nowhere worse than in the south.
Florida is not really the south. There's like 5 white people in the whole place once you take out east coast retirees.
Also zimmerman isn't white by any shake of the stick so how does any of this racist rant accusation matter?
Again this guy does this all the time and only got beat up by this one guy. Wonder why.
Neighborhood Watch is SUPPOSED to be about keeping an eye out for genuine suspicious activity and REPORTING it. That is ALL. Zimmerman was an armed vigilante, plain and simple. He has no special legal standing. In fact, the one with the more legal standing for a 'stand your ground' defense was Martin - after all, he was the one being hunted.
You don't need any legal standing to talk to someone and ask who they are and where they are going.
Also, this is yet another HUGE reminder of just how screwed up our gun-nut culture is. Without the gun, Zimmerman would possibly have listened to the REAL law enforcement and not gone hunting Martin. The police would have shown up, found Martin was well within his rights being in the neighborhood, discovered that Zimmerman was yet another paranoid racist with white male rage issues, and the night would have been done.
Again he is not white in any way, shape, or form. He has a jewish last name and is mostly latino, looks 100% latino.
He thought he saw something suspicious and he talked to the guy, what an insane nazi, better kill him.
