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In what I have read Trayvon Williams had every right to shoot Mr. Zimmerman if he had been armed.
An innocent individual being followed, stalked and challenged by strange older man who confronts him in adark yard.
Who knows this could have been the prelude to assualt, theft and possibily even rape.
In that case if Mr. Williams had been armed he could have legally “Stood his Ground” and defended himself by shooting Mr. Zimmerman.
If that had happened I have to wonder if the local police would have taken his word and released him with no investigation as they did with Mr. Zimmerman?
Would the police have taken 3 days to notify Mr. Zimmermans family that he was dead?
Would all the gun nuts be leaping to the defense of Mr. Williams, just as they are blindly trying to justify Mr. Zimmerman?
Perhaps there might even had been a shoot out ala the OK Corral with stray bullets flying around a residential neighborhood.
Is this the scenario that the whacko’s want? Justice in service of whomever shoots first and most accurately?
I am soo sick of people whose calibers of their murder weapons of choice obviously exceed there moral, intellectual and ethical IQ’s.
21 Comments
Wait a minute. ARE the “gun nuts” leaping to the defense of Zimmerman? I have seen no such thing. On the contrary, defenders of the “stand your ground” law are saying that it does NOT apply to Zimmerman, because he PURSUED Trayvon Williams. At least that’s what I’ve seen on the M$M and heard on NPR.
In fact, the same gun nuts you so deride might actually have taken Williams’ side if he had been the one to shoot after being pursued and confronted. We will never know.
If the gun nuts had not gotten their way Zimmerman would not had a permit to carry and stand your ground would not have been used to justify as many murders as have occured at the hands of gun weilding nut cases trying to bring back the myths of the old west where justice was defined by a willingness to murder in the name of individualism.
Check the Young Turks show where one of the head loony tune over calibered under educate head of a organization of equally challenged fire arm worshipers was defending Mr. zimmerman and his right to stalk and murder the innocent ( Larry Prat – Gun Owners of America)
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/cenk-uygur-blasts-gun-owners-americas-larr
I think you should listen to this eyewitness account from the next day. It seems we have all been pontificating on a very different fact pattern than what actually occurred, unless you have some basis for discrediting this witness account: http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/seminole_news/022712-man-shot-and-killed-in-neighborhood-altercation#ixzz1phFMGCu4
I cannot help but have observed a phenomena. Of course, there are people in certain civilian professions that needs to carry fire arms. That is understandable, but there are just , so called, average citizens getting permits to carry. From the type I have came across are people with psychological problems, to begin with. They are very insecure individuals with a lot of anxiety. This will make them more likely to pull triggers, than a police officer.
Our police officers must pass psych evaluations before getting their badge and gun. The same should be for public individuals. If you feel you do not need a gun, like me, you will probably qualify to have one.
As for the case of Trayvon Williams, the racist bigots came out in force. The law may have been written for everyone, but in practice, it is open season on Negroes. We all know all the laws have double standards that are not equal.
Assuming this is true and not guided lies by the cops who have been documented as leading other witnesses to lie on behalf of Zimmerman in this case so what?
A young innocent man is stalked and accosted by a bigger older individual and defends himself.
What your only allowed to defend yourself with guns but if one doesn’t have a murder tool one loses all rights to defend themselves?
The case is clear Zimmerman stalk, accosted and murdered Mr. Williams when he had the temerity to defend himself.
Without assuming facts and without trying to denigrate anybody’s opinion, I just have a simple observation about these “shoot first/stand your ground laws.”
If Trevor had killed Zimmerman in the name of Self Defense, and a witness said, “he saw a scuffle” and then defended himself using those laws as his defense, it is entirely conceivable (all things being equal) that he might have been allowed to walk without arrest.
Now, assume that both men were white, or both were of the same ethnic background, etc.
And both were armed.
It sounds to me that the interpretation of these laws is so loose, and so fluid, that in essence the law basically protects whoever is left alive at the end of the confrontation.
In other words, the law should be called, “Winner Takes All”
It seems like these laws are being applied in a backwards looking manner. Violence happens, one of the parties is now a corpse, and the living party says, “Self Defense!” and there are no reliable witnesses (or what they saw was incomplete, ambiguous, etc).
This kind of thing doesn’t even require a specific “stand your ground” law. In Houston, there’s been several road rage incidents in just the past year where two or more vehicles’ participants were involved in shootings with one another. Sometimes both parties had weapons. In many cases, the parties all disappeared except the dead ones. But in some cases, the shooter was still right there when the cops arrived. Several times the surviving shooter was never arrested simply because they were “Acting in Self Defense.” Since the dead body also had a weapon, then the police just filed the report and had the body hauled off and the shooter not arrested.
This case seems so similar to those, except that the dead body was unarmed. And still the shooter was allowed to walk away.
Forget trial by your peers. Now, its all about surviving the fight. If you can kill the other first, before witnesses can gather, then you can win. Just say it was self-defense.
That is so terrible a precedent, so horrible a trend, that we are sliding backwards to High Noon at Dodge City here. The NRA should think about this. Gun ownership laws will become a big issue again. People may have the right to defend their homes, but I’m wondering about this carrying of guns in public stuff. When a simple altercation results in a dead body, the new trend for police departments is to look past all circumstancial evidence and accept the “self-defense” argument as overriding. The 911 dispatcher told him to “not engage.” Isn’t that a red flag? He should have “not engaged.” Kept driving. This is not a good trend, and these laws are not uniformly applied, not well explained, and too easily abused by whoever is lucky enough (or skilled enough) to be the person left standing. Its not even in either party’s interest to leave the other side alive. Altercations will now escalate promptly into “the first to kill is the one to walk.”
Tragic.
EDit – I misspelled the young man’s name. Trayvon. Sorry for that!
I believe with this comment you have got it 100% right, which is precisely why I have been bemoaning and condemning the law, while at the same time trying to get people to see that they have been buying into some very bad fact distortions and fact analyses, coming from a place of certainty about the facts and their personal emotional conclusions that cannot really be honestly claimed.
Smaller people can kill or seriously injure larger people in a fight. (I have peronally known many such people.) In the scenario under discussion, the first to initiate a hostile physical contact would be the first to commit an actual illegal act. You are not giving due consideration to those facts, on a purely rational basis. There is a real education about bias available here, for any who care enough to do even a minimally honest self-examination. My view is that bias from the left is every bit as unacceptable and destructive as bias from the right. We should all try to learn from this tragedy-there are many lessons available, for both sides.
I agree with you that bias from any quarter is destructive and undermines any rational or realistic discussion :).
I’m trying to look at this scenario from a big-picture perspective. Putting it into a context of other similar incidents and in relation to the laws themselves. Realisticaly, where do these laws lead? How does law enforcement handle the outcomes when they arrive on the scene? Should they just routinely take the “shooter still standing” into custody as a matter of law?
Think about the “hit and run” laws we have. If my car hits you, by accident, do I get to run? No. (I’m not saying Zimmerman ran, but in other cases, people do run). Because a gun is not a car, I would rather see a bit more law enforcement involvement than an accidental car hit. A much stricter application. Any shooting involves custodial care. The gun is processed as evidence, the shooter is brought to the station for questioning, and must submit to questions under conditions. Right to an attorney. Open a case. Don’t just “dismiss” it at the scene. Process the scene like a crime scene. Treat this as a potential homicide. I know Self-Defense is a legal defense. And the shooter is innocent till proven guilty. But what about the dead body? They are presumed guilty until proven innocent?
That is what Glenn Beck and others are saying right now. They want a detailed investigation of the dead boy’s background. They want proof of why he was suspended from school for 10 days. The school already said it was for tardies, but Glenn Beck and others want PROOF of that. They want to see the boy’s Facebook page. They say it was “terminated” (but that could have been voluntary by the boy or his family). They assume the dead boy has something to hide.
Good grief! The boy is dead! He’s already guilty in the court of public opinion, and the Right-wing wants to CONVICT a dead body of some kind of crime to justify the shooting! If we can convict dead bodies, then lets start with Ken Lay! That way, his widow’s wealth can be seized by federal authorities and used to pay out the Enron victims!! I mean, Ken Lay is dead, so he’s declared innocent! How about this young man in Florida? He’s dead. There is no way I can see the justification in letting the “innocent till proven guilty” concept be applied to Zimmerman to the extent that it allows Trayvon to be considered “Dead and Guilty, Case Closed.”
That is my problem with these laws. That is the only resolution, it seems. Dead = Guilty. Alive = Self Defense. Do you know how many verbal altercations, bar fights, scuffles, fist fights, etc will now become murders? All of them, if people think about the legal consequences (and nothing else). They will decide that to avoid a simple assault charge, it would be easier to kill the other person and walk away with NO CHARGE, than to let the person stay alive (with a punch to the face) and endure a misdemeanor assault.
That is the practical result. Why throw a punch and get cited for misdemeanor assault? Better to pull the trigger and walk away without an arrest.
The STATE and the Prosecution may have a duty to apply “innocent until proven guilty” but they have an equally compelling, and overriding, duty to PROTECT THE VICTIM. And to seek Justice. When someone DIES, there should be something better than this. An investigation should be opened, with the DA at the top of it, and the first beat cop that arrives should not have the authority to just “not arrest” because of any reason. He should be REQUIRED to arrest, take the weapon into custody, process the scene, interview witnesses, (knock on doors, do the asking), get a detective on the scene, and do a background check on the SHOOTER and the VICTIM. Find out if there was a history between them. Did the shooter call 911 everytime he saw a black man? Did he have a history of violence? Etc. Then, take that to the DA. Decide if its worth a Grand Jury or not.
By giving such a free pass to this Zimmerman, with no initial arrest, no protocol whatsoever (same as in Houston so often), this is going to turn every fist-fight, bar brawl, heated argument, road rage incident into a “MURDER FIRST, WALK FIRST” scenario. Nobody will try to be reasonable. People will shoot first and walk. Death = Guilt.
Reminds me of the witch-dunking they did in Scotland. If she floats, she’s a witch and they burned her. If she drowns then she was innocent. This is just as stupid.
One thing I’m not seeing: Conservatives or Republicans or gun nuts saying that Trayvon should have been packing, too. One of my closest friends has a father who runs a gun shop, so he gets a big fat daily dose of the sort of stuff that unlimited gun use advocates like to pass around — things like “‘can shooting” jokes (“Let’s go ‘can shooting: Afri-cans, Mexi-cans, Puerto Ri-cans…”) — and they haven’t said diddly about the case aside to line up behind Zimmerman.
That tells you a lot about the true motivations behind the ALEC-crafted Shoot First bills (what they call “Castle Doctrine” or as in Florida’s case “Stand Your Ground”) that have been appearing in Republican-controlled state legislatures over the past decade.
I have one more thought to this. Sorry if I’m hijacking your diary, Rational. Just tell me to shove it and I’ll stop! :) (just kidding!)
When a police officer is involved in a shooting, of any kind, they always have to fill out an incident report. If there is a fatality, there is almost always, in most jurisdictions, a “cooling off” period. The officer is either off the street for a time, or IAB gets involved, or some kind of routine is implemented to investigate if it was a “good shooting” or not. Its routine. No special treatment or special inquisition. Just routine. They sometimes turn over the gun and take desk duty.
Now, I keep reading that this Zimmerman guy was “captain of the neighborhood watch” or that he was otherwise in some kind of “deputized” role as a citizen patrol function.
If was acting as a proxy for law enforcement, then I am even more surprised that a higher standard was not applied to this man by law enforcement. Any security guards or citizen patrol that has a shooting fatality should be especially subject to the same kind of oversight, investigation, and review and cooling off period that a uniformed police officer would be subject to.
I also read (have not verified this) that Zimmerman was arrested in his past for assault of a police officer?! Is that true? If so, I am fully perplexed by the way some can defend the way this situation has been handled. If Zimmerman was truly acting in self-defense, I have seen no official investigation, judicial inquiry, etc into that claim.
Usually, (in the old days of law and order and justice), the verdict of Self-defense was arrived at after more formal investigations and usually in the court of law. Where a case was heard by a sitting judge, before a jury, and a verdict was rendered. It seems that in the interest of judicial economy and cost-cutting, that simply leaving the other party dead without ability to refute the assertion is now sufficient basis to declare “Self-Defense.”
This is the complete breakdown of law and order in our civilization. Its not enough that we have government-sponsored execution of American Citizens behind opaque processes, but now we have citizen-murders, sanctioned by local authorities, without any investigation whatsoever. The only requirement is to make sure the other side is dead enough to provide no contradictory testimony.
Honestly, in Texas, I actually have to think real hard before I ever enter someone’s home that I don’t know well. It doesn’t matter that there was an invitation. I had a friend (once) who I grew up with from our youngest days of elementary school. As an adult, he took some turns in his life I questioned. He had invited me over to his house. We had some beers. He showed me his gun collection. About 20 rifles, shotguns and hand guns. All legal. He showed me his closet full of ammunition. He talked a bit hot about politics and people that annoyed him. He was buzzing. It was all legal.
He had handed me some of the guns to look at, since I do hunt (with a license) and fish (with a license) and sometimes do skeet shooting (shotgun). My guns are locked in the closet, ammo locked as well, with trigger locks on everything, unloaded, and sometimes even partially disassembled due to various stages of cleaning. I don’t own a handgun. I don’t have a conceal carry permit, and I don’t think I need one.
But then it hit me that day at my friend’s house. I had just touched his weapon, putting my finger prints on it. He was buzzing. I was buzzing. We were going to barbeque that day and I was going to be there all day and evening. I would be sober long before I planned to drive home. But none of that bothered me. What bothered me was that if he and I disagreed too hotly about politics, and he had one too many beers, what if he shot me?
I was in his home. I had touched his weapon. My fingerprint on it. He could kill me and call it “home defense.” A man’s home is his castle in Texas. Sacred Ground. You can draw blood in that place and claim a victory. The media and right wing would be all over me, my background, my history, my least infractions as a child in middle school! They would dig and dig and dig until they could find a scrap of something to indict my reputation as having been “someone worthy of dying.”
I don’t jest. In states like this, people should really think hard about how much latitude the law gives the shooter. As long as the victim doesn’t survive to give a rebuttal testimony, and as long as there are no credible witnesses with rebuttable facts, then the shooter is going to always win in court. Oftentimes, the shooter won’t even be taken into custody, no crime scene will be established, no processing of the evidence. The police will come, take notes, and bid the shooter a good day with a slap on the back.
In history we often joke about how the “victors write the history.” In a shooting like that, the shooter write the history. The dead man takes the blame. Its sad that I have to think twice about visiting a friend at his house now. Not that I think he would ever shoot me. But when people get hot, they sometimes do stupid things. Accidents happen. I’ve seen road rage too frequently. I’ve seen weapons in cars on the freeway. People are braggadocio about it. And try driving in Houston traffic during rush hour. Its not like the police are going to be able to get around town very fast. Accidents sit for a long time while the police wrestle with gridlock and manpower shortages to get to the scene as fast as they can. That is why so many road-shootings go unresolved, uninvestigated. With this Trayvon killing, and others like it, I wonder whether its even safe to walk down the street without sufficient witnesses. Or to be at someone’s home without a friendly witness around. Imagine the neighbor squabbles that happen. What happens when you step one inch over the grass on the neighbors’ invisible line? You are now “trespassing” and who knows what can happen.
I’ve had two friends in college that died from gun shot wounds. They had roommates that didn’t get along with them. One was a suicide, the other was self-defense. (This was a long time ago). No investigation happened in either case. I was too upset and too young and too overwhelmed to do even think about it. In neither case did the room mate show up for the funeral, or even show remorse. I have always wondered if the prevalance of guns has contributed to this kind of flippant atmosphere in our society. In the UK, I know that even the possession of a weapon in that home would have resulted in serious investigations, and that deaths by gunshot wounds are not dropped like this whatsoever. Its often prima facie evidence of a crime that a weapon is possessed in the first place. That tends to put a quick damper on such things. People are more likely to pick a baseball bat when they get angry. But at least you have a chance of surviving that. And when an angry person has to use their full strength to swing a bat, and they make first contact, something happens. They have to feel the vibrations of an object making cruel contact with another living being. MOST people will not use that bat much more. They will stop. They are still human. A single pull of the trigger from a distance is all it takes to end a life. No second thoughts. No chance to feel the crunch of bone and question oneself. No time to reconsider one’s own humanity. These laws are going to push people to reconsider gun ownership in its entirety. I know for me that I’m already doing a lot of soul-searching. I may sell mine and be done with it. As much as I enjoy hunting and skeet shooting, I feel guilty even owning those weapons sometimes when I see how quickly others use their own weapons to extinguish life.
Jeb Bush, who signed the Winner Takes All Law into existence is willing to defend the law by throwing Zimmerman under the bus. Not surprising. He wants the law to stand. My problem is not just with this once incident. My problem is with this law as a whole, and others like it. It conducive to complete erosion of civility and respect for life. Which reminds me. Isn’t the right-wing supposedely the “pro-life” party? I won’t get started. :)
Forgive me for being dense, but I’m not sure I’m following your inferences. What do you think are the real motivations behind the Shoot First laws? Thanks!
to answer the question posed in the title maybe, maybe
a better question (IMHO) is would the initial ‘investigation’ have gone down the same way? to that I say Absolutely NOT
I am waiting to hear the explanation of how a juvenile about 100 lbs lighter than the shooter who was walking AWAY from the shooter posed a ‘life threatening’ danger to the shooter.
I am waiting to hear by what authority the shooter stalked down a juvenile who was breaking no laws and endangering no one
NOW finally, a month after the young man was shot there is enough natl attention on the case to where we can expect an actual investigation to take place. EVERYTHING that happened up to this point was pure incompetence and indifference and IMHO a perfect storm of institutional racism AND incompetence.
I won’t disagree with your last sentence. It does stink of it.
This new fact is going to change things:
That is Trayvor Martin’s girlfriend, who he called on his cell phone out of fear of the strange man following him. She heard it in real time. The last words she heard him say were, “Why are you following me” and then the phone went out. She had the calmness and quickness of wit to have recorded it. Probably because he had brought his fears up earlier on and therefore she took precautions.
Like I said, the law encourages the shooter to leave no living witness. When nothing but a dead body at the feet, its easy to cry “Self-Defense.” That is why cops don’t always shoot the chest. If they want the suspect for questioning, as a witness to flip up the chain, etc, they shoot the knees. Or use nonlethal methods. But the job-blow average citizen? Nothing but shoot to kill. The difference?
Training and motive.
yeah, that phone call in real time, and the fact that Trayvon was afraid is going to be extremely significant (IMHO) as to just what type of danger the shooter felt he was in.
maybe I am displaying a bias, but I just cannot wrap my mind around a situation in which an armed grown man, pursuing (Against the advice of 911 dispatchers) a juvenile who is moving AWAY from him is going to be able to provide a reasonable explanation as to how he suddenly becomes a victim who feels his life is threatened.
IF an altercation did take place between the shooter and the slain juvenile, I would like to know who was the agressor, I find it terribly difficult to believe that it was Trayvon (who was already afraid and trying to get AWAY)
Again, perhaps I am being biased, but What the Hell was Zimmerman doing chasing after Trayvon? By WHAT authority?
And I maintain, I am waiting, with beating heart and baited breath to here by what train of logic how Anything that happened after Zimmerman caught up with Trayvon can qualify as self defense. I admit that there is a possiblity that I may have my mind blown away by what a real investigation brings to light….but I doubt it.
I meant to say ‘hear’ instead of ‘here’
All excellent points. I sometimes, and I only mean sometimes, can at least understand the rightwing’s ability to take a position. Whether its a religious (or pseudo-religios)belief, or an economic one. I can get why millionaires don’t like regulations, and why even middle class people may not like taxes. I can get why someone religious, or a personal experience, has an abortion view. But this is beyond ridiculous. If its just about race, then these people are stupid. These shoot first, winner takes all laws will not come down very good when its two caucasian males behind a bar in an alley. Then, its all about shooter wins. These right-wing idiots better realize they are not all equally fast on the draw nor equally precise with their aim. A bunch of rambos with testosterone who have too much hate. Its not going to go well for some of them. They think they are the shit. But they are not. OUt here, I’ve seen some real idiots talk a big game of smack (on the local newspaper blogs, etc). But if it becomes all about violence, I can tell you who will “win” the violence part (we all win LOSE in the long run). The guy with the biggest gang. Houston PD is not exactly outfitted to deal with the massive influx of narco-gang activity that has swarmed into it. I would venture to say that Houston is a massive international drug/gun hub, and the major gangs you find in LA are operating in full force here as well.
The laws need to change. This tragedy can’t begin to be put into words, but if we don’t fix these Winner Take All laws, then the backlash is going to be worse than a lot of red-wingers realize.
Man stalks woman. She gets scared and called her husband, expressing fear. She gets the pepper spray ready. She turns around to confront man. She reaches for the pepper spray…
BAM!
The man shoots her. Out of self-defense. He was scared what she was going to take out of the purse! She was smaller than him. She was younger than him. But, he acted in self-defense. The police find nothing but skittles and Arizona Ice tea and pepper spray in her purse.
When asked why he was following her, the man responds, “she looked suspicious. Like a prostitute.”
Cops: “Oh, well you stood your ground and we therefore can’t arrest you. Have a good day now, ya hear?”