We have been following the investigation into the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. The shooter, George Zimmerman, 28, has not been charged and reported a suspicious character to 911. Martin was returning from a 7-11 after buying Skittles. He was carrying the candy, a small amount of cash, and an iced tea. The family and many others have called for the arrest of Zimmerman, though the accounts of the shooting have been murky. Previously, we discussed the need to hear the 911 tapes, which have now been released and are linked below.
Zimmerman is reportedly a habitual caller into the police and is heard on one of the tapes complaining that ““These a**holes always get away.” Zimmerman states on the call that Martin appeared “up to no good . . . It’s raining. He’s just walking around, looking about . . . He’s just staring looking at all the houses.” Zimmerman says on the call that it is Martin who confronts him: “Something’s wrong with him. He’s coming to check me out.” However, he later admits that he is following Martin, which the police dispatcher discourages.
Police Chief Bill Lee said the 911 calls show that the incident was not a case of racial profiling. He said Zimmerman could not say whether the suspect was black or white. However, on the tape you hear Zimmerman say “He looks black” and then a few moments later, “He’s a black male.” While he is at first equivocal, he does identify his race. That does not mean that this is a case of profiling, of course.
However, family member have been critical of the handling of the case by the police and what they view as the police bending over backward to defend Zimmerman. The family had to file a lawsuit to get these tapes. After a hearing, the police finally relented.
The tapes certainly contradict some statements by the police. However, I am not sure that they substantially alter the status in the case. The evidence still is largely based on Zimmerman’s account, though such contemporary records are generally admissible. The tapes both help and hurt Zimmerman.
The statement by Zimmerman that “these a**holes always get away” certainly shows animus and he clearly follows the youth. However, that does not translate into evidence of intent to kill. I am more interested in the level of force used by Zimmerman and the two gunshots heard on the tape. It is possible that audio creates a misleading impression of two shots but that would seem an important forensic question. It is hard to believe that Martin would allegedly continue any confrontation of Zimmerman after a warning shot unless the shot was fired in the midst of a struggle over the gun. Zimmerman can cite the tape for his statement that he believed that Martin had something in his waistband and appeared on drugs. He can also cite his contemporary description of Martin approaching him.
Putting aside the complaints regarding the handling of the case by the police and the conflicting statements given by officials, there remains the question of whether there is sufficient evidence to base a charge against Zimmerman. I would like to see the coroner’s report on the trajectory and distance of the gunshot wound as well as audio analysis of the gun shot or shots. I would also like to see evidence of the abrasions on both men. Zimmerman was reportedly bleeding from the struggle but we have not heard many details on Martin’s other injuries.
Zimmerman would be wise to secure criminal counsel. There is probably enough here for an indictment. The most salient facts against him are (1) the statement on the 911 tape showing animus, (2) the disregarded instructions not to follow Martin, (3) the advantage in weight and possession of a firearm in the struggle, and (4) the lack of any weapon or proof of criminal conduct by Martin.
What do you think about the state of the evidence?
Here is the Zimmerman tape: 911 Tape (Zimmerman)
Here is a witness tape: 911 Tape (1)
Here is a witness tape: 911 Tape (2)
Source: CNN
Did it again! Too many links… duh!
@Bron & @Malisha – I know I know… I’m probably just as guilty for this squabble too. However, I noticed that puerile men (in their teens, 20’s, or sometimes as high as 30’s) are usually more stubborn, opinionated, and quite egotistical than older men. Men at my and OS’s demographic tend to be less “alpha-male”-esque then our younger gender-counterparts. I mean I thought it was obvious that we share DNA with all animals with no special status with Simians. This extremely specious and now debunked 98.5% theory was first propagated by two ornithologists (i.e. bird researchers). IMO (and I’m not sure about this) But any new study is pointless as we share DNA with “some” animals higher than 96%. I think it is Bovines and Rodents but I’m not at all sure about that. Some people can’t see the GESTALT of possibility of academic fraud and accept specious data unchallenged from their alleged peers.
(Continued)
See, the technology astounds me. I didn’t even know that Kindles could speak! A friend of mine has one and he charges it up in the kitchen; I’m always afraid I’ll drop water on it and it will explode.
W=^..^
I certainly hope so. 😀
***********
Bron,
Right, wrong, whatever. To me, it’s just like sparring at the dojo. Keeping the mind and skills sharp is the true goal. The battle, no matter how it appears, is always against myself first. The rest is motion and expression. The shape of victory is not always as simple as right or wrong. I know. How terribly un-binary of me.
Life is short. Happy counts.
———————————
Wise words!
Malisha,
That is Eta Carinae.
And no, I don’t, but if I run across one, I’ll steer them your way. 😀
******************
W=^..^
The company I am with would just as soon I keep my writing life segregated from my business life. I’ll just say we provide data services for labs and research facilites.
As to why I don’t practice law? Let’s just say I soured on the legal profession. I don’t like what it does to people and, quite frankly, it was to the point it was making me literallly ill. That’s the nutshell; not because I can’t, but because I won’t.
And thanks for the compliment.
It’s probably a waste of talent, but I’m a much happier and healthier person than I would have been otherwise. If circumstances had been different, maybe things would have gone the other direction by things are what they are and what is done is done. Life is short. Happy counts.
Gene can I be nosey and ask what you do? Because you certainly can argue rings around many….why waste that skill?
Gene H, I can’t figure out what the picture is that comes up on your posts. Is that a water lily? Where was the picture taken?
Know any great constitutional lawyers who are independently wealthy and want to spend the rest of their lives writing thrilling stuff nobody will pay for?
Malisha,
That’s the training, but not what I do. Thanks for the vote of confidence though. I don’t practice or do anything in the legal field anymore. I’m a business man (and part-time writer) now. The most legal work I do these days is reviewing and drafting contracts.
Wait wait, Gene H, are you a lawyer? How come I didn’t figure out you were a lawyer, what’s with me now?
OK. Life interest: Game?
The Constitution says we should not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.
There is property, and there are property interests.
There is liberty, and there are liberty interests.
There is life, and…
and there is life.
The only people who can sue for deprivation of life are the relatives of someone whose life was lost in a wrongful death suit. The only people who have “life interests” are convicts on death row who have “residual life interests” until the date and hour of their executions. (That is, if a guard or another prisoner kills someone on death row before their appointed minute, they lost their residual life interest.)
So the rest of us, from Joshua DeShaney to Dred Scott to Trayvon Martin to {blah blah blah} do not have life interests until our lives are either gone or about to be forfeit.
So in the South, back in the early 90s, there was a woman who had a custody battle in a county courthouse, presided over by the only judge in that county (small population, I don’t remember even the state). She is in the middle of the battle and has no money for a lawyer. Judge calls her into chambers and tells her for oral sex, she will get to keep her kids; otherwise, dad gets them. So she performs and then leaves and is able to keep her kids but someone convinces her to go to the US atty in the jurisdiction, who perhaps is an enemy of the judge, or something, so he decides to go ahead and use 42 USC 1981 and get the judge charged with criminal deprivation of the mother’s constitutional rights. It gets overturned on appeal, however, guess how? The woman did not lose her property interest OR her liberty interest by giving sex for custody. In fact, she was FREE to walk out of chambers and he did not restrain or prevent her. No bailiff cuffed her; she was free to leave. Her liberty interest had not been taken. NO INTEREST had been taken.
I put together the DeShaney case and the Dred Scott decision in 1990 and I came up with the problem, IMHO: The life interest was missing from American jurisprudence.
The life interest.
Interested? Let’s talk. I’ll electronically send you everything, even a coupon for $25 off your next Greek dinner out, if you bite.
Sotb:
dont pay Gene H no mind, he is always “right”. If you like to argue, he is the go to guy.
SOTB:
did you know that bananas share around 50% of DNA with us?
Cats share around 90% of their genes with us.
All life on earth is connected. We should share a portion of our DNA with other living things/beings.
Malisha,
Thanks. I like your posts a lot too. However, you mistake (at least on my part) tenacity in argument for anger. I’m very difficult to anger and extremely think skinned. That being said, I will purposefully make an opponent angry – especially if I see their “lip quiver” first. Opponents with a propensity for anger are easy. It makes them make tactical and strategic mistakes in their arguments. I’ll also treat hostile opponents with their own medicine. But as to me being angry? Not in the slightest. On the rare occassion I am actually angry, I usually am quite explicit about it, but it’s almost always about something topcially on the blog and not at other posters. If lawyers got angry every time they argued, the average life expectancy would be about 35. And yes, I love Spanakopita and most Greek food, especially dolmades. Unfortunately I have to pass on the desserts now unless they are the rare ones without nuts in them. I love Greek pastery, but alas, it doesn’t love me. I think I may have to make some Souvlaki this week now.
Mike Spindell,
My kid and I could not speak for five years, between his 13th and 18th birthday (“no contact order” from the Court — managed to make him blame ONLY his father for all his teen-age angst and I got off scott free!) and then he came home on the DAY he turned 18, emancipated by operation of law. Since his dearest friends who saw him through this moral and intellectual drought were Mormons who were also some of the dearest people on earth, I had half an expectation that he would be Mormon when he returned. But no, he was still a secular Jew, which is what I was. But during high school, for English class, he had read the Bible (King James, in English) and he had used his formidable intellect (higher IQ than mine, fyi, Boanerges) to analyze it “in media.” Long story short, he was just outraged at god’s behavior. The part that got him angriest was the fate of the ten sons of Aaron (that would be, I guess, if I remember correctly, the ten nephews of Moses) who built the First Temple to the specifications god laid down, and then, because they burned the wrong incense or some such misdemeanor, got swallowed up by the earth, which opened specifically to upswallow them, as punishment for their transgression. So my kid said to me: “If that shit is true, god is a psychotic sadist.” At that moment I knew that he would never become a Mormon, by the way. Several things in the Torah (Bible) defy belief, but are probably perfectly true by the standards of the times. One of the portions that got me the most riled up when I was preparing kids for their haftoroth was the passage about what is to be done to a woman who, in order to help her husband — who is getting the worst of a battle — while he is fighting with a neighbor in the alleyway between their houses, grabs the neighbor’s testicles and squeezes them to cause the man to stop beating up her husband. The Book advises: “Cut off her hands; show her no mercy.” OK, this is a little bit much, OK? And I don’t think my kid even reached that part. I am sure it was one of those “hard cases make bad law” things that happened way back then. Considering what happened at the Taj Mahal, I guess it speaks badly enough for my (and your) ancestors’ lord and master, but he may have competition for first place in that category.
The part of the Bible that I found most fascinating was the part, in genesis, where god gives Adam the job (the right) to name the animals. What a concept! One would think, then, that the study of the Hebrew (or Aramaic, right?) names of the animals might be a really fascinating study — a study of origins, a psycholinguistic study, wouldn’t? I don’t even know the names of the animals in Hebrew. I DO know that in Hebrew, the dogs do not say “Bow Wow,” but “Chov Chov.” My son had a whippet (sadly deceased on March 17, 2011, RIP) who, when he barked for the first time (having heard a firecracker go off on the Fourth of July) surprised himself so much that he ran and hid! Then he was embarrassed because we were laughing.
OS actually is a profiler. That’s part of his day job. Why don’t you ask him what he thinks?
___________________________
OS is a profiler????
DO ME! DO ME!!
OS, what would my profile be???? 🙂
Guys, I don’t (for a change, I know) understand the passion of your presentations on the squabble that’s taking place, much less understand the actual content of the squabble itself, but I don’t know what the underlying dynamic is, either. At one point I think VengancNow told me, “You write suck rubbish” and I responded, “OK, that’s fair.” Well of course, it WAS fair. I didn’t think he was much of an editor and if I could ever get to write a book for the public market (I have written one that wasn’t really “trade” and it was published by a university press so I can’t say it is impossible although I will say it is unlikely), I wouldn’t ask him to edit my work, but since he and I are relatively unrelated (aside from the six degrees of separation theory AND this blog), it didn’t get me down too far. Gene H, I am nobody, but here’s what I: I respect your posts, I look forward to reading your stuff, I wonder how you come up with it and what your profession is. SotB, I’m who you know I am, but here’s what I: I respect your posts, I look forward to reading your stuff, I wonder how you have learned the stuff you write. Is there reason that you two are REALLY ANGRY with each other? If I could set up a real geographic salon, I would love to have all my diverse friends and even diverse acquaintances meet and greet and enrich and communicate, and they would include the African American Broadway star who won the Tony and the Canadian author who won the Mann Booker and the Columbian author who won the Nobel and the Philadelphia waiter and the Arab journalist and the penniless jazz singer who was arrested for sleeping in her car and the Greek American attorney who can practice law in languages he does not read or understand and the Oregonian file clerk who does “pressured speech” and the Missouri Mormon who writes children’s fantasy books and the Orthodox Jewish woman who flew to New York to speak at a demonstration in Rockland County, quoting Torah, and the former actuary for the Social Security Administration and the gloomy Swede and the Syrian (female) belly dancer and the Bolivian cook and the Puerto Rican (male) jazz dancer, and the New York federal judge and you, Boanerges and you, Gene H and the other bloggers (and maybe Vengeance would not show up but if he did, I would want him to leave his piece at the door and come in only with his peace) and maybe, if I served good enough refreshments, we’d have a good time.
Yeah, I wish. Do you like Spanakopita?
“@Gene H. – I say puerile as you won’t come out of childlike attack mode and discuss this in a respectful tone. You just feel that your OPINIONS (I see no empirical facts yet) are absolutely right and you refuse to even consider the Gestalt argument I posed. Like some sort of HS bully with an agenda. “Stop hitting yourself!””
I presented evidence and facts. You promptly ignored it. Ignoring evidence is the root of all ignorance. As for attack mode? You’re the one who wanted to dispose of civility. If you don’t like that you aren’t winning the argument by any objective standard, that’s your problem. I proved the points I wanted to prove. If you want to prove your “Gestalt” theory? Get to it. I’m just going to tell you now that since it ends in a supernatural supervening force of some sort, I’ll be able to crush that argument too.
“Why benighted? In a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance… OK a bit harsh I know but I think your narrow-minded POV sounds a bit ignorant when you think that the word minutiae is a pejorative term and you fail to see the big picture (i.e. gestalt) of all organic life and the Universe. I don’t want to point to minute points like you do… like the complexity of the human eye.. because I want the Gestalt to be seen not just one small part of the picture that agrees with your ostensible ignorance about our true origins.”
I don’t give a shit what you want or believe. Prove it as a factual matter. Point to evidence in the form of the observable and verifiable, not some mystical metaphysical belief that complexity of eye structure is due to some kind of intelligence when it is simply a product of the natural processes of natural selection and evolution.
“Evolutionists thinking that we evolved from Apes is ignorant when we share no DNA with them any more than any other animal. That 98% DNA thing was proven by other evolutionist to be pure BUNK.”
Really.
“Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
August 31, 2005
Scientists have sequenced the genome of the chimpanzee and found that humans are 96 percent similar to the great ape species.
“Darwin wasn’t just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes—he didn’t go far enough,” said Frans de Waal, a primate scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.”
“Because chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, the chimp genome is the most useful key to understanding human biology and evolution, next to the human genome itself. The breakthrough will aid scientists in their mission to learn what sets us apart from other animals.
By comparing human and chimpanzee genomes, the researchers have identified several sequences of genetic code that differ between human and chimp. These sequences may hold the most promise for determining what creates human-specific traits such as speech.
“If people are asking what makes us human, they’re not going to find a smoking gun [in this study],” said Evan Eichler, a genome scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was part of the research team. “But they’re going to find suggestions for where to look.”
The project was conducted by an international group of scientists called the Chimp Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. Sixty-seven researchers co-authored the study, which is detailed tomorrow in the journal Nature.”
And what does the NIH have to say about human-primate genomics?
http://www.genome.gov/15515096
Or Dr. Dennis O’Neil, Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marcos, California?
http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm
Okay. Now where’s your proof that humans and other primates are not related? Proof mind you. Scientific studies that consist of observations and verifiable/falsifiable repeatable experiments. Not your opinion.
“Maybe since you are a agnostic we may actually be in agreement with each other on *some* things but don’t realize it [. . . ]”
On substantial matters? I really doubt it.
@Gene H. and again with the circular reasoning. I must be wrong because you somehow believe you proved me wrong on all those key points. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. I said some things and then you said some things. I don’t remember any OBJECTIVE PROOF only specious theories which are not actually empirical (Based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.) How was your proofs NOT theoretical? Observation? I thought NS took millions of years? So somebody observed something even for 1/1000 of that time? No it was over a very short period of time. That “observation” couldn’t be a feature of a super-sentient creator? Well ssc can’t exist. Why? because I said so… huh?
Why is OS a better debater than you? He makes sense. He doesn’t spew invectives and pejoratives to make his point. He corrects me respectfully and not in some arrogant veiled or unveiled put down. Yes he may have done this or that in the past against other posters but what has that to do with me. He’s been a perfect gentleman with me and never puerile.
@Gene H. – I say puerile as you won’t come out of childlike attack mode and discuss this in a respectful tone. You just feel that your OPINIONS (I see no empirical facts yet) are absolutely right and you refuse to even consider the Gestalt argument I posed. Like some sort of HS bully with an agenda. “Stop hitting yourself!”
Why benighted? In a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance… OK a bit harsh I know but I think your narrow-minded POV sounds a bit ignorant when you think that the word minutiae is a pejorative term and you fail to see the big picture (i.e. gestalt) of all organic life and the Universe. I don’t want to point to minute points like you do… like the complexity of the human eye.. because I want the Gestalt to be seen not just one small part of the picture that agrees with your ostensible ignorance about our true origins.
Evolutionists thinking that we evolved from Apes is ignorant when we share no DNA with them any more than any other animal. That 98% DNA thing was proven by other evolutionist to be pure BUNK.
Maybe since you are a agnostic we may actually be in agreement with each other on *some* things but don’t realize it yet because we are both attacking one another needlessly. Food for thought…
You are in way over your head, sonofthunderboner.
“Circular Logic:
1) SotB must be wrong as Gene H is right and can prove it.”
You having to be wrong has nothing to do with you being wrong and proved wrong in your assertions about Darwin, natural selection, evolution and eugenics. You are beging the question that you are wrong because I’m involved in proving you wrong. I don’t have anything to do with you being wrong. You being wrong and proven wrong has everything to do with you being wrong. You are again begging the question and displaying your own circular logic.
“2) Gene H. can’t actually PROVE anything with minute details about organic life when the BIGGER picture about ALL organic life, its complexities and interdependencies (and the universe) screams (or is ostensibly) was from super-sentient architecture.
(NOT Intelligent Design which is actually pure bunk).”
Opinion and a straw man. I set out to prove you didn’t know what the words meant that you were using and that your assertions about Darwin, natural selection, evolution and eugincs were factually wrong and I did so. The rest of your statement is begging the question that God exists.
Prove it.
Oh. That’s right. You can’t because you have no evidence other than your faith.
“3) SotB must be wrong because Gene H has a strange understanding of online dictionary definitions. He seems to dispute them even when copy & pasted verbatim. Even though the definitions seem to dispute him (i.e. the noun “belief”, or belief system, can’t possibly apply to evolutionists? WTF?)”
Online, I use OED or Webster’s. I don’t know where you get your bullshit definitions from.
“4) But Gene H must be right and SotB must be wrong because Gene H believes it to be so. And they both can’t be right or wrong. Why? Because Gene H said so.”
Again, my beliefs have nothing to do with empirical facts. You, however, seem to mistake your beliefs for empircal facts. That’d be your mistake.
“5) What makes Gene H a subj matter expert on NatSel? He possibly went to college for 4+ years. What about SotB? He didn’t… WELL THERE YOU GO… SotB must be wrong – right?”
Your fear of your own inadequacy is showing. I don’t give a shit whether you went to college or not. Being ignorant (of science or whatever subject) isn’t a function of formal education. It’s simply a function of education. Try reading a book other than the Bible some time. It’s good for your mind.
“6) Well SotB doesn’t understand NatSel, Science, and must be one of those ill-formed science-hatin’ Creationists… well how do you know that? Gene said so and around and around we go on this puerile benighted merry-go-round…”
I didn’t say you were an “ill-formed science-hatin’ Creationists”. I said you demonstrate that you do not understand either science or the scientific method. However and again, if the zealous extremist literalist ideological shoe fits, wear it.
Come on.
Keep digging your hole deeper.
I don’t mind. Really.
“As usual you totally miss the point. Never mind I’ll just move on (he said ad infinitum). I already know what he is and IMHO he is much better suited for intellectual debate than you are.”
Oh I get that you’d rather just run away at this poing. As to OS’ fitness over mine? Why? What’s your evidence? Because you don’t think he can or would kick your ass in a debate because he’s a nice guy? Bad news for you. I’ve seen OS chew up opponents and spit them out.
“You use circular reason like a badge of honor.”
Then . . . prove it, sonofthunderboner.
And your lack of scientific knowledge isn’t allegeded. It has been well and fully demonstrated at this point.
As to you being a Fundamentalist? If the zealous literalist extremist ideological shoe fits, wear it. I don’t care what you are other than scientifically factually and logically wrong. Your beleifs are not my concern. You are free to believe whatever you want. The observable verifiable facts are my concern.
“You make unsubstantiated claims about you, me, and Natural Selection as if they were etched-in-stone ‘facts’ when they are just opinions and specious theories.”
No. I made substantiated claims. I provided evidence that natural selection is an obserable process and testable by repeatable experimentation specifically in a population of snails. That makes my assertions based upon scientific facts.
The only opining and specious theories? Do you even know what “specious” means? It means having deceptive attraction or allure or having a false look of truth or genuineness. Like having the deceptive attraction of certainty through belief instead certainty through reason or claims that can just as easily be said to be false becuase they lack proof but appear to be genuine by appeals to Biblical authority (also a logcial fallacy) and claims of faith. The only specious opinions here are yours. They are as specious as they are factually deficient and logically fallacious. In the end, you cannot prove what you claim is true.
I can and have proven my points, logically and with evidence, and will do so again every time you start talking nonsense about topics you don’t understand using terminology that you are making up as you go along. You’re acceptence of the failure of your arguments is not required for me to dismantle them.
So you can either prove me wrong, put a sock in it, or get the smack down for being factually wrong every time you are factually wrong. Those are pretty much your only options other than go further on the offense which given your lack of success at proving me wrong to this point, I would not suggest be your tactic.
The choice is yours.