Federal authorities have announced that they are now intervening in the investigation of the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. That will certainly enhance the completion of forensic evidence, which we discussed earlier as critical to a case like this one. I have previously cautioned that this is not such an easy case as has been suggested, even with the 911 tapes. One of the greatest barriers is the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law.
I am as angry about this shooting as others. However, there remain difficult questions under the existing evidence. The intervention of the Justice Department adds an interesting element While racism has been alleged, the statement by the Justice Department notably does not lay out the basis for intervention and does not say that local police asked for the assistance. That may produce questions from the family why this is a federal matter as opposed to a local matter. While Zimmerman is described as “white,” his family has insisted that “George is a Spanish speaking minority with many black family members and friends.” That does not necessarily mean that this is not a hate crime or civil rights violation. However, it is possible that Zimmerman acted out of his zeal as a “watchman” as opposed to race — the stated view of the police chief.
The DOJ is clearly treating it as a racially motivated shooting since the Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with the FBI, is participating in the investigation. Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa states “The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation. The department also is providing assistance to and cooperating with the state officials in their investigation into the incident.” Cooperating is a different matter than a request for assistance. If they were not asked for assistance by the police, the question is whether the Justice Department views the local police as itself somewhat suspect in the handling of the case. We previously discussed legitimate complaints about aspects of the police investigation.
The most significant issue is the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law. The law protects citizens in their use of lethal force in self-defense. The law, found in 20 states, is an expansion of the protection afforded under Castle doctrine or “Make My Day” laws for shootings in the home. I have long been a critic of those laws.
The key component of the law is that it allows lethal force when a person reasonably perceives a serious threat of harm and such force is reasonable under the circumstances. Zimmerman is likely to cite the fact that he was bleeding from the struggle — even though he outweighed the teen significantly and was armed.
The concern of these laws is that the use of reasonable force is already protected under the common law. The laws are read to offer broader protection than the common law, which already has ample protection for reasonable force. The law specifically negated the requirement of retreat under state law. The law states in pertinent part:
A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
That still allows for serious question over whether, even if Martin did struggle with Zimmerman, there remains the notion of a fear of serious bodily injury.
I have said that aspects of the case remains murky. That is not to say that an indictment cannot be brought on the existing evidence, as I has said before. Again, 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.
While the basis for the intervention by the DOJ remains a bit murky itself, it may help with the many unanswered forensic questions. I am most interested in (1) the trajectory of the bullet, (2) the distance of the shooting, (3) the extent of injuries beyond the bullet wound on both men, and (4) the forensic analysis of the background of the 911 calls. Additionally, some have argued that the tape of Zimmerman has him using a racial slur, though many others have said that he is actually saying “punks.” An audio forensic expert could answer that question, which would relate directly to the purpose of the federal investigation.
Source: Washington Post
Tony C.
If you see this, don’t be so fearful and prestige bound. Give me your birthdate and I’ll see what these charlatans say. Might be fun. If it is then will not bait you. Will do mine to and expose it also.
As for being a scientist, don’t be so stuckup. What discipline?. How many papers have you published?. What journals?
And do you believe as some scientists that the universe may not be uniform as to constant laws. And how do you conceive of what it is outside of the universe, or before time started flowing. If the universe is infinite, how large is that? If it is finite, what lies outside? Or are there forces greater than those we can perceive in the sub-atomic particle world.
Stringers say they are enormous. What’s your position on strings?
Can I guess you are in the chemical field?
Kindest regards to a fellow fallible human. Welcome to our world.
Would that you would join us on equal footing as to pride and prestige equality. Abandon your needs and breathe the fresh air. Feel the caress of freedom and the warmth of the human family. We are dependent.
That’s why so few are hermits.
MCM
Those blinded by opinions are also deaf to their own words, have an instandly erased memory, and return to ROM for reassurance of acceptable concepts—although not willing to admit “defeat”.
Your previous to being interrupted by Tony C was worth comment, will think a while. The realization of our basic patterns as beasts is amazing. Much we learn perhaps as we grow, but much more is there to be learned. Can’t judge your caliber, but the content is fascination.
You are like most of us, tuned to out emotions emitted from our guts.
Many needs are important, but after air, food in next. Just so, being aware of signals from the stomach in its energy needs are well founded
And that our warning signals of primary life conserving value should use these same pathways and reaction system in the brain is also well motivated.
Just a minor sidepoint. Humans can not develop faster brains. Faster nerves means thinner nerves. Thinner nerves mean more sensitive to noise. Thicker nerves vote, and are thus noise resistant, more reliable but slower. An interesting medical fact.
lol,Gene, its a nice and proper skirmish. Good dust off mental practice. Like herding cats!
Bill,
Don’t mind him. His relationship to the real world is tenuous.
Yes, at least 3 or 4 times he asserted comments as if they were mine when I didn’t make them. This is a dishonest technique, ‘straw man’.
Nothing new. Then he throws out “lying drivel” etc.
Let him believe what he wants. He’s a classic relic of self-delusion.
Have a good weekend and smile.
I’ll have to say I’m enjoying this enormously.
Mr Tony C,
I haven’t seen you make an honest response to these two yet. Your pride seems to have your mouth tied up. They’re right, you’re wrong. You’re too proud to admit it. Then you try to impugn their words. Haven’t seen much honesty out of your arguments. You’ve falsely restated most of their claims back to you.
You won’t admit that.
Bill
Tony
“On the contrary, I have admitted I was wrong within this forum in the past;”
Janet Jackson:
“What have you done for me lately”
Gene owned your legal understanding and you had no integrity to admit he clarified the law and you were wrong about the law. This level of dishonesty is quite stark when you start calling me a liar.
You have yet to point out a single lie I’ve told when you throw out “liar”.
This level of your response is the quality we expect from advocates like you. You just represented them very poorly. When the legal facts don’t match your case, you fall back to “opinion land”
You also asserted comments were made by me that weren’t. “retreat laws don’t exist”, “jonathan turley said” etc. You made that up as if it were my comment then argued against it. This is called a ‘straw man’ its a form of lying because you insinuate I’m making that claim when I didn’t. I said there is now law that fits YOUR description. That is a fact. Prove me wrong with a law and I’ll leave here forever. “subject to intimidation” will never be found in our laws. You made that up…aka lied about the law, then argued against it.
Your insults do nothing to my argument. You can’t confront the argument, so you engage in fallacy. “red herring”, “special pleading”, “strawman”, “ad hominem”, you’ve engaged in them all to support your argument. Your constructs are feeble and I have no qualms telling you that.
@Michael: You do not know me; and any attitude or characteristic you attribute to me as fact is a lie. So take your pick. You are just another lying asshole posting for your self-aggrandizement; just another braggart that wants to feel good talking about himself. I am still waiting for something of substance, which you obviously cannot provide.
And btw, “retreat” in the military is specifically withdrawing from a battle; it is ending a fight by leaving. It is not “maneuvering,” which is what you described. As long as you remain engaged in a fight you have not “retreated.” By your definition, the word becomes indistinguishable from maneuvering. They are different words because they describe different intents.
more lies…Tony I specifically wrote many times that I’m basing my comments on your words and that I don’t know you personally. I’m addressing your words as offered. I don’t expect you’ll admit that.
Lets look at what this self-aggrandizing prick wrote to you Tony:
“I do appreciate you sharing your view however”
“I’m not here to insult you. I’m not calling you a coward, I’m saying your comments reflect unsettle fears ”
Your comments portray you. Popping up the whole “you don’t know me” shows you didn’t actually read what I wrote. I frequently said, “THIS ISN’T ONLY ABOUT YOU!” This is about the mindset you are projecting.
“and any attitude or characteristic you attribute to me as fact is a lie.”
Only if you’re a liar. I’m addressing your whole “I won’t back down” bullshit. So unless you are a liar, then the only lie in play would be yours. I’ve said your gung ho bullshit is a sign. That is an opinion based on observing your twitchy trigger finger.
You make comments like: “I would kill if I were attacked.”
I called this petty statement out as premeditation…It is premeditation. I indicated that this is a sign of your personal flaw. If you don’t want to be judged by your words, then don’t say stupid shit like this.
You can personally attack me all night, weekend, and for the rest of your unnatural life. I’m very sensitive to it obviously. I can tell how deep you are under my skin. I almost can’t sit still I’m so bothered right now. lol
Your debating acumen dwarfs even the finest minds. How do you contain so much awesome in such a big head? It must hurt. If only I could achieve the level of settled spirit you have, I would truly be a real boy. Wow.
” just another braggart that wants to feel good talking about himself.”
really? like “I don’t have a gun, I have guns!”
Pot Kettle Hypocrite
“THEY would be the idiot deciding it was worth assaulting me to deny me the space, and thereby risking their life.”
very humble
Humility alert:
” I earned the top available score in my marksmanship training (along with some others, about 5% of the class). I do not hunt; a friend of mine gets me out every few years to shoot targets with him. I am still pretty accurate with a pistol or rifle, even though I never practice. My memory is very good for such things.”
funny to be asked to comply with a standard I also didn’t ask for. I don’t care if you’re humble, honest, or even accurate. You’re far more entertaining in your twist-in-the-wind form anyway. I think I’ll rename you “Ad Hoc”
Your amazing integrity…such a flawless intellect, so honest, so pure. When confronted with the facts, you retreat to opinion.
Don’t stand down, Tony. Show us that mighty chest of power…humble man.
Your opening salvo wasn’t “opinion” it was a statement about facts:
-“Everybody has the right to public spaces, and a legal demand that I retreat means I can be discriminated against and intimidated into leaving.”
You are interpreting law. You are telling us what something means. You are responded to that this isn’t the accurate reading of the law. You then fall back claiming “i’m just talking about my opinion”
-“I believe in self-defense; if some bully doesn’t want me there, tough shit. I should be allowed to stay, and if he rushes me, I should be allowed to defend myself with lethal force, I should not be required to retreat.”
This portion is your opinion. The response to this opinion is that the law does not proscribe your right to defend. You avoided this and rambled on about your passionate opinion again, even after being told no law required this, you doubled down with yes it does.
-“Perhaps the law is worded wrong, but in spirit, a legal requirement to submit to intimidation and retreat is even more wrong, it violates your right to liberty and assembly and public spaces and undermines my right of self-defense and legalizes threats and intimidation.”
Completely made up standard since no law exists that demands you submit to intimidation. I asked you to cite a law that does, you cite Turley.
-“My comment is that a LAW that DEMANDS I retreat before intimidation victimizes me and supports intimidation as a tactic of discrimination,”
another statement of opinion about a law that doesn’t exist. You again made up something and fought against it. Again hit with the fact it doesn’t, you avoid.
“Laws that require you to retreat in the face of a threat are laws that make standing up to a bully a crime”
False, corrected by a lawyer and yet…you tell that lawyer he is wrong. Your relationship to the facts is a tenuous one.
You’ve been wandering between facts and opinion and then fall back on opinion when the facts didn’t match your case. Your disingenuous nonsense hasn’t baffled me at all. You have no center.
And if you’re a scientist…you aren’t applying it here. You’re living in anecdotal reference only. No Scientist relies upon anecdotal reference to make a case, silly.
Biggest lie you told all week: “You do not know what you are talking about”
Wrong.
One lie here is the idea that you have only talked about your opinion. You have claimed that there is a law that demands you run like a sissy and leave your family to the bad guys. You have ranted about laws that don’t exist. You have claimed something about ‘duty to retreat’, been corrected, done nothing to adjust your assessment of law and then doubled down.
“only my opinion” is horseshit.
@Michael: I haven’t backed down or redefined anything; anybody that cares about the facts can look at the first post I made on this and see I have been talking about my opinion from the beginning. There is just nothing else worth replying to in any of your lying drivel.
and what ‘lie’ has been told, Tony?
“Thanks for the pleasure of following your reasoning. Enlighting, truly.”
Oh I’m damn near plagiarizing great thinkers…barely an original thought to me.
Just like that link above though, its the ‘tasted the peach’ concept. I can show you a peach, I can describe the peach, but you won’t know it until you tasted it. Thus, ‘have you tasted the peach’ brings us to our personal experience which can’t be secondary.
“JT’s mention of fencing. A sport which is based on advance and retreat.”
Wonderful thread, haven’t posted on it but read and enjoyed it. Yes, fencing uses tonnes of retreat methods and none of them involve running away.
Bill’s comment about about ‘toe tapper’ for instance is a technique he saw me use years back that made him laugh so hard he fell out his chair at a match. “toe tapper” means I would advance, put my lead foot on the opponents foot “a tap” and he’d instinctively react to his toe by looking down. Not necessarily at his toe, but that direction. And close behind the toe tap would be an upward coming arm or palm strike. A classic one two.
Why does this work? Because we react in very universal ways to attack. We protect the same areas instinctively. One of those instincts has been conditioned by the tough guy don’t back down thinking. I consider it a ‘nurture’ condition not inherent but all the same. When someone won’t ‘back down’, they are doing MORE of the work than I am in a fight. I simply find their center of gravity and let them do the rest. They are classically the easiest to fight because they have eliminated certain valuable tactical tools including ‘retreat’.
I’ve feigned being wounded, limping, retreating, and all sorts of methods without even thinking about them. Its a well conditioned set of tools, imo. I thank my teachers for their wisdom, which never failed me. My failures are mine, my successes are theirs.
In Politics:
Yes, I believe it works in the same way. Retreating to collect might be one aspect, but also a feigned retreat works wonders. I’ve read so many mails on list that were thrilled some other group was ‘retreating’ when they were not. Silence can be deafening.
@Idealist, re astrology: as I have told others in the past two years on this forum; I am an atheist, I do not believe in anything supernatural at all. I am a full time research scientist at a large university in a “hard-science” discipline.
lol william, exactly!
toe tapper, …well said, and good eye.
mcm, is this one of those guys you used to refer to as a ‘toe tapper’?
lol
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/national-gopers-rally-around-stand-your-ground-law-after-trayvon-martin-shooting.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
MCM
Yes, it is. Great fun. To in essence explore your own mind as well.
Two short examples which came when reading your latest.
JT’s mention of fencing. A sport which is based on advance and retreat.
Politics, where leaving what appears to be attractive weaknesses can be sucker traps, etc.
Certainly the Repubs seem to ónly advance now. But what did they do after 2008? They retreated, regrouped, rearmed and made a plan for advancing. Results? 2010 House victory. And a gridlocked Congress.
Thanks for the pleasure of following your reasoning. Enlighting, truly.
Statement of Robert Zimmerman, father of Neighborhood Watch volunteer:
“The tragic events of February 26 are very sad for all concerned. The Martin family, our family, and the entire community have been forever changed.
The portrayal of George Zimmerman in the media, as well as the series of events that led to the tragic shooting are false and extremely misleading. Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations have used this tragedy to further their own causes and agendas.
George is a Spanish speaking minority with many black family members and friends. He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever. One black neighbor recently interviewed said she knew everything in the media was untrue and that she would trust George with her life. Another black neighbor said that George was the only one, black or white, who came and welcomed her to the community, offering any assistance he could provide. Recently, I met two black children George invited to a social event. I asked where they met George. They responded that he was their mentor. They said George visited them routinely, took them places, helped them, and taught them things and that they really loved George. The media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth.
The events of February 26 reported in the media are also totally inaccurate. Out of respect for the on-going investigation, I will not discuss specifics. However, the media reports of the events are imaginary at best. At no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin. When the true details of the event become public, and I hope that will be soon, everyone should be outraged by the treatment of George Zimmerman in the media.
Our entire family is deeply sorry for the loss of Trayvon. We pray for the Martin family daily. We also pray that the community will grieve together and not be divided by more unwarranted hate.
The Zimmerman family will have no further contact with the media prior to the resolution of the investigation. It would be greatly appreciated if the media would respect our privacy.”
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-15/news/os-trayvon-martin-shooting-zimmerman-letter-20120315_1_robert-zimmerman-letter-unarmed-black-teenager/2
Idealist707
“Gene H. and MCM have tried convincing you”
Actually I can’t admit I’ve sought that route. I’m simply answering the responses and thinking aloud. Then considering you and others instead of worrying of Tony can admit he’s incomplete in this view (as am I).
He hasn’t offered much outside of “retreat=running away” no matter how many riffs he gets at it.
Writing out concepts is what I enjoy doing. It gets the cobwebs off the grey matter.
After reading that earlier, I made up a dialogue of the SS agent questioning on the spot the lady who uttered it.
Won’t bore you, unless entreated—no hopes there.
But it was fun trying to imitate the jargon and speech patterns on each of the two sides, with a view of being funny.
An alternative to facing the facts that every crowd is not only filled with camera bugs, but also folks who might be carrying dangerous hate in their minds. Don’t guess the metal detectors are any help there.