Criminal law, Justice, Society

Audio Experts: Cries For “Help” On 911 Tapes Not Zimmerman’s

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

The  chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, Tom Owen, and Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, have independently concluded that the furtive pleas for help clearly heard on the 911 tapes are not George Zimmerman’s. Both acknowledged experts used voice enhancing software, but different techniques, to rate the probability of the voice being Zimmerman’s at no more than 48%.  A 90% match is considered scientifically reliable.

In a report published by the Orlando Sentinel, Owen said he derived his conclusions based on biometric analysis. “It basically just means using personal characteristics for identification. A fingerprint scanner is an example of a biometric device. Much as the ridges of a human hand produce a fingerprint, each human voice has unique, distinguishable traits, Owen says. ‘They’re all particular to the individual.'” The expert recently used the technique to identify the accused killer of Sheila Davalloo in a 911 call made almost a decade ago.

 Owen, who also served as the chief engineer for the New York Public Library’s Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, said that, “as a result of [the testing], you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it’s not Zimmerman.”

Ed Primeau agreed but went further, saying that, under the known circumstances, ” I believe that’s Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt. That’s a young man screaming.”  Primeau used the technique of voice enhancement to reach his conclusion. Unlike biometric analysis, his method does require an in-context sample of the voice for testing.

An article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer published in 2010 describes the 66-year-old Owen and his cohort, Stuart Allen, this way:

 [The pair have] more than six decades of experience between them in the forensic audio profession. They’ve worked with the FBI and other federal agencies, police departments, private detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and news organizations. Many courts have designated them as expert witnesses. They’re good friends who sometimes are on opposing sides, but respect each other’s abilities. “Both of us are known as sort of contrarians,” Owen said.

Primeau is a former sound engineer in the movie industry who worked with pop stars Anita Baker, Bob Seger, and Barry Manilow.  Primeau has over thirty years of experience in voice identification and is a registered investigator for the American College of Forensic Examiners. He describes his work in voice identification as:

There can sometimes be differences in speech patterns that can help identify clues in your identification puzzle.  I look for several similarities as well as differences, nasal resonance differences, voice tone with regard to inflection both similarities and differences.

The test results seem to present another blow to Zimmerman’s credibility who claimed that it was his voice on the tape —  and not the African-American teen  — heard crying out for help mere seconds before the fatal gun shot.

It is likely that similar audio testing is being conducted by the FBI’s Digital Evidence Laboratory’s Forensic Audio, Video, and Image Analysis Unit, based in Quantico, Virginia. Should they reach the same conclusions as Owen and Primeau, Zimmerman would almost certainly face charges in the death. An opposite result would go a long way in substantiating his claim of self-defense.

Source; msnbc; Orland Sentinel; Cleveland Plain Dealer

~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

320 thoughts on “Audio Experts: Cries For “Help” On 911 Tapes Not Zimmerman’s”

  1. Peddle it elsewhere Scribbler, because all we have to do is read upthread to your first comment where you endorse software aided automatic scream identification AND how it rules out Zimmerman.

    Otteray Scribe
    1, April 1, 2012 at 5:26 pm

    OK guys. I do know this stuff and have several thousand dollars worth of voice audio analysis gear in my office closet to show for it. This is not as hard as it sounds. The analysis, from a scientific standpoint, is not unlike fingerprints or DNA. If you have a match that is less than 60%, you can say the likelihood of it being the person in question is zero. Tom Owen, and Ed Primeau came to their virtually identical conclusions separately and without consulting each other. You now have two analyses by two of the country’s leading experts. The chances of the yells being Zimmerman’s are nil. Next question is to look for the person whose voice is on those recordings. Is it Martin? At this point, no one can say with reasonable certainty until a sample of his voice is produced. Hopefully he made some audio or video recordings that will surface.

    BTW, last I heard, this equipment and technology had withstood a Daubert challenge. I have used it in court and had my evidence accepted. If someone knows different, or more recent case law, I will defer.

  2. “From his Tom Owen’s CV:

    COURT QUALIFIED as EXPERT in VOICE IDENTIFICATION, AUDIO AND VIDEO AUTHENTICATION, SIGNAL PROCESSING, TAPE ENHANCEMENT, RECORDING INDUSTRY PRACTICES.
    To date: New York Southern District, New York Eastern District, New York, Buffalo, and New York State Court. Philadelphia, PA; Bethlehem, PA; Hartford, CT; Bridgeport, CT; New York Rockland County; Raleigh, NC; Newark, NJ; Mays Landing, NJ; Tottawa, NJ; Nashville, TN; Savannah, GA; Carmel, NY; Dover, DE; Tulsa, OK; Louisville, KY; Los Angeles, CA; Bowling Green, KY; Alexandria, VA; Zenia, OH; Kansas City, MO; Denver, CO; NY Bronx Superior
    Court, Manhattan Supreme Court; NYPD Arbitration Hearing Board; Morganville, West Virginia; Fresno, CA; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Washington DC; Maryland; Florida; Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada, Hartford, CT, Evanston, IL, Somerville, NJ, Brooklyn, NY ,Miami, FL and others.”

    Mark,

    I truly do not understand what your point is here, except to show precisely what Frontline claims: that courts are easily duped into believing total bullshit is science and giving “authority” to asshole scam artists.

    Your text also demonstrates how courts and you fall prey to a) appeal to authority, and b) anchoring bias. “He’s been admitted to court 1, 2, and 3, surely he’s an expert for our court too.”

    It’s not that I dislike Owens, if you reread this thread I link to many many people, from scientists, to other audio experts to lawyers, none of whom think the guy is anything but a charlatan.

    He is defended only by lawyers with a conflict of interest, and other scam artists in his trade, who also have a conflict of interest.

    Software recognized scream identification Mark, are you still sticking with that?

    You do not normally plumb the Gene Howington levels of drooling idiocy. Usually you just make dumb arrogant stereotyped remarks that betray your inner bigotry and that you and many others pass off as acceptable forms of progressive ironic humor. And then you make the occasional truly epic mistake that you can even acknowledge. And you’re arrogant as all get out and can almost never admit when you’re wrong.

    But software recognized automatic scream identification? Really? You’re sticking with that story and the guy who sold it to you?

    That boat sailed a long long time ago Mark.

    Time to start swimming for shore.

  3. anon drools: “AND YOU SCRIBE telling us again and again that Tom Owens is impeachable and so is forensic scream identification.”

    **************************************

    OK, if you are so smart, please provide a link to anywhere in the blogosphere I ever said anything remotely like that. There is a word for people who just make up stuff. Rhymes with pliers.

    I never said anything one way or the other about Tom Owens, whom I would not know if he came though my front door carrying a bass fiddle. What I did say was the proof of the pudding is going to be what the FBI audiology lab does with the data. Nothing more. I did say that it is also easier to establish that a voice is not someone than than to make a positive identification.

    Got any more of your made up stuff?

  4. anon nurse:

    Like our pal Zimmerman, he’s probably done nothing wrong either. Just wrong place, wrong time. Likely scapegoated, too.

    Let’s see what are resident apologists have to say about him. Should be fascinating.

  5. “As prestigious as the “New York Institute for Forensic Audio” sounds, there is no such brick and mortar institute. It is actually a “division” of Owen Investigations, LLC. Tom Owen is basically claiming he was an instructor at his own unaccredited university.”

    ***********************
    Yeah, that Tom Owen is quite the master of deception. Apparently he’s so adept that he’s “fooled” scads of courts into thinking he’s an expert and his methodology meets their standard for reliability. Exclude him I say. It’s only 35 or so courts listed, you know. Plus anon doesn’t like him:

    From his Tom Owen’s CV:

    COURT QUALIFIED as EXPERT in VOICE IDENTIFICATION, AUDIO AND VIDEO AUTHENTICATION, SIGNAL PROCESSING, TAPE ENHANCEMENT, RECORDING INDUSTRY PRACTICES.
    To date: New York Southern District, New York Eastern District, New York, Buffalo, and New York State Court. Philadelphia, PA; Bethlehem, PA; Hartford, CT; Bridgeport, CT; New York Rockland County; Raleigh, NC; Newark, NJ; Mays Landing, NJ; Tottawa, NJ; Nashville, TN; Savannah, GA; Carmel, NY; Dover, DE; Tulsa, OK; Louisville, KY; Los Angeles, CA; Bowling Green, KY; Alexandria, VA; Zenia, OH; Kansas City, MO; Denver, CO; NY Bronx Superior
    Court, Manhattan Supreme Court; NYPD Arbitration Hearing Board; Morganville, West Virginia; Fresno, CA; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Washington DC; Maryland; Florida; Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada, Hartford, CT, Evanston, IL, Somerville, NJ, Brooklyn, NY ,Miami, FL and others.

  9. Frontline just did a report on “The Real CSI”

    Here is what they have to say about AFCE, Block, and of course, Tom Owens, proud holder of an AFCE credential:

    No Forensic Background? No Problem

    April 17, 2012, 12:04 pm ET by Leah Bartos ProPublica

    This is how I — a journalism graduate student with no background in forensics — became certified as a “Forensic Consultant” by one of the field’s largest professional groups.

    One afternoon early last year, I punched in my credit card information, paid $495 to the American College of Forensic Examiners International Inc. and registered for an online course.

    After about 90 minutes of video instruction, I took an exam on the institute’s web site, answering 100 multiple-choice questions, aided by several ACFEI study packets.

    As soon as I finished the test, a screen popped up saying that I had passed, earning me an impressive-sounding credential that could help establish my qualifications to be an expert witness in criminal and civil trials.

    For another $50, ACFEI mailed me a white lab coat after sending my certificate.

    For the last two years, ProPublica and FRONTLINE, in concert with other news organizations, have looked in-depth at death investigation in America, finding a pervasive lack of national standards that begins in the autopsy room and ends in court.

    Expert witnesses routinely sway trial verdicts with testimony about fingerprints, ballistics, hair and fiber analysis and more, but there are no national standards to measure their competency or ensure that what they say is valid. A landmark 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences called this lack of standards one of the most pressing problems facing the criminal justice system.

    Over the last two decades, ACFEI has emerged as one of the largest forensic credentialing organizations in the country.

    Among its members are top names in science and law, from Henry Lee, the renowned criminalist, to John Douglas, the former FBI profiler and bestselling author. Dr. Cyril Wecht, a prominent forensic pathologist and frequent TV commentator on high-profile crimes, chairs the group’s executive advisory board.

    But ACFEI also has given its stamp of approval to far less celebrated characters. It welcomed Seymour Schlager, whose credentials were mailed to the prison where he was incarcerated for attempted murder. Zoe D. Katz — the name of a house cat enrolled by her owner in 2002 to show how easy it was to become certified by ACFEI — was issued credentials, too. More recently, Dr. Steven Hayne, a Mississippi pathologist whose testimony helped to convict two innocent men of murder, has used his ACFEI credential to bolster his status as an expert witness.

    Several former ACFEI employees call the group a mill designed to churn out and sell as many certificates as possible. They say applicants receive cursory, if any, background checks and that virtually everyone passes the group’s certification exams as long as their payments clear.

    Some forensic professionals say the organization’s willingness to hand out credentials diminishes the integrity of the field.

    “I am insulted by it,” said Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist for Maryland’s chief medical examiner office and the vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. “They seem like an organization that’s all about the money.”

  10. “Oh, for Gawd’s sake. O’Brock is a well-knows charlatan who started peddling fake credentials after he was fired from Appalachian State University. Every lawyer in the country knows about his diploma mill. All he has managed to do, besides get rich, is cause problems for persons who hold real certificates which are incredibly hard to get, such as the diplomas of the American Board of Forensic Psychology and the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry.

    I do not know much about these audiology guys, but they must be onto something if every skinhead and neonazi orginaization in the country is after their scalps trying to discredit them.”

    Let’s note first how Otteray Scribe rushes away from American College of Forensic Examiners.

    And then giggle as Otteray Scribe rushes back in and calls out anyone that points out ACFE is a bunch of scammers and they are the ones that accreddited Tom Owens and Ed Primeau as skinheads and Nazis.

    Sorry Scribe, that makes no sense at all even beyond your usual treknobabble.

    Of course, this entire thread has been about a bunch if idiot lawyers AND YOU SCRIBE telling us again and again that Tom Owens is impeachable and so is forensic scream identification.

  11. OS, yes, thank you. The first thing that happens when an expert gets put on the stand, either for the prosecution or for the defense, in a criminal trial or a civil trial, is the voir dire to figure out if that expert is a snake oil salesman or [whatever][a properly credentialed expert][a politician]. If there is going to be a trial in this case, neither the prosecution nor the defense is going to let guys get up there without the kind of evaluation that will shake loose their marbles if they’re missing any.

  12. Oh, for Gawd’s sake. O’Brock is a well-knows charlatan who started peddling fake credentials after he was fired from Appalachian State University. Every lawyer in the country knows about his diploma mill. All he has managed to do, besides get rich, is cause problems for persons who hold real certificates which are incredibly hard to get, such as the diplomas of the American Board of Forensic Psychology and the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry.

    I do not know much about these audiology guys, but they must be onto something if every skinhead and neonazi orginaization in the country is after their scalps trying to discredit them.

    As I have said before, the real crux is what the FBI labs learn, not the prelmiminary opinions of some private investigators. Also, it is easier to prove a voiceprint is NOT a particular person than to accurately identify whose voice it is.

  13. Dan Linehan on April 3, 2012 of wagist takes down Tom Owen and the vaunted American College of Forensic Examiners as a whole lot of horseshit

    This is a rough copy paste but go to the link, it’s complete there with images and everything as Dan originally intended it.

    Anyway though, I have to say I completely believe that Otteray Scribe, mespo, and Gene H are considered outstanding in their field. But what does it say about lawyers and forensic bullshit expert witnesses that they are?

    “Two experts in the field of forensic voice identification, Tom Owen and Ed Primeau, were hired by the Orlando Sentinel to review George Zimmerman’s call to police along with the 911 calls right before the shooting.

    They both decided the voice screaming for help on the 911 calls was not George Zimmerman, and each expert arrived at that conclusion by independent methods.

    Tom Owen is mentioned first in the article. He’s described as a forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services, LLC.

    Let’s take a closer look at the process he used.

    After the Sentinel contacted Owen, he used software called Easy Voice Biometrics to compare Zimmerman’s voice to the 911 call screams.

    “I took all of the screams and put those together, and cut out everything else,” Owen says.

    The software compared that audio to Zimmerman’s voice. It returned a 48 percent match. Owen said to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he’d expect higher than 90 percent.

    “As a result of that, you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it’s not Zimmerman,” Owen says, stressing that he cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon’s, because he didn’t have a sample of the teen’s voice to compare.

    That raises some concerns. Tom Owen apparently compared Zimmerman’s normal speaking voice on a dispatch call, with high-pitched, terrified screaming that was recorded in the background of later 911 calls.

    In our world, “that’s the home run,” Owen says.

    I was pretty stunned that he could be so sure. After all, the computer program is looking for similarities in the vocal patterns. How many can it possibly find when pattern A is completely normal, laid back speech and pattern B is hysterical screaming?

    I wanted to investigate this a bit further and looked into downloading the software Tom Owen used.

    But this proved to be extremely difficult, a license for the software costs nearly $5,000.

    That’s a pretty hefty price to pay to test this software out…

    After a few more minutes of research, I found out that the Easy Voice Biometrics web domain is actually owned by Tom Owen himself.

    So what Tom Owen is actually doing here, is using his own home-grown software to attempt to determine the similarities in speech markers between two radically different types of voice patterns and claiming that it is accurate “beyond scientific certainty.”

    Beyond scientific certainty is a pretty strong statement.

    There doesn’t seem to be any disclosure in the Orlando Sentinel article that Tom Owen owns EasyVoiceBiometrics.com, nor any that he was using his own software package to do the analysis.

    I’m not sure whether the Orlando Sentinel author realizes it, but that could easily be construed as a conflict of interest, particularly when the software is currently being sold for $5,000 per license. There’s an extremely transparent profit motive for Tom Owen to promote his product in any way that he can, especially at that price.

    Since Tom Owen has staked his reputation on this, and has said point-blank that this software is so accurate that he knows “with reasonable scientific certainty” that it’s not Zimmerman on the 911 calls, the software must at least be extremely thoroughly tested, right?

    ….

    It also says, on Easy Voice Biometric’s own web site, that the software is less than a month old.

    This is especially strange, because the Orlando Sentinel article says:

    As recently as January, Owen used the same technology to identify accused murderer Sheila Davalloo in a 911 call made almost a decade ago.

    How could Owen have been using the same technology in that case when the web site says the software was only released three weeks ago?

    It lists a launch date of March 7th, 2012 on the news section of the site:

    Since Owen referred me to TracerTek.com, I checked out that site as well.

    TracerTek.com and EasyVoiceBiometrics.com appear to be using the same web site template, just with different information filled in.

    It appears Jeff Klinedinst is involved with both. He is listed as the VP of Marketing on TracerTek and he did the YouTube demo videos for Easy Voice Biometrics.

    …

    The software appears to work fine if someone alters their voice slightly, or if there is light music playing in the background.

    But there certainly isn’t anything in the demos about Easy Voice Biometrics offering “reasonable scientific certainty” when someone is screaming in panic on the background of a 911 call.

    So where exactly is this “scientific certainty” coming from?

    The second expert, Ed Primeau, doesn’t “believe” in Biometric Analysis, but doesn’t say why.

    Not all experts rely on biometrics. Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, is not a believer in the technology’s use in courtroom settings.

    Ed simply listened to the recordings. Then he decided the noises were Trayvon Martin because of the “tone of the voice” while reading Mother Jones.

    “I believe that’s Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt,” Primeau says, stressing that the tone of the voice is a giveaway. “That’s a young man screaming.”

    Nevermind that there was an eyewitness to the fight who clearly states it was George Zimmerman yelling out for help. Or that Zimmerman is cited in the original police report as saying he was yelling for help. Or that the yells much more accurately portray someone who is screaming during an assault, rather than someone begging for their life at gunpoint.

    Both Primeau and Owen report that they are credentialed by the American College Forensic Examiners Institute.

    Sadly, it turns out there is an entire suite of these “American Forensic Board” sites, on almost any topic you can think of, which all seem to be ran by the same person, a gentleman named Dr. O’Block who claims to have nearly a dozen degrees himself.

    …

    Once again, most of these sites use the same basic template and only change cursory details, making it difficult to gauge how legitimate the boards are, if at all.

    Tom Owen also lists things like this:

    Instructor “New York Institute for Forensic Audio” 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998,
    1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,2006, 2007

    As prestigious as the “New York Institute for Forensic Audio” sounds, there is no such brick and mortar institute. It is actually a “division” of Owen Investigations, LLC. Tom Owen is basically claiming he was an instructor at his own unaccredited university.

    I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in the upcoming weeks, since both of these “experts” have sparked a lot of controversy with their statements and placed their reputations on the line.
    “

    1. If any private investigator or police detective buys this software, I am sure that they will do what most hunters do after buying a new gun. They TEST it first. So if the authors of the software are pulling a scam by NOT doing the testing before they offer it for sale, they will be found out rather quickly and have a LOT of unhappy customers demanding their $5000 back! If I were developing such software, I would get all my friends, relatives and strangers to come in and do vocals in different settings and pitches.

      Absent any evidence of fraud, it is easy to simply throw stones at any persons credibility with NO evidence at all. But of course, the intent is NOT to find out the truth, just to defend the indefensible.

  14. Hi, folks. (Well, I might have meant “folks” or “yolks” or “fools” or “bulks” or “punks”) I just now re-skimmed this thread because it showed up in my e-mails in-box and I’m trying to avoid doing stuff I really hate and feel aversive to (and ending a sentence with a preposition is something UP with which I will not PUT).

    So I saw for the first time, really, the Walter Mitty analogy, and whoever first posted it (I believe Mespo although I didn’t do careful research and would ask a good journalist to fact-check me on that) is a genius. A GENIUS!

    It falls into place for me now. A guy is raised in a very “strict” (I read that word differently but my parenting philosophy is not significant here) household and his brother is the preferred sibling. He and his brother are different and bro is perhaps more successful. Guy goes off to work for his godfather who purchased a million-dollar business. A million-dollar business doesn’t necessarily make much money, by the way. Ask the IRS. Guy wants to have a certain image, doesn’t have it, gets frustrated, has never learned to deal with frustration, not at that level, not appropriately.

    Society “prepares the crime” and the criminal commits it.

    All my blogging on this case has been prosecutorial toward Zimmerman, no room for doubt about that. Much of it has, I hope, been hard-hitting and unequivocal about issues of blame, guilt, punishment, amelioration, mitigation, conspiracy, you name it, this got my BLOOD PRESSURE UP (oh oh oh gimme my lisinopril QUICK!). And I’m not trying to spread around the accountability (It’s on Zimmerman, the police, Wolfinger, and government corruption in its many forms) but now that I can breathe again, and now that I was given this gift of the image of the Mitty-capades that might have been dancing in Zimmerman’s twisted mind on 2/26/2012 before the retort of the gunshot that HE USED TO KILL TRAYVON MARTIN (RIP),

    Let me look at the society in which Walter Mitty drives down the street with his hands on the steering wheel.

    OMG. This society says that in order for Walter Mitty to be somebody, he has to be the SOMEBODY he was not. He has to be the SOMEBODY he could never be, and more importantly, could never HOPE to be.

    OMG, I am on the stand again as the only witness being called (as an adverse, of course, because the case is a case in adverse, in which my crime is going to be that I do not admit how inadequate I am, how bad I am, how much better I should be) in a case meant to take custody away from me. Sorry, guys, I use analogies as I find them. OH NO, I cannot prove that I was any better than I was. OH NO, I cannot avoid admitting I was not as good as the pro se movant suggests I should have been. At every point in my life, I was really supposed to show that I was striving — and always unsuccessfully — to come up to the standard that was being drawn and then repeatedly redrawn (and NEVER REVEALED) by the person entitled to decide my fate and the person entitled to conclude that I was found lacking.

    Is this how the son of a judge who brought us into this thread was raised? Was he a witness against himself every day of his childhood? Look what this produces, O my friends, countrymen, even my inevitable masters, look!

    (To those who may read my posts to figure out whom I am channeling next: I have no earthly idea! This just came into my meditation on Walter Mitty. But don’t worry about the ramifications; my son, the alleged subject of the “adversity suit,” is not only fine, but great, and we are best friends, and he is my most staunch supporter, and he went to court with me in DC yesterday and was eloquently and beautifully visible as undeniable evidence of my good-enough-mothering.)

    Zimmerman sits in jail. The country awaits trial or perhaps plea bargain. Much information will never be made available, never be subjected to the investigation and evaluation meant to find facts. Even things that are recorded are not adequate representations of reality. ANd every reality is one reality in the mind of Zimmerman and quite another in, say, mind of Malisha. And now I wonder how much of the secret life of any Walter or Marlene Mitty could be allowed to find expression — even ENCOURAGED to find expression — in some manner that did not hurt Trayvon Martin, did not hurt Anon, did not hurt Gene H or Mespo or Elizabeth Morgan’s child or Woosty or Dredd or me…

  15. “looking for some Walter Mitty-like adventureHe found it and didn’t like what he saw. And Trayvon Martin is dead.”

    I am afraid it was he liked what he saw, an excuse, in his mind, for playing a stevan segall walter mitty.

  16. Mespo:

    “No, Zimmerman’s a busybody with a firearm; a candy ass with a police scanner looking for some Walter Mitty-like adventure. He found it and didn’t like what he saw. And Trayvon Martin is dead.”

    Yes, if you cannot handle yourself without a firearm you should not carry one.

    Zimmerman is a candy ass and a moron for not knowing his limitations. The pistol gave him a false sense of security.

  17. Presuming, arguendo, that the voice on the 911 tape appearing to yell “Help Help” was George Zimmerman’s voice (which, obviously, cannot be proven by at least the two scientific forensic voice analysts who already evaluated the tapes), we would still have the following situation to deal with:
    1. Zimmerman expressed on a phone call that he acknowledged was HIS OWN VOICE dismay that “these assholes always get away,” thus making it clear to anyone who takes him at his own word that he wished he could prevent Trayvon Martin from leaving “his” “jurisdiction”;
    2. Zimmerman said on that same phone call, “Shit, he’s running,” and NOT: “Uh Oh he’s coming after me,” thus giving the clear impression that the direction in which Martin was running was AWAY FROM ZIMMERMAN; and
    3. The crime that the police report indicated was being considered by the police was NOT self-defense, was NOT killing accidentally in self-defense, but was the crime of accidentally killing someone while preventing them from committing a FELONY.

    In other words, on Feb. 26, 2012, the police were not suggesting that Zimmerman had to kill Martin to prevent his own grievous injury or death; they were suggesting that Zimmerman had to kill Martin to prevent Martin from COMMITTING A FELONY.

    The assumption that Martin was doing something wrong was an assumption that Zimmerman and the police SHARED that night. THAT was why they resisted arresting him (even if one out of them was not resisting it as vigorously as the others). They all presumed Martin was committing a crime and they didn’t want to punish Zimmerman for preventing it.

    Now let’s say Zimmerman WAS shouting “help help” before he shot Martin. He could have been shouting for help in subduing someone he already regarded as a criminal — NOT help in defending himself from a beating.

    Although I believe it’s pretty obviously not Zimmerman’s voice, it wouldn’t change the situation if it were. And Zimmerman’s self-serving statement to EMTs and police that “I yelled for help but nobody helped me” is simply not true; it seems that plenty of folks called 911 when they heard the shouts.

  18. Here is automatic octopus voice translation, based on the same technologies that Tom Owen uses.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMM4XYteqWI


    Education researchers at Oregon Sea Grant’s Free-Choice Learning Lab, housed at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC), have discovered a way to translate octopus gestures to human speech.

    Converting octopus gestures to human speech

    “We have two cameras, one that looks externally and one that looks in the tank itself.

    We are able to send these camera feeds through our human facial recognition software and with the use of special measuring devices we’ve been able to calibrate motions that the octopus makes, iris changes in the octopus and take the human analog and create an octopus analog, which has been fascinating.

    …

    What this allows us to do is put together a grammar of octopus language.

  19. Actually mespo, the point of my post was that it’s shameful that a lawyer would write that it’s cowardly for Zimmerman to let his lawyer speak for him, and admits to a huge acknowledge of what turds lawyers are.

    As you gloss by that, I will add that when Grisham writes almost 30 novels all about what sleezebags inhabit a lawyers skin, including often times, the heroes of the story, it’s probably fair to suspect that Grisham thinks the best place for many lawyers in in a blender. Lastly, you just have to look at the enormous numbers of lawyers who get out of law describing jackasses like you as people they wouldn’t want to spend an elevator ride with much less a career to understand the enormous problems in your “profession.”

    However, once more, I’ll say your statement about it being cowardly of Zimmerman to let himself be represented by a lawyer and to otherwise shut-up speaks volumes about how much you (rightfully) hate yourself and other lawyers and proudly boast of your ignorance towards the law.

  20. anon:

    “I used to read John Grisham, Scott Turow and other novels written by lawyers. The one theme constant in these novels is how much lawyers hate themselves, how scummy and sleazy and corrupt they are, and how they know it.”

    ********************

    Er … anon … John Grisham and Scott Turow are lawyers. Grisham recently handled a million dollar case and Turow is in full-time practice. They don’t hate themselves. But don’t let a wrong foundational fact stop your shtik ( I like the Yiddish word here rather than the corruption “schtick.”), all clowns get some license. Tell me more. It helps in my research of primitive peoples.

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