A new report shows that the day after killing Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman passed a police lie detector test. He registered truthful in stating that he was afraid for his life before shooting the teen. The report does not materially affect the trial since such tests are not admissible but may explain the the resistance of local officials to bring the case. It also further supports the view, again, that Angela Corey overcharged the case. She was no doubt aware of the test which, while not admissible as evidence because their reliability is questioned, can be considered by the prosecutors in determining the appropriate charge. UPDATE: A police report shows a critical view of Zimmerman’s account and says that he missed two opportunities to defuse the situation.
Zimmerman willingly submitted to a computer voice stress analyzer (CVSA) “truth verification” on February 27 and the test “was classified as No Deception Indicated (NDI).” This included the question of “Did you confront the guy you shot?’ He answered, “No.” He was rated as telling the truth in both saying that he did not confront Martin and that he was in fear of his life.
Also released recently are further details from Zimmerman to the police. Zimmerman insisted that the teen knocked him down and began to pound his head in the sidewalk while telling him “You’re going to die.” Zimmerman claims Trayvon reached for the gun and that he grabbed it to protect himself.
Both the question of fear and the party responsible for the confrontation could be distorted by Zimmerman’s perspective and not accepted objectively by third parties. Of the two questions, however, the confrontation question is the most interesting. It is rare for targeted suspects to agree to lie detectors, though I have agreed to such tests in past cases.
Once again, this evidence does not rule out the basis for a criminal charge, but in my view strongly militates against a charge greater than manslaughter. In fairness to the local officials, the evidence also offers support for their view that no charge was appropriate. One can disagree with that conclusion, but they may have had solid reasons for opposing a charge. That does not excuse sloppy police work and there was still a basis to detain Zimmerman at the scene. However, the case has become more muddled with such new evidence. As a criminal defense attorney, I have always viewed this case as one with strong defense arguments for trial. While the odds always favor the prosecution, the factual record has a number of elements that could create reasonable doubt. Obviously, the trial itself can present facts in different light and the prosecution has yet to be fully heard in the case.
Source: NY Daily News
NEWSFLASH: LATER TODAY THERE WILL BE MORE EVIDENCE RELEASED IN THE CASE, SOME OF IT FROM THE FBI.
One of the commenters on one of the Zimmerman threads gave one of those “puffed up chest ME TARZAN” type comments and rolled it up at the end with “But you MUST ADMIT that Trayvon blah blah blah” and I did a little exercise with it. I began to think, “Hey, what if I were a Trayvon Martin who was exactly like what these guys are saying he had to be like. That is, I’m Trayvon Martin, and rather than being freaked out by the creepy white guy who’s been following me and so forth, I’m a gangsta thug kinda guy who wants to kill this somvab*tch ‘cauz he dissed me. So what am I gonna do?
I think about it.
Well here he is, this fatso punky-a55 white guy. Lookin’ at me wrong. In his big ole truck that I wish I had stole last night. OK. He’s lookin at me. I’d like to kill him. But I don’t have a gun, don’t have a knife, don’t have a siwtchblade, don’t have any real good weapon. And here he comes, he’s parking his truck. I’ll just hide out in these bushes and wait until he’s either confused or he lets his guard down. Now lessee. Lessee now. OK, he’s walking around, talkin on the cell phone. Then he goes down there to that other street, now he’s comin’ back, and he’s headed back to his truck. Uh huh, if I’m gonna have a chance to jump him and maybe kill him, I better act pretty quick ’cause he’s high-tailin back to his truck. Uh huh, better be now. OK, what can I get to knock him out cold with so he can’t defend. ‘Cause maybe HE HAS A GUN, ’cause these pu55y-a55 white punks carry guns ’cause they ain’t man enough to try to take on somebody like me without a piece. Yep, probly has a gun. Anyway where I LIVE where all the criminals hang out, everybody has a gun ’cause otherwise it wouldn’t be safe to be victimizing folks all the time; they might fight back. Yeah. Darn, in case he has a gun, what should I do to make sure I get him first and be able to disarm him. Hmmmmm. Lemme see is there a rock or a brick or a big branch around here I can come out behind him and smack him in the head with or else creep around and stick that stick in his face and poke his eyes out real quick so I can kill him before he reaches for his gun. Lessee, I’ll have to find a weapon…
Yeah, I think if I were about to leap out and viciously assault this unknown white guy in the late model SUV, I’d want to think that he probably was armed and I’d want to make sure I had something to hit him with so the first clobber would bring him down and hopefully also unconscious, all at once. Either that or let me take off my shoes, use the shoelace, and grab him from behind and strangle his fat neck with my shoe-lace, something, because I don’t want to be facing this guy when he’s got a gun and I’ve got skittles.
Yeah, if I were a vicious murderous unarmed 17-year-old thug, I’d pick up a rock or a brick or something to shore up my side when I attacked George Zimmerman. That’s a plain fact.
Malisha – I get your salient point. However most black kids like trayvon are wannabes and not real anything. TM was just a scared little rabbit on his way to his temporary home just 4 doors away. He was using something called *fight or flight* or false-bravado to attempt to thwart what he precieved was an attack from GZ. I imagine Z must have appeared to be a child molester as he does fit the profile… stalking somebody in the dark and rainy evening. TM says ”do you have a problem [weirdo]?” Flight? To where? GZ and ostensibly Frank were right behind him right on his ”6”! I personally feel he had no choice but to fight. Too bad cowardly men like Z don’t feel the same way. They think guns are the answer and not the problem.
Shano, sorry to hear about your father, but yes, exposure to one of these psychopaths does teach how the others work. You learn “in the field,” as it were, and it’s a damn big field.
Not only are they not looking for the whole story, but their primary goal is to keep the SPD and the Seminole County prosecutor’s office from catching it with the Feds, so they’d rather have almost ANYTHING happen than have it come out, all of it come out, about how much was covered up, thrown out, undone, and tampered with that night. In fact, remember Serino’s comment to the press about two, three weeks after it had happened? HE HOPED IT WOULD ALL COME OUT. He wasn’t TELLING any of it but hoped it would all come out. I think that’s why he wanted to get OUT OF THE STATION HOUSE and back onto the beat until the Feds are done. He didn’t want to be in a position to have to either see or “not see” anything that went down.
Malisha – I always wondered why Chris requested to be returned to his old beat. That’s a demotion from gold badge (detective). I guess he was so disgusted with Bill Lee and his lack of leadership in this and other cases. Bill asked to step down and someone is subbing for him now. FBI SAIC Ibison has a whole cadre of field agents on this. They are interviewing everybody including private investigators. If there is something hiding under a rock somewhere they will find it. I hope the new evidence is really good today…
Let’s pray someone will point Ibison toward Taaffe (the “safety counselor”) soon if he isn’t already on his radar. Being that Frank’s son & daughter is DoD, they should turn this into a natsec situation and then they can invoke Patriot Act on FT – I just shudder to think what he’s up to right now. I know he’s having a brewsky w/ the Z’s right now in the ol’ safe house next to the airport. To be a fly on that wall…
Shano, “…guess all the physical evidence could have been messed up by the cops that night. But cant they still test the clothes? Retest the gun? Why dont they have a confirmation of the bullet coming from Georges gun?”
The clothes have been tested: the shirt and hoodie of Martin and the shirt and jacket of Zimmerman. The rest of the clothes of both are still in evidence but haven’t been tested. What they were able to prove about the gun is that it works. The bullet could have come from Zimmerman’s gun but it was too mangled to say with determination that it did.
If I were the O’Mara, I’d try to get Z to tell me why there was no gunshot residue on his jacket (except on the back of one arm). But maybe not. If Zimmerman is covering up, he would still be facing serious charges.. I’d try to get him to plead to manslaughter. The lack of gunshot residue on the front of his jacket is the best evidence that he didn’t do it, but all of his statements and his walk-thru says he did it.
If I were the prosecutor I’d put a good investigator on Taafe to find out more of what he knows. And get a DNA sample from him to see if its his DNA on the gun. But this isn’t Law and Order where they go looking for the whole story.
And Shano I really think with all this new evidence O’Mara should dump on Taaffe and get the focus off of his client. Someone should contact the FBI SAIC in Tampa and bring him up to speed with our Sherlock Holmes-esque analysis. They should at least monitor FT’s movements and turn on Carnivore near Frank’s central station (all in the interest of NatSec of course – wink wink)?
Yeah Shano. Just watching GZ trying to be so accommodating so cooperative… it’s a scam to win over the confidence of the mark… namely the police. It seems that Chris Serino is the only one not buying his crap. Must have been a bunko man huh?
Maybe O’Mara should stop focusing on SYG and start focusing on the lack of powder residue on George. Huh, I guess all the physical evidence could have been messed up by the cops that night. But cant they still test the clothes? Retest the gun? Why dont they have a confirmation of the bullet coming from Georges gun?
Malisha: I do not know how you can talk to those people, I wouldnt have the nerve. But having a father who was a pathological liar confirms everything you say. They feel no stress when telling the story they have fabricated, but lots of stress when confronted with any evidence that what they are saying is not true.
This is why I recognized what George was about almost immediately.
BettyKath, in the 90s I was involved in a case where child abuse had taken place on an army base and the CO of the particular alleged abuser (a full colonel and head of the marksmanship unit at Fort Benning GA) refused to allow a court martial OR a custody case to go forward in civil courts to establish protection for the kids. Four kids, the oldest two of which were twins who gave VERY credible evidence of abuse, that was corroborated by physical evidence in a civilian hospital and by three authorities including ARMY social worker and CID officer in charge in the Army itself. We put together a dossier and were in touch with the General in the Pentagon who was in charge of the entire Army Division of Social Work for dependants and blah blah blah blah. All of a sudden this Colonel calls me at home. Where did he get my number I ask? He says it was in the papers. (It was not.) I say, OK, what do you want? He says he wants to stop me from making a buffoon of myself. I say that’s very kind and thoughtful of him but no thanks, and then he goes on the offensive and gets very threatening. I decide to draw him out and say that I’ll debate him if he would like, and he comments that he can hear me typing as I speak and I say, yes, I am taking notes, because this call is important to me. HA HA HA we go at it. He challenges me to a televised debate; I accept; he backs out. He tells me to come down to Fort Benning to debate him and I say buy me a bus ticket and I’ll be there; he declines. He starts to give me all the evidence of his innocence. Here it is, in order:
1. He looked into his daughter’s vagina because she had a boo boo
2. He thought he better check his other daughters for boo boos because maybe it was an infection.
3. He passed a “lie detector test.”
I said, “Oh really, a polygraph?”
No, he answerd, a “voice stress analysis.”
Oh, I said, and did you tell that voice stress analysis examiner that you were looking for boo boos every other weekend for a couple of years?
He then got really mad, called me a “dominant woman,” and hung up.
Then he never got around to debating me. I DON’T THINK HE FELT ANY STRESS AT ALL when he was telling me his version of the events. I think people like him and George Zimmerman only feel stress (in their voice or elsewhere) when you CHALLENGE their version of reality, not when you let them TELL IT. In fact, them TELLING their own version of reality makes them feel good, makes them calm down, assures them that they are OK. They don’t recognize their version of reality as a self-centered lie because they see the world as all about THEM, so the rights of some other individual like Trayvon Martin don’t interfere with their composure.
O’Mara is now saying that this is about George’s constitutional right to bear arms. No it’s not. It’s about Trayvon Martin’s constitutional right not to be deprived of his life without due process.
GEORGE ZIMMERMAN HAD A RIGHT TO CARRY A GUN.
HE HAD NO RIGHT TO SHOOT ANYBODY WITH THAT GUN.
Are we sure that photo was taken before the cops showed up? I couldn’t find the picture with the time stamp.
I don’t think Zimmerman shot his gun at all! The only residue was on the upper BACK of the sleeve of his jacket. Nothing on the front. Nothing on his shirt.
I’m not sure of the blood. The movies always put a lot of blood out there for effect but I’m not sure it always happens. Did the autopsy say that major arteries were severed? If I remember correctly the bullet went from the heart to the lung. Think about a slo-mo of a balloon being hit. The impact point goes in, the splash is where the bullet goes out. I would expect the blood to follow the bullet into the lung. But I took biology in summer school so I wouldn’t have to take the lab and autopsy a worm or whatever they used.
Back to the flip of the coin voice stress test. The person conducting the test told him to think about the stress he felt when he was pulled over for speeding when he lied about that question. Well, it would have been just as valid for the other intentional lies. He mentioned three or four things that we tend to feel when pulled over. Z could have thought these things for those questions where he was supposed to be lying. And drugged out for the rest.
Malisha, that is what I always thought, that Martins blood should have been all over GZ. Shot through the heart, major arteries severed, how many seconds did it take Zimmermna to get out from under Trayvon? Maybe the hoodie absorbed most of the blood? Would there be splatter? ack to terrible to think about.
I really did think I heard two shots on the 911 call where the screams and the fatal shot is heard. Now, with this evidence, I am beginning to think that what happened was that one shot was fired from one gun (Zimmerman’s) and another shot was fired from another gun (never recovered at the crime scene). Trayvon Martin was described as being right next to Taaffe’s house before the “Sh*t, he ran” part of the narration. Being shot through the heart while still ON TOP of Zimmerman, Martin’s blood should have been all over ALL of Zimmerman’s torso at LEAST. And the “anonymous witness” who took the pictures of the bloody head at the scene of the crime before the police show up? Interesting. THAT person had not called 911 when he saw a prone figure on the ground, right? He spent his time in photography instead, right?
Shano, I had no idea it was this bad. It’s really disgraceful.
http://mxgm.org/report-on-the-extrajudicial-killings-of-110-black-people/
A human rights crisis confronts Black people in the United States. Since January 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 110 Black women and men. These killings are definitely not accidental or random acts of violence or the work of rogue cops.
As we noted in our April 6th, 2012 “Trayvon Martin is All of US!” Report (see http://mxgm.org/trayvon-martin-is-all-of-us/), the use of deadly force against Black people is standard practice in the United States, and woven into to the very fabric of the society.
The corporate media have given very little attention to these extrajudicial killings. We call them “extrajudicial” because they happen without trial or any due process, against all international law and human rights conventions. Those few mainstream media outlets that mention the epidemic of killings have been are unwilling to acknowledge that the killings are systemic – meaning they are embedded in institutional racism and national oppression.
On the contrary, nearly all of the mainstream media join in a chorus that sings the praises of the police and read from the same script that denounces the alleged “thuggery” of the deceased. Sadly, too many people believe the police version of events and the media’s “blame-the-victim” narratives that justify and support these extrajudicial killings.
However, we have studied each of the reports of these deaths — including false, implausible and inconsistent claims by police and witness reports that contradict police reports.
From this study and many peoples’ experience, we must reject the corporate media’s rationalization for the horrible fact that in the first six months of this year, one Black person every 40 hours was executed. This wanton disregard for Black life resulted in the killing of 13 year-old children, fathers taking care of their kids, women driving the wrong cars, as well as people with mental health and drug problems.
I think if it really looks like he’s going down, Zimmerman may decide to tell the whole story. He may have accepted responsibility b/c he thought it would make him a hero. That’s out the window. Now he has to come out of it with something less than 20-life. Maybe the car circling was Taafe’s contribution and Z just picked upon it.
The test results show that Z had gunshot residue on his hands but say that it could be for reasons other than firing the gun (proximity of a firing is sufficient).
The test on Ms clothing say it was a contact shot.
The test on Zs clothing shows gunshot residue ONLY on the upper back portion of the right sleeve of the jacket. No other residue on either the jacket or the shirt. (Ms on top of him, he does a contact firing and there is no residue on any of his clothing except the upper back of his sleeve?)
The test results are inconclusive as to whether or not the bullet came from Zs gun. Someone familiar with handguns can probably understand this report better than I can. (page 17)
Separate tests were done on the gun grip, trigger, slide and holster.
There was blood on the grip; not on the slide or the holster;
no test on the trigger.
The grip: DNA of two people, Z is one; M is eliminated; 2nd is unknown.
The trigger: not enough DNA for a test
The slide: not enough DNA except one male; neither M or Z is eliminated.
The holster: 3 individuals, one is Z; no determination for the other 2.
Ms fingernail scrapings: blood on one; only Ms DNA on them.
DNA tests were done on stains of the shirts, jackets but hard to draw any conclusions without knowing where the stains are. (pg 4+)
No tests whatever were done on the Ms cell phone. Zs cell was not submitted apparently.
They need to take another look for the guy in the white shirt, the one who actually fired the gun.
“SARI HORWITZ- The Washington Post (justice reporter) :..we saw the ballistics report that shows us exactly where Trayvon Martin was shot, the left part of his chest. We find out where the bullet went, through his heart, through his lung. It never left his body. We found out that there was close contact, that it was shot at very close range. It was like a contact shot…”
That’s from the Washington Post, right?
From the autopsy, though: INTERMEDIATE RANGE
These people saw Exhibit DMS 21A (DNA evidence) and others and give a full commentary on the findings. They say you can actually see the state’s evidence on their web site axiomamnesia(dot)com (Change (dot) to a period with no spaces)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmxlQCeGqs
Here is the Florida DNA evidence mentioned:
http://www.tampacriminaldefense.com/images/FDLE-Lab-report.pdf
ah yes, the Blackwater-Xe-Academi bloodlines. They sound so studious now, sort of like a college!
Yea, Shellie looks like a thug to me, lol. We are just as bad profiling, but at least we have some evidence they are crooks first.
Wouldn’t it be weird if Georges gun was on safety and Taaffe really shot him? George pulls his gun to shoot, but it doesn’t so Taffee shoots Martin instead.
Maybe Georges gun is out and Taffee comes upon them after hearing the calls for help and helps George. Interesting speculation.
I would have to hear more of these witnesses who seem to imply another actor – as well as the DNA on the gun, holster, etc…….
Yes Erik Prince (CEO of Academi) is usually called in to do executive protection for rich people. So the NRA has to protect its poster boy right? The New Black Panthers have a $1m bounty on GZ’s head (like they actually have $1million anything).
The speculation that there was a 3rd person is on the 911 tapes – the first one. A lady id’s a man in a white shirt. The DNA evidence is already out for the public. I stumbled on it when listening to two pundits talking about the DNA results. I think it was on YouTube. They had photocopies of the actual reports.
When you listen to the video I attached above of GZ and Shellie’s phone convo that got them in trouble, they mention the “safety counselor” a lot near the end. It sounds like they are talking about Frank Taaffe. He suggested a safe house NEAR the Sanford Intl Airport in direct violation of Judge Lester’s order to stay away from SIA. Then they were talking about getting into a hotel with a parking garage and using rental cars. They talk about being “on the road”.
I think FT followed Trayvon on foot in the rain behind GZ. I think FT was unarmed as it was spur of the moment stuff. I think TM was eventually on his knees execution style begging for his life as I think one eyewitness claimed (SPD doubts her testimony). I think GZ pointed the Kel-Tek 9mm semi-automatic pistol at TM but couldn’t pull the trigger as he hesitated. I think FT (angst-ridden over “those a55holes” burglarizing him) yanked the gun away from GZ (depositing his DNA on it) and then shot TM point blank in the heart, then ran away like a coward leaving GZ to face SPD.
I don’t think FT is stupid enough to bring his own gun when GZ was stupid enough to be carrying one in a peaceful neighborhood (i.e. no business reason to be carrying one?).
Just been informed Xe Services LLC changed their name to Academi. They are out of Virginia where GZ’s father was a Supreme Court judge. GZ will just love their babysitting him…