Zimmerman Found Not Guilty

[Wayne Goodwin]

What are your Thoughts ?

[grammyk]

Exactly, Lifesighs!  And yes, Frenchy, black parents DO tell their children not to call the police because they know their child will never be presumed innocent.  

And, Frenchy, Zimmerman was taken in for questioning but no arrest occurred for about 6 weeks when the public outcry forced them to do it.  Otherwise, I am sure this would have been just another death of a young black man that would have gotten swept under the rug in Sanford, as many others had.  There was a long history between law enforcement and African Americans in Sanford.

[frenchy]

no thats not true grammy , he was arrested and held for 5 hours on the night of the shootin ..he was released but had to come back the next day for the walk thru of the crime scene .. and make himself available whenever the sanford police wanted to question him further which was numerous times .. but he always cooperated with the police thru the whole investigation and never lawered up till angela cory charged him with 2nd degree murder .. and i've heard that said about the sanford police too .. can you give me some links so i can see if that story checks out ?? 

and my last thought on this would be that because black people are afraid of the police they would rather beat someone up than to call them ?? if thats a true statement then this is a much bigger problem than just zimmerman and treyvon and needs to be addressed right away .. why has cnn or msnbc or even faux news not mentioned somethin like this ?? cause if thats true and could be cooberated then zimmerman should have been found not guilty because of treyvons fear of the police .. and treyvon if he had lived should have been found not guilty of aggravated assault and battery .. cause it would all be the fault of the police ..  

[grammyk]

Frenchy, I know you just don't understand that life is VERY different for people of color.  There is no point in discussing this with you because  instead of trying to understand why and how that is true, you want to go off on this case again.  Problem for young black men is that they're assumed by many to be guilty of something even if they're just walking along and if they run, well that's looked on as a sign of guilt also.  Talk about your Catch 22.  Let's just leave it that you don't know what it would be like to live in another color skin (none of us can) and I don't think you're willing to consider this without being sarcastic and dismissive.  We can just agree to disagree. 

[frenchy]

grammy i wasn't bein dismissive or sarcastic .. do you know anything about me ?? i grew up in new york in the redfern projects .. look it up and then tell me i dont know anything about black people .. i was surrounded by them .. i was a lot younger then but i don't remember anybodies mom or dad tellin their kids never call the police .. of course back then we didn't have cell phones and some people didn't even have home phones ( after all it was the projects ) from there i ended up in elizabeth new jersey at the foot of the goethals bridge in mravlag manor .. another housing project . you can look that one up too and yeah i know it looks like i spelled it wrong but thats the way its spelled ..

you know grammy i do try to look at situations as they really are and if i think the black guy is gettin the shaft i'll say so .. i'm not a bigot .. not even a little bit ..i'm not afraid to stick my neck out for a black guy if i think he's right and i'd fight with anyone just as hard for him as i am now for zimmerman .. but i wouldn't do it just because he's black .. sometimes i may be able to sympathise with him and understand why this or that may have happened .. and i can see goin a little lienient too . but a free pass ?? well that depends on the situation ..  

[grammyk]

Thank you, Perri!

[frenchy]

exactly chief.. that was my point .. everybody wants to say this was a racist thing that zimmerman did and i don't think it was .. if the klu klux klan came out in support of zimmerman i think it would just make relations between black and white people so much worse and i'd have to tell them to shut the fuck up .. this is not their moment .. i don't want to hear about white supremacy either .. its not about either of these issues .. i'll admit that at some point there have been some racist things that have happened here in the usa and i'm not proud or in favor of them in any way .. but there is black racism too .. and maybe some of it is deserved to a degree .. the world can be an unfair place .. but to try and make this a cause without knowin all the facts isn't gonna help .. i still remember the o.j. trial and all the circumstantial evidence they had on him .. to be honest i thought he may have done it but i wasn't there that night so i can't say for sure so i let the jury decide that one and once it was over it was over for me .. i figured if he really did do it then if there is a god in heaven he can settle the score way better than i can .. but zimmerman is different .. he never denied what he did .. and all the evidence backs up what he said .. he could have clammed up when they arrested him and asked for a lawyer but he didn't .. he spoke freely about what happened and really had no time to make up some cock and bull story .. so they wanted a trial .. they got one .. in this country you're innocent until proven guilty and they couldn't prove him guilty .. so now they want to have him tried again .. even tho you can't try someone for the same crime twice .. so , lets make up some new charges of him bein a racist and we'll try him that way .. even tho they found him not guilty of all the charges already .. the fbi couldn't make a case so they turned it over to the state .. they tried to say the sanford prosecutors office was racist cause they wouldn't try him because they said they couldn't win this.. so they got the governor to appoint a special prosecutor who came up with murder 2 and they lost .. also lost the manslaughter charge and all the other lessor charges they added on at the last minute .. so now lets throw it back to the federal government and let them have a whack at it... again... even tho they said they didn't have a case the last time .. this is really a sad story all the way around . if treyvon hadn't attacked zimmerman he'd still be here .. if zimmerman wasn't gettin the shit beat outta him and scared for his life he wouldn't have shot treyvon .. so now zimmerman gets to live , but at what cost ?? what does he do now ?? he is a marked man and one of them black panthers or panther sympathizers is gonna see him someday and either take him out or try to and he'll shoot them .. and then back to court we'll all go again .. its like he's a victim the first time for callin in a suspicious person and gettin beat almost to death for it .. he's a victim the 2nd time for havin to stand trial for defendin his life .. and he'll be a victim the third time because he has to spend him life in hidin .. and a 4th time if someone tries to kill him and succeeds or doesn't and he kills them and then it'll be a 5th time cause he'll have to stand trial again .. there's plenty of racism in this country to go around on both sides but i don't think this is one of them .. unless of course you want to take rachel jenteals testimony when she said that trayvon said zimmerman was a creepy white ass cracker .. that was the only racist remark i heard in the whole trial .. callin somebody an asshole or a punk is a deragatory term to use for sure .. but it can apply to an irishman or a polock or a jew or a german or .. anybody .. white or black . but a cracker ?/ well far as i know thats a racist term that applies to white people only .. to be honest i'm not sure i believe jenteal or not tho . but i did see an interview on anderson cooper with treyvons stepmom and she didn't deny treyvon would use that term . she just said well when you're young you say things cause all the people around you say them ..     

[frenchy]

he didn't claim stand your ground pat .. he claimed self defense . not the same thing .. i'm not crazy about the stand your ground law either and maybe they'll do some kind of fine tunin to it .. exactly what i'm not sure , i guess we'll have to wait and see about that .. but stand your ground has nothin to do with this zimmerman case .. he claimed self defense .. and he more than defended himself pat .. he was the aggressor from start to finsh till zimmrman shot him..zimmerman never threw a punch .. have you listened to the 911 tapes ?? and i hear that said too that if treyvon was white it wouldn't have happened .. well if you're beatin the livin shit outta somebody and they're screamin on a 911 tape in the backround like they're on fire if you're white and you get shot i dont think this case would have been any different .. except it probably wouldn't have gotten all this publicity because it would be two white guys and one shot the other .. a lot like chicago now .. everyday some black guy shoots another black guy .. some days its 4 or 5 .. does it make the news ?? maybe a little bit .. but not to the degree that this trial did .. why arent the black panthers marchin up in chicago to try and stop all the black on black crime ?? or al sharpton , or jesses jackson ?? i could get behind them for that ..thats where they need to be .. but instead they make a big thing out of this ?? why ?? cause this gets em in the national spotlight and the stuff up there don't ..  

[grammyk]

The fact is that two people knew what happened that night and one is dead.  Leaves the other one to make the story.  Trayvon was not the aggressor; he was being followed; if Zimmerman hadn't followed him, none of this would have happened.  None of us know who threw the first punch or shove!!  If you were 17 and someone was following you and you felt threatened, what would you do?  Not defend yourself?  I repeat, none of us will ever know what really happened. 

Shouldn't we use this as an opportunity to explore the huge divide that has been shown up by this case?  For instance, let's look at the statistics that prove out why black parents feel it necessary to have The Talk with their boys.  What history has brought about those feelings?  I have heard a lot of statistics recently; I will have to go look for the original sources to post and that will probably take me a while.  But just to start - take a look at Eugene Robinson's op-ed in the Washington Post that Lifesighs referenced above.  And what about the Florida (black) woman who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for shooting into the air to hold off her abusive husband?  She never even shot at him; there was a history of domestic violence there and "stand your ground" certainly did not work for her in Florida.  

[Wayne Goodwin]

Looks to me that Trayvon became the aggressor when he turn around to confront Zimmerman . He should have just went on home ...

[grammyk]

Again, that is Zimmerman's uncontested version because Trayvon Martin is dead.  And I ask again, what 17 year old would not defend themself in a situation where they were being stalked?

[Wayne Goodwin]

I wouldn't i would just walk away ...

[grammyk]

Thank you, Patricia.