A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.
In addition, apparently Trayvon Martin had injuries to his knuckles. A clean case of self-defense would hinge on who the instigator was, but with this kind of evidence, it’s difficult to see how the prosecution still intends to support second degree murder. Even if Zimmerman was initially the aggressor, the most this would be is manslaughter.
But the angry mob had to be appeased, didn’t it? We should be ashamed of ourselves as a country for believing what the media said about this case, and more importantly the media should be triply ashamed for practically lying the country along the way to major urban riots.
And what of the other “white hispanic”, Daniel Adkins? These ‘justice seekers’ fill me with the urge to deficate.
Watch, DOJ and FBI will bring Zimmerman up on “hate crime” charges.
Crump needs to be able to file wrongful death lawsuits in order to be paid off from the settlements.
If GZ and O’Mara succeed in having the Florida charges thrown out at the immunity hearing, Crump does not get to file civil lawsuits and will not get paid. George Zimmerman will be Immune from any lawsuits based on Florida law. Therefore, Crump cannot file a wrongful death lawsuit.
So, Crump will need to have the Holder DOJ file Federal hate crime charges. Then Crump can file his wrongful death lawsuits and get paid. Holder does not have to have a case, and does not need to win his criminal case. Crump can file his civil case if GZ is indicted by the feds.
Crump has invested a lot in this tragedy. He will expect to get his money back via the wrongful death lawsuits.
As usual, follow the money and you will find the motivations.
The immunity also does not apply in federal court. Even if Holder does not bring charges, Crump can still file a federal civil rights lawsuit in federal court.
No, he can’t. 776.032 states Immunity from Civil prosecection and Civil Action.
This is why Corey said in her speech, she couldn’t prosecute for Trayvon’s civil rights, but did mention numerous times, Justice for Trayvon.
This case has always been about money. It’s why Mr. Crump sealed Trayvon’s school records. It’s why Crump made up the story about Dee-Dee.
Angry mob? media should be ashamed?
Does “mall ninjary†ring a bell?
http://www.pagunblog.com/2012/03/14/mall-ninjary-in-florida-shooting/
I guess someone is eating crow then.
@Dave
I still think George Zimmerman is a mall ninja who could have avoided the whole incident by using common sense avoidance tactics. But *legally*, I don’t think he’s a murderer or even a criminal at all. And yes, I do believe that Trayvon was a violent thug type who attacked him first and that GZ was legally justified in shooting him – it’s just that I know that I would not have been in a position to get attacked in the first place if it were me instead of Zimmerman. I would have just called the cops (maybe) and just kept driving. I keep as much distance from “gangstaz” as I possibly can, and with good reason.
And, to be fair to Sebastian, the media did A LOT to distort the facts, and since we were all getting the facts from the media at the time, it’s only reasonable to conclude that this was mall-ninjary–because that’s what the media set out to make things look like.
Now that the real facts have come out, it looks a lot less like mall-ninjary to me. Sure, there’s still certain elements that we should probably take from this, and say “Don’t do what Zimmerman did”, but overall, I don’t think he did anything blatantly “mall-ninjary”, now that all the facts are in.
So much for the notion that Z pulled his gun and shot M with no physical threat/contact on the part of M.
I am hoiping the “official” autopsy will help show whether there was a probable struggle for the gun: at the least, the angle of the bullet’s path should be interesting.
I am pretty sure Florida does not allow juries to consider lesser offenses in their verdicts. If presented with Murder-2 they have to evaluate against Murder-2 and not come up with Manslaughter on their own. So it’s a one-shot deal.
The prosecutor aimed high.
As for Mall-Ninja claims, I still say following a person who only “looked suspicious” is in that territory. I don’t want people following me because I don’t look the way they want me to look. Call the police if you must, but don’t tail me like someone who wishes he were a cop. Hint: if you wish you were a cop while doing something, then you are a mall ninja and should step back into reality.
What we’ll hear from the blood dancers is that the doc and Brietbart can’t be trusted because they’re biased. Ignoring the fact of those same individuals accepted w/o question any and every report attacking Zimmerman and showing Martin as a 12 yr old.
Since the day the 2nd degree murder charges were in place, my biggest worry was in Zimmerman’s charges being dropped and the riots that could possibly occur. I have yet to meet one black person who does not seriously believe that Martin was racially murdered. That scares me, since I have followed all the facts and watched all the media stir this melting pot. It is my hope that Zimmerman’s lawyers can sue the news media that disparaged him and he makes millions of dollars. He will need that to relocate to another country and live his life in perpetual hiding.
I think we can count on riots.
As for Zimmerman himself, being a wanna-be cop and using tragically bad judgement does not necessarily make him a murderer. There are only two people who knew the exact sequence of events and one of them is dead. The evidence tends to support Zimmerman’s version but I wouldn’t want to be on that jury.
Facts wont matter to some in this case, just like the Brawley case, it just wont matter. But, thankfully, history, eventually comes to record events in a more accurate light.
I first must stipulate that from what I know at present, I’d have to acquit Zimmerman if I were on that jury.
That said, I’d be holding my nose while doing it. I join those people commenting above who believe Zimmerman was a mall ninja who was looking for trouble, and found it. But from my own experiences, as soon as I heard that his father was an ex-judge, I said “Bingo, a fix is going to be in here somewhere, and we’ll never know the whole truth.”
I immediately found it suspicious when Zimmerman went into hiding, “in fear for his life,” and didn’t return to public view until weeks after his wounds — if any — would have healed beyond possibility of impartial assessment. And now, more than three months after the fact, “evidence” from his doctor emerges, when the extent of his injuries had been a major topic as soon as this story came to public light.
Regarding the observation that “I have yet to meet one black person who does not seriously believe that Martin was racially murdered.” I would observe that I have encountered relatively few proponents of “Castle Doctrine” (present company excepted) that have not been prepared to believe any claim that would prove Zimmerman innocent. That is the nature of partisan argument in defense of self-interest.
His father is a retired Virginia magistrate. How the father transferred whatever influence he had that state to Florida, which is teeming with retired bigwigs from the rest of the country, is beyond my imagination.
As for the chronology, I believe no one outside of the area heard about it until weeks after the event, when the PR/agitator types recruited by Martin’s family got started and rounded up the lynch mob. I believe that’s when he understandably went into hiding … but by then there would be little physical evidence of the fight left. What counts, in the initial investigation and in court, is what was observed at the time. This “evidence” as you put it starts with the police officer who arrested him, who I’ll note is one of the ones Zimmerman tried to get sanctioned for police force’s … disinterest in the case of the son of a cop’s beating of a homeless black man (along with another who was one of the first responders). Which of course strongly cuts against your influence theory.
As for him being a “mall-ninja”, well, with 20-20 hindsight, certainly he should have stayed in his car and all that, despite his community being “under siege” (the specifics of the crime situation at the time have been well covered in previous discussions here). While I certainly follow the avoidance approach myself for my own and local reasons (e.g. you have to assume Missouri is a duty to retreat state), I haven’t heard anyone advocating this explain how it avoids the decivilization of our streets and neighborhoods.
Generally speaking, I’m fine with neighbor looking after neighbor. Had Zimmerman seen Martin breaking into a house, and trying to make an escape, I would not have blamed Zimmerman for tailing him to be able to direct police to where he might be when they arrive. It’s not something I would do, unless it was my shit he was making off with, but the motivations are noble, at least.
In a better world it would not only be acceptable to look after your neighborhood, it would be expected. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where every snowflake is precious, and if you shoot a little snowflake, because, for instance, he jumped on top of you and started bashing your head into concrete, society is going to lynch you in the media, threaten riots, and generally fail to act like rational adults.
But even in a more ideal world, confronting people who are merely suspicious is really best left to the police.
We can only have the better world if we fight for it. Letting other determine what is right in opposition to our beliefs leads to a worse world.
I don’t disagree. But step one is to make people understand the necessity of looking out for their own safety and not depending on the state to always be there when needed. You have to unwind a lot of bad ideas that have infused their way into the body politic before you get to the core of this particular rotten onion.
True, true. Some people might not be able to handle the consequences, and its best to let them know of the potential ones.
What? I don’t get the mall ninja thing at all.
He saw somebody suspicious and called the cops. There have been a raft of burglaries and he was the Neighborhood watch captain. He felt a duty to keep an eye on this person. He didn’t confront him, he didn’t chase him to confront him. He wanted to keep an eye on eye. That’s not a mall ninja. Too often people aren’t willing to get involved, and that leads to crimes being committed. That’s bad.
And you find it suspicious that in a racially charged incident the guy goes in to hiding? After being threatened by people? That’s crazy. There have been beatings of white people in other states where the perpetrators claimed it was for Trayvon. Like the Virginia newspaper beatings. His LAWYER was threatened. I would find it more suspicious if he didn’t go into hiding.
And your implied theory about fixing the injuries is just crazy as well. The police on the scene noted the injuries. The EMT on the scene noted the injuries. Witnesses noted the injuries. There are injuries on video. There are pictures of injuries. This evidence of the doctor was from the next day. It only came to light because of discovery.
I don’t get you.
The big issue for me is that, based on the information we know now, Zimmerman never, at any point, witnessed Martin commit a crime, or had good cause to believe Martin was about to commit a crime, other than he was black and there had been black persons in the neighborhood that had committed crimes recently. Now my opinion on this could change if evidence comes out suggesting Martin was, indeed, behaving in a very strange manner.
But under these circumstances, I think it’s just really wise to leave it to cops, who are better equipped to handle suspicious people who could turn violent if confronted. If the guy gets away, he gets away. He may not have been up to anything anyway.
It’s just not in my instincts, as someone who’s generally pretty dedicated to staying out of other people’s business, to grasp even calling in the cops, let alone trying to track the guy on foot… unless it turns out the behavior Martin was exhibiting was really erratic, or easily misinterpreted as criminal intent.
[…] unless it turns out the behavior Martin was exhibiting was really erratic, or easily misinterpreted as criminal intent.
We have exactly one (surviving) eyewitness to his behavior, and this is what he said at the time to the police dispatcher:
This is from the Mother Jones supplied transcript, who’s accuracy I’ve confirmed by listening to the call. Here’s a lot more immediately following from the above; I’m quoting in whole (this is of course where NBC edited his words…), there are more details Zimmerman cites:
After that all there is is the dispatcher getting info and Zimmerman implicitly stating he’s lost sight of Martin.
I’ve listened to that a few times, and his description just never really crossed the threshold for me for reasonably suspecting someone is up to no good. At least to the point where I wouldn’t just wait for the cops.
That’s because he “tells, not shows”, violating a rule of exposition that’s not so relevant in an “911” call (he called the non-emergency number). We have to trust—or not—his interpretations of Martin’s actions, unless of course he goes into more detail. Which I suspect will never happen since that can’t help him and can only hurt him, especially with a media willing to fabricate quotes by all manner of editing (NBC wasn’t the only one).
You’re falling into the media narrative trap again. From the audio of Zimmerman’s call it’s apparent that he wasn’t really sure if Martin was black or not until later during the call, and there’s no actual evidence that race played any part whatsoever in this.
Even if he did suspect Martin was black, there is still nothing to indicate that that is why Zimmerman was suspicious. Martin was not a usual resident of the gated community, so he would have been a stranger to Zimmerman. He was supposedly walking around in the rain, staring at or into the houses, and he matched the (I assume limited) description of people involved in recent burglaries in that neighborhood.
Together, that all seems like enough reason to call the police, and possibly keep the person in sight so as to be able to point the police toward him when they get there.
Let’s not forget that our white, cross tht out, Hispanic, no cross that out “mixed ethnic white Hispanic 1/8 black shooter”….yes, I’ll just stop there.
I noticed the racial stuff toes down dramatically in the media when it was revealed Zimmerman is an 1/8th black himself.
“His father is a retired Virginia magistrate. How the father transferred whatever influence he had that state to Florida, which is teeming with retired bigwigs from the rest of the country, is beyond my imagination.”
Beyond your imagination perhaps, but not beyond my experience.
A promise commits me to not elaborate, but I know first-hand of a federal beef that was fixed by a local Justice of the Peace picking up the telephone and calling the county party chairman, who picked up the phone and called the state party chairman, who picked up the phone and called the national party chairman, after which the President of the United States picked up the phone and the beef no longer existed; as Orwell would have said, it had never existed.
Needless to say that could not be proven today, because no part of it was documented, and what might prove that the beef had even existed went into the memory tubes.
In this example the fix was altruistic; justice was obtained for a penniless “little guy” without resort to expensive court rooms. But I don’t doubt at all a phone call saying, “My ninja son was just involved in a dumbass shoot that’s going to look really bad, and I don’t want him to go to jail” could still accomplish something similar for someone who knew what number to dial.
A long time friend is Texas has a similar story, of her father got in trouble with bookmaking, and a call chain similar to the one you described, ultimately resulting in a call to LBJ, resulted in the trouble mysteriously disappearing. So it does indeed happen.
I’ve heard of a similar situation (DUI) that was taken care of by a famous Gov.
“. . .a call to LBJ, resulted in the trouble mysteriously disappearing.
Bingo! Perhaps there was something to be said for LBJ, Vietnam notwithstanding.
Like the old saying in sports: it is not about who started the fight, it is about what the ref saw. Maybe Zimmerman started it, but so far there isn’t a lick of evidence to support it. The jury will have to make the call on what they know.
For some head splitting ignorance on the case, check this site out.
I particularly love comment number 97.
To some degree, they have a point. If you believe the family’s side of things, then Martin’s knuckle injuries are self-defense. The problem is, there’s no evidence to support the family’s claim that we’ve seen. There’s also now ample evidence that even if Zimmerman did initiate the confrontation, than when he was on the ground having his head bashed into concrete, he could have regained faultlessness in the encounter, depending on the nature of the engagement. If Zimmerman had threatened with a gun, then probably not. But there’s no evidence of that.
The real problem in this case is that the vast majority of people are ignorant of the law, and how the justice system works. They had no reason to pay attention to these matters before the media shouted “injustice!” Now that they are, they bring their ignorance to the table of how these things used to work, and make stupid assumptions about the law.
Zimmerman wouldn’t have regained the right of self-defense if he’d initiated the violence and as part of that or later had been the first to escalate it to the lethal level.
Florida law is interesting here, that an initiator of less than lethal violence can regain the right to self-defense if the other party illegitimately escalates it to lethal force; to my recollection that’s not a standard part of state lethal force law (then again, since I’m not the sort to initiate violence at any level it’s not something I’ve studied).
And yeah, it’s a pity that people feel entitled to such momentous opinions while being grossly ignorant of the most basic facts, which are trivially available on the web. On the other hand, that’s bourgeois truth, which many of them have been told by the schools and our other betters is irrelevant, only revolutionary truth counts. And that of course is what the narrative is all about.
I keep going back to one thing. If you look at the transcript of the 911 call, you will notice when the dispatcher tell GZ not to follow. GZ says “OK”. After he says ok, he spends the next 2 minutes talking to the dispatcher about such things as his name, address, phone number, and where he can meet the cops when they arrive. I keep thinking about how long 2 minutes can be in this type of situation. I also keep thinking what was TM doing in those 2 minutes while GZ was engaged in conversation with dispatch. What decisions did TM make that put him on a course to meet with GZ again. If TM ran, as stated in transcriped, he could have run to the home he was staying at and been alive today. I don’t know cause I was not there, but both parties made bad decisions that night. I do know, though, that punching someone in the face can be seen as assult. I would like to know how it came to be that after 2 minutes of separation between TM and GZ, they came together again. I think that is the real case.