<p>Good point, romanigypsyeyes. Street signs are usually legible from inside a car.</p>
<p>mini, it is very strange that the police did nothing to investigate, except to test Trayvon’s body for drugs and alcohol, and nothing to identify his body and notify the family. At this point unnamed sources in the police department are leaking information about Zimmerman’s story and irrelevant information about Trayvon’s suspension from school.</p>
<p>The Sanford police chief who has stepped down has been in his job for less than a year. He was brought in to clean up after a scandal involving a coverup of a police officer’s son beating a black homeless man.</p>
<p>Yes, poetgrl, it’s hard to believe that we’re in 2012. If anyone had told me in the late 60’s that this would be happening now, I wouldn’t have believed it.</p>
<p>I live in the Orlando area, and work in the same county as where this happened. In the time I have lived in Florida, nothing has caught everyone’s attention like this (except Casey Anthony), and certainly not raised tension in the area to this degree.</p>
<p>On the local radio today, they read the report from the Orlando Sentinel detailing eyewitness accounts of Martin beating Zimmerman’s head into the dirt. They mentioned blood on his face. If you look at his mugshot, there seems to be no unsightly scars or blood that would indicate that his face was beaten into the ground. Also, the girlfriend’s phone call with Martin don’t seem to corroborate with this story. I’m just confused at this point about how the two scenarios connect, and which one is true.</p>
<p>Also some details that I see people frequently overlooking: Martin was not a small kid by any means. He played football at a Miami area high school, which means he would have to be pretty strong, and probably able to take on Zimmerman. The picture they show of him in his Hollister shirt was from years ago. Also, the neighborhood he was shot in was not shady by any means. Apparently there was recent crime in the apartment complex, but that is common for anywhere in Florida. The complex was very middle class, and away from the poorer areas of Sanford.</p>
<p>Nope. Not believable in the least. This case has been like a knife in my heart, because it punches all my buttons as the mother of a young black man. My S was stopped by police (apparently for WWB) when a resident in our neighboring subdivision reported him as as a “suspicious character walking down the street.” At the time, S was about 17 years old. It was a late spring or early summer evening, about an hour before sunset. He had gone for a walk to clear his head. My S tends to take lots of walks, especially when he’s feeling troubled or depressed. His preferred spot is a local nature park, which should surprise no one given the fact that he is an Eagle Scout, and at one point, expressed an interest in becoming a national park ranger. At the time, though, he didn’t have a driver’s license, and with the nature preserve being located approx. 6 miles away, had to content himself with staying local. </p>
<p>As he was walking along the main thoroughfare of the subdivision immediately adjacent to ours, he looked up and noticed a middle aged woman glowering at him from her front porch. S told me he wondered "what’s that lady’s problem?"He had had some things on his mind that he was trying to sort out, so he dismissed her from his thoughts and kept walking. A few minutes later, the street ended at one of two man-made lakes in that subdivision (we have a couple of those in our neighborhood as well), so he turned around and headed back in the direction of home. On the way back, he noticed the woman was still standing on her porch, and was still glaring at him. He gave her a quizzical look and kept walking. At about a quarter of a mile from our house, he heard a short siren wail behind him, and turned to see a police cruiser following him. The cop motioned for him to stop, and he complied. The Officer got out of his car and told S someone had called to report a “suspicious character” walking around in her neighborhood, and that S fit the description. He was asked what he had been doing on XYZ street, and so explained that he had merely been out for a walk, and was now headed home. He did not have any form of ID on him, but he told the officer his name and address. The officer told him to stay put while he called something in on the radio in his squad car. After a while, the police officer told him he was free to go, but followed him in his cruiser until S walked into our house. </p>
<p>It was a year and a half later when S told me this had happened. He said, “now I know what they mean when they say walking while black.” I just thank God this woman hadn’t been someone like George Zimmerman.</p>
<p>The mug shot was not taken on the night of Trayvon Martin’s killing. It was taken when George Zimmerman was arrested for “assaulting a police officer,” charges which were apparently later dropped. Trayvon Martin did not have a criminal record and had never been arrested.</p>
<p>erhswimming, I don’t think the photo of Zimmerman is a mug shot. He was not detained or arrested. And as far as I know there are no photos of his face from the night of the shooting. </p>
<p>poetsheart, that’s an awful story. It makes me so sad that black parents have this extra layer of worry about their sons (and husbands and fathers).</p>
<p>Yes, there should be a record of the alleged cuts, or whatever, he had on his face. Given that this police department had already been involved in a coverup of a racist crime, they should have investigated and photographed and bagged and tagged and called all the witnesses and crossed all the t’s and dotted every single solitary i. Because, honestly, did they think nobody would notice?</p>
<p>Around here, if a police officer shoots somebody in the line of duty, the investigate MORE carefully. MORE. </p>
<p>Even if he had felt compelled to get out of the car to read the street sign (which I agree is ridiculous) – that does not explain his decision to PURSUE the kid. He says on the 911 call, quite clearly, that he is chasing him. At that moment, he forfeited his claim to self-defense.</p>
<p>No, neighborhood watch members are not supposed to be substitute cops. They are most explicitly not to try to apprehend “suspects,” or use lethal force. They’re supposed to be the eyes and ears of law enforcement, not the guns.</p>
<p>Nope, poetgrl, he walked away WITH his gun and his carry permit. Because according to this law, there was no crime.</p>
<p>That’s the problem with these “stand your ground” laws (and they’re in 21 states); it’s just about impossible to break them. The cops arrive; the shooter says “I felt threatened”; the only person who could contradict him is dead. Case closed. Incredibly, that’s how this law is DESIGNED to work.</p>
<p>It’s happened hundreds of times in stand your ground states. The only difference here is that there are witnesses. Zimmerman testifies on the 911 dispatch that he was in pursuit. And Trayvon himself testifies that he was being pursued, via the girl on the phone.</p>
<p>I think they must have. And in reality, this story did fly completely under the radar until about two weeks after the incident, when it began to explode via facebook and other social media. I had been lying in bed at night, heartsick over this shooting immediately after having read about it on my facebook feed. I just kept thinking about that poor boy, walking back home with his innocuous treats (which he paid for like any other 7 eleven customer that night), talking with his girlfriend on his cellphone, and looking forward to watching the 2nd half of a March Madness Basketball game. How long had he been oblivious to the watching eyes of George Zimmerman, a man who had already determined that he was “up to no good” and “on drugs?” How could he have known that he had only a few minutes more to live? I can’t imagine the pain his parents must be feeling right now. If it happened to my S, I think I’d be ready to just lay down and die, because my life wouldn’t be worth much of anything after something like that.</p>
<p>Even a police officer hands his weapon over after he shoots someone. Even if it really was self-defense, even if he was being shot at. He hands over his weapon, and there is an investigation.</p>
<p>that they didn’t even collect the weapon to run ballistics and make sure it had never been used in any other shootings is unbelievable to me. Mostly, I’m just reading this thread and shaking my head.</p>
<p>Poetsheart, we’d be sad to lose you. I’m glad the mother just refused to back down. Good for her, but I don’t know if I’d have the same energy, either, to be honest.</p>
<p>How is Florida’s law that much different from California’s law (see links in post #67)?</p>
<p>In any case, the police can (and should) certainly investigate whether the claim of being an innocent victim of an attempted or threatened felony stands up. Note section 776.041 of the Florida laws. It looks more like lazy or negligent police work, rather than the law itself, that may let the incident go without thorough investigation.</p>
<p>I know, poetgrl, it’s unbelievable. But the police on scene have the authority to make the determination that it was self-defense, and if it’s self-defense then there was no crime and thus no need for investigation. There are no rebuttal witnesses, because there are rarely witnesses at all. It’s the shooter’s word against no one’s word. And how does a prosecutor prove that the shooter didn’t feel threatened?</p>
<p>These things don’t happen in a vacuum, though. Stand-your-ground states are disproportionately in the south, and the victims are disproportionately black. And let’s just say that the Sanford police department doesn’t have a stellar record vis a vis its black citizens.</p>
<p>Tonight, in the news, there was a report that forensics has been called in to determine whose voice in the 911 call is heard, calling for help. Martin’s family thinks it’s their son.</p>