This piece was originally presented at Hudson Valley Forums and is used by permission of the author.
I happen to be the sort who is always up for a good debate on just about any subject. I consider myself to be a pretty logical person and adept at cutting through the proverbial BS, especially when it comes to the garbage the mainstream media cranks out. So it's no surprise to those that know me, that I might jump into a conversation or two regarding the case and media story of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
Shooting of Trayvon Martin
What I find most shocking though, downright alarming even, is that I have now lost SIX friends over this story. For my simply daring to question the media version, and suggesting that perhaps, just perhaps, the EVIDENCE in the case should be considered before jumping on the lynch-mob bandwagon for vigilante justice against the shooter.
The perverse hold that the propaganda machine has over America is apparent, more and more each day as we see stories like this sow division between friends. Now keep in mind here, that I have nothing to gain personally from discussing the case, and to my knowledge none of my friends have any direct relation to the case either. So basically, I have lost 6 friends simply because they were deluded by a media frenzy.
In a more logical world, friends are able to debate any issue, even with great zeal and passion, but still remain friends no matter what the outcome of the debate. After all, how boring would friendships be if we were all drones who knew all of the same things, and agreed on everything. Examining different points of view is how each of us learns new things, to broaden our horizons, but to tell a friend that you will or will not be friends with them based upon their opinion of a shooting that happened on the other side of the country is absolutely ridiculous.
No, it's worse than that. It is symptomatic of the death grip that the media and the-powers-that-be have over the thought processes of society at large, and how easily manipulated the people truly are in order to sell out their friendships for media propaganda and falsehoods. If they will sell out their friends to be "politically correct" they will have no problem selling out our rights either. And that, I believe, is what really rests at the center of this case, just like the Casey/Caylee Anthony case, just like the debate surrounding drug testing of welfare recipients. These issues are in the news and spread across social media in order to soften up society, and leave the masses DEMANDING that the government take away our rights.
So what really is my opinion about this case anyway? Perhaps you are reading this, wondering if my friends might have been justified to turn their back on me. Maybe I am ignorant, or a bigot, unfit to share their company or a spot on their Facebook wall. Well, I'll go ahead and add this supplemental here to articulate what my thoughts on the matter really are.
TRAYVON MARTIN SHOOTING STORY, SORTING FACT FROM FICTION
One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when I first heard of the Trayvon Martin shooting, was to question why this particular case was suddenly garnering national attention. Skimming the backwaters of niche-blogs and alternative news sources I see horrendous injustices committed each and every day, but society is generally content to rabble along blissfully unaware of how bad things have really gotten in this country. Whether it be issues of poverty, violence, corruption, the systematic dismantling of the last vestiges of our precious Constitution, society at large is too busy watching American Idol to be bothered. So why now, why this case, and not cases like the
BART shooting where the officer got off with a slap on the wrist?
Why not any of these cases...
Injustice Everywhere
...or the untold number of cases that are routinely swept under the rug every single day in this country? There is an agenda being carried out here, that has little to do with the death of a young black man on a street in Florida. Whatever the agenda actually is, we may not see yet for some time, or until after it is too late judging by how easily manipulated people have been by this story.
So let's look at the case itself now. A sanctioned neighborhood watchman (George Zimmerman) reports what he believes to be a suspicious person (Treyvon Martin) to police. The watchman has been credited by the homeowner association with catching a thief on one occasion, in this same gated community where police get roughly 400 calls per year, a substantial portion of those reports coming from watchman Zimmerman. In the year before this incident, the neighborhood had seen eight burglaries, nine thefts and one other shooting.
This is the audio recording of the conversation between Zimmerman and police, which details his observations...
Zimmerman call to police
It is important to note here, that Martin had every right to be in the neighborhood visiting his father. He also had every right to walk slowly in the rain if he so chose to, and to peer at other houses in the neighborhood as he is said to have been doing, returning from the local store with a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced-tea. Equally important to recognize though, is Zimmerman's right, and even his responsibility as neighborhood watch captain, to report anything out of the ordinary and to observe the activities of suspicious persons. At that point, Zimmerman had no way of knowing that Martin had a legitimate reason to be in the neighborhood, which is of course why he called police to investigate further.
Keep in mind here too, that suspicion has nothing to do with guilt. Which is why we don't allow lynch-mob justice in America in the first place. Anything out of the ordinary can be cause for further inquiry, but that does not necessarily mean that there is in fact any sort of criminal activity happening. Hundreds of thousands of times each day on the streets of America, police stop random people demanding I.D., demanding to know where the citizen is going or coming from, and so forth. This instance is hardly any different, except for the fact that in a private community such a stop would be even more justified legally. Whereas Americans enjoy the right to walk down any street they so choose to, that right does not extend to within the gates of private communities or other private property. On such property a person can be stopped and questioned at any time to verify that they have not trespassed, and have legitimate business within the secured area.
If police had arrived before the confrontation occurred, they would have verified that Martin was in the neighborhood as a legitimate resident, or by the invitation of a resident, and that would have been the end of the story. Sadly of course, that was not the end of the story though, this time. Zimmerman is "accused" of following Martin, thereby "provoking" the confrontation and being left with the blame. This "following" seems to be the major sticking point in discussions on the matter, so let's take the time to look very closely at it.
As watch captain Zimmerman had every right and indeed a duty to observe suspicious persons. He also has every right, as a citizen and resident of the private community, to move about freely on those streets as he so chooses. The same right that Martin had to walk in the rain wearing a hoodie and eating Skittles. There are some who contend that somehow Zimmerman no longer had the right to perform his duty, or to move about freely in his own neighborhood, simply because the police told him not to. The truth is though, that the police did not make any such order, and he would not have been obligated to obey such an unlawful order if they had.
Nonetheless, we can also discern from the Zimmerman cellphone call to police, that this "following" of Martin was not so clear cut as some, even the media, might lead us to believe. To begin with, we hear that it was actually Martin who first approached Zimmermann, making what could be construed as a threatening gesture, reaching into his waistband. (For the layman reading this, such a gesture is a sign that the person is armed and considering shooting someone.) He also did not appear afraid, as he chose to talk on his phone with his girlfriend, rather than call police to report that someone was following him, according to her statement.
When Martin took off running, Zimmerman did pursue him momentarily, until police told him, "We don't need you to do that," at which point he broke off his pursuit and told the dispatcher that he had lost sight of Martin. So even though police could not legally order him to stop, he did in fact obey the suggestion before the phone call comes to an end. What happened after that is questionable, but there is some evidence nonetheless.
In the Wikipedia article there are multiple audio recordings of 911 calls. On one of those recordings we can clearly hear a struggle, someone screaming for help, and a single gunshot at which point the hollering ceases. It is not immediately discernible who was actually screaming for help, though I expect that a forensic sound investigation might be able to rule out Zimmerman if it was not him, as he has claimed it is. We also have an eyewitness who supports that claim, and also states that Martin was on top of Zimmerman overpowering him and pummeling him.
Other witness statements have been made as well, but could be considered unreliable. One teen eyewitness who supported Zimmerman's account, his mother has since claimed that police coerced her son to give certain details. Other witnesses only heard the events. And still other witnesses made statements that are dis-proven by the audio recordings, but which are still broadcast in the media as truthful.
Quote:Witness Mary Cutcher and her roommate appeared on AC 360 and stated that she believes "there was no punching, no hitting going on at the time, no wrestling" just prior to the shooting...
Clearly, that is disproved by listening to the struggle ensue on the recordings, along with other witness statements. With the exception of the one eyewitness, the rest of the statements are a wash for the most part, and don't really tell us much about what actually happened. There is some physical evidence too though. The injuries that Zimmerman suffered, as documented by doctors, were consistent with his account and that of the only reliable witness.
So all in all, we see that there is
some practical evidence here to support Zimmerman's contention that he is the one who was actually attacked, and that ultimately he shot Martin in self-defense for fear of his own life. The evidence certainly does not
prove that of course, but it doesn't have to either. Let's not forget that it is not up to someone to prove their innocence, it is up to the police and "the people" to prove a person guilty of a crime. Presumption of innocence is the bedrock of liberty and our entire justice system. We see here, that while we have some evidence to support Zimmerman's account that he acted in self-defense, we have no reliable evidence at all to refute his claim or to support a criminal charge in relation to the homicide. No one is disputing who killed Martin, but there is no substantial evidence to show that he was killed in a criminal manner. Homicide does not always equal murder, or even manslaughter.
There are those in the media and among the rabble who cry foul when it comes to the investigation itself, claiming that there isn't enough evidence because it was not properly investigated, but there is really no evidence of that either. They claim that Zimmerman was never arrested and essentially that the death was not investigated. The facts do not support those claims though. Zimmerman was in fact arrested on the night of the shooting, and interrogated. Without sufficient evidence to hold him or charge him, police were forced to release him. The police went to the state attorney seeking a warrant to re-arrest and charge Zimmerman, but the state attorney found insufficient evidence to support the recommended charge.
Did George Zimmerman kill Trayvon Martin in cold-blood or through criminal negligence? We may never know, but one thing we do know is that in a free country, where citizens enjoy rights and due-process, a person has to be proved guilty of a crime, no matter what the tide of public opinion and a vigilante mob may be. After all, anything less would actually justify Zimmerman himself acting as a vigilante as his detractors contend.
Which now brings us to the insanity of the Trayvon Martin supporters. Here they are seeking vigilante justice, looking to literally murder Zimmerman in many instances, for allegedly doing precisely what they clearly state they fully intend to do to him now. We also have the media, other organizations, and even celebrities fanning the flames of racism and literally putting the lives of innocent people at risk in a quest for misplaced vengeance. There are numerous examples of media bias, from the photos of Zimmerman and Martin, to this excerpt is taken from the Wikipedia article on the matter:
Quote:NBC was accused of selectively editing Zimmerman's 911 call to make it appear as if Zimmerman was racist. NBC played a recording of Zimmerman saying, "This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black." However, in the original 911 tape, Zimmerman said, "This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about." Then the 911 operator asked, "Okay. And this guy, is he white black or Hispanic?" Then Zimmerman answered, "He looks black." Sean Hannity said of this editing, "They forgot the dispatcher’s question! How could NBC, in good conscience, do that?" Brent Bozell said, "This isn’t bias, this isn’t distortion, this is an all-out falsehood by NBC News."
Quite obviously a deliberate attempt to smear Zimmerman as a racist.
Then we see things like this:
Trayvon Martin's family is said to hold the trademark to that design as well as several other designs and slogans of support for "justice" in the case. I wonder how well it would go over if someone trademarked a shirt that said "FA*GOT @SS N*GGER" with a picture of, I dunno, OJ Simpson maybe?
The race-baiting is sickening, and really I didn't even want to talk about it, but sadly it has become a serious element of this story now, despite the fact that Zimmerman is Latino. Somehow the white community as a whole is being blamed for the death of a young man who might very well have been killed for attacking another man, in a situation that had nothing to do with racism from the start, until the vigilante movement got behind this story. Any teenager in a hoodie, wandering around in the rain and acting oddly might be considered suspicious no matter what their race. In fact, Zimmermann wasn't even entirely sure that Martin was black when he first called police, as we heard in the recording.
Now we have the New Black Panther party putting out a bounty on Zimmerman's head for a million dollars. Frankly, I don't even understand how this statement isn't considered criminal in and of itself. What do they plan to do with him if they were to "capture" him? If the KKK came out on national news declaring a million-dollar reward for the capture of someone, they would be shut down as a terrorist organization bent on circumventing the government, sanctioning kidnapping, and inciting murder, or something along those lines, and rightly so. At the very least, even single person who donates money to the Panthers at this point should be considered to be facilitating a criminal terrorist enterprise. Check it out:
The spokesman there seems to conveniently forget that more than 90% of blacks murdered, are killed by other blacks. This is the sort of ignorance that seems to be fueling the outrage over this shooting. So if anyone really wants to go there about what race is more violent, there ya go. Now don't get me wrong, I don't really believe that race has anything to do with it, but I am not the one claiming that race has anything to do with what happened out there that night either.
Outside of blatant racism by Trayvon Martin supporters and the media inciting racial tensions, we also have the dangerous ignorance of would-be vigilante's such as black filmmaker
Spike Lee to contend with. Lee Tweeted an address he believed to be Zimmerman's, but turned out to actually be that of an elderly couple with a son who has a similar name but is of no relation to the shooter. The couple were forced to flee their home after being inundated with threats, hate mail, and unwanted visits to their home. Lee subsequently apologized, signing off a new tweet with "justice in court" but clearly this was not what he had in mind when he first put that address out there to millions of fans. This sort of thing could have easily gotten innocent people hurt or killed given the volatility of the issue now.
So all in all, we can see that much of what the public believes about this case, is rooted in ignorance and lies. The end result? Another resounding success for the-powers-that-be to sow division and hatred among the people, so that we are powerless to stand against the real corruption in this country. Ignorance is perpetuated and public consciousness molded like the mind of a child, as we suffer a mass Stockholm Syndrome. We are now likely to see more oppressive knee-jerk reactionary legislation enacted with which to strip away our rights no matter what our skin tone is, as a result of the all of this, while society shuffles along blissfully unaware of how they have just been duped again and left wondering why this country is so screwed up.
