Zimmerman Case
20 04 2012http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/us/george-zimmerman-to-appear-in-court.html
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/george-zimmerman-apologizes-trayvon-martin-family-could-released-152857774.html
There are new evidence to the case that suggests that the shooting may have been done in self-defense. It was said that a photo was released that shows injury to the back of Zimmerman’s head. There are concerns that this trial will cause conflict between the black and the white community. Already, there are several protests across the country that demand for the conviction of Zimmerman. Celebrities, priests, and other influential peple such as Obama have had their input on this case. In addition, there might be an issue with the media coverage of the case. It seems as if the media was set to condemn Zimmerman from the start, from their use of words and photos in their reports.
Here are my two cents on the case:
We’ll never know what happened when Zimmerman confronted Martin. Maybe Zimmerman started pistol whipping the kid before he could say two words and Trayvon fought back, or maybe Zimmerman was leaving when Trayvon punched him in the back of the head because he was insulted by zimmerman’s accusation. These are two examples of extremes, and I’m not suggesting that either of these things happened, but the fact is there are a number of possibilities that could have occurred, and the mere fact that there was a scuffle in which trayvon got the better of zimmerman doesn’t mean anything. Because maybe trayvon acted in self defense when a man brandishing a gun ordered him to stay still until the police arrived. I know I would feel threatened if a stranger said that to me.
What’s so ironic about this case is that people are citing florida’s gun law as to why Zimmerman had a right to shoot trayvon because he felt threatened. That law does not apply here anyway, because zimmerman confronted trayvon unprovoked. The only person that had a right to use violence if he felt threatened was trayvon when Zimmerman confronted him with a gun. Trayvon was the only one who had to reasonably fear for his life, which is why i find zimmerman’s head injury to be meaningless anyway.
Of course we don’t know whether that’s whether Zimmerman did anything that would be threatening to trayvon and warrant a fight, but why should we give zimmerman the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t. Zimmerman lost his benefit of the doubt when he disobeyed a police order not to follow trayvon, and when he went with a gun to “arrest” someone he had no evidence was doing anything.
And also in the phone calls, you can here trayvon yelling for help (you don’t need to be a voice expert to know that that was the voice of a 17 year old kid and not a 28 year old). why would trayvon be yelling for help if he attacked zimmerman unprovoked.
I agree that the media might have been attacking zimmerman without much evidence, but I still think that this was a senseless tragedy that needs to be answered for.