George Zimmerman Found Not Guilty

[4588686]

It can be suspicious behavior. Most people don't like walking around in the rain at night, it's out of the ordinary. If you do it at night a cop can legitimately find it as suspicious.

 

 

You're a crappy libertarian or whatever you are.  Freedom from the state!!!  Unless it's a black kid.  Then if he get's harassed by the cops ( or any middle age racist prick) then he had it coming.  Boy should know better than to go walking around at night.  

[KnightofChrist]

My Cousin Nathan will be Trayvon's age soon enough and he lives in flooping South Carolina. I'm glad he gets to grow up in a world where people like Eagle_Eye, Knight, and Socrates get to consider him suspicious if he's walking back home too late. I'm glad he get's to grow up in a world where grown flooping men can stalk him on his way home if he's out getting some flooping skittles.

I'm white. I go walking and running all the time at night and in the rain and I'm never consider suspicious. Mysteriously enough. Nathan's the wrong skin color, though. He's black. He better be careful not to go walking in the rain otherwise some racist piece of poo will get to lable him suspicious and make him feel like a flooping criminal in his own flooping neighborhood.

Walking around at night in the rain can be considered suspicious. I'm sorry you cannot be honest and admit that.

[CatholicsAreKewl]

My Cousin Nathan will be Trayvon's age soon enough and he lives in flooping South Carolina.  I'm glad he gets to grow up in a world where people like Eagle_Eye, Knight, and Socrates get to consider him suspicious if he's walking back home too late.  I'm glad he get's to grow up in a world where grown flooping men can stalk him on his way home if he's out getting some flooping skittles.  

 

I'm white.  I go walking and running all the time at night and in the rain and I'm never consider suspicious.  Mysteriously enough.  Nathan's the wrong skin color, though.  He's black.  He better be careful not to go walking in the rain otherwise some racist piece of poo will get to lable him suspicious and make him feel like a flooping criminal in his own flooping neighborhood.  

 

It's odd. As much as I argue that racism is overblown in America, it still exists. I've talked to a good share of policemen in my large city and was surprised to discover that some of them come off as pretty beaver dam racist. It's a little more subtle. Maybe it's a weird form of classism that happens to be mixed with race. Whatever it is, though, there is a certain appearance, way of dressing, talking, and acting that some officers were not very fond of (would make fun of) and I think it definitely had an impact on the way they dealt with situations.  

Edited July 14, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[Era Might]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ&feature=player_detailpage

[4588686]

Walking around at night in the rain can be considered suspicious.

 

Yes, it can be.  If it's accompanied by additional suspicious behavior.  However just walking at night and in the rain is not suspicious and it sure as hell doesn't give you the right to stalk a flooping teenager who's just walking home with some flooping skittles and ice-tea.

 

  I'm sorry you cannot be honest and admit that.

 

Not nearly as sorry as I am that my little cousin is going to have to grow up in a world full of people like you.  I hope he makes it.  He's a really sweet kid.  

[Lilllabettt]

get this: several years ago  I was (unwisely) choosing to treat my clinical depression with exercise. Sometimes that meant I was walking in my (mostly white, well-to-do) neighborhood at all hours of the night. Once I was out alone, about 3 in the morning, just walking and being morose, when a car pulled up beside me. The window rolled down, and a man in the drivers seat asked "are you on your way somewhere?"  I took a couple steps away from the car and said I lived in the neighborhood and was just out for a stroll. Only then did he id himself as an off-duty police officer. Maybe he saw the anxiety on my face (in the darkness I never saw his. couldn't make out his age, race or anything it was absolutely pitch) because he apologized for scaring me. He drove away, I continued my walk, the end.

 

Everyone made it out alive.  So what was different?

 

 

Edited July 14, 2013 by Lilllabettt

[Amppax]

It was 7:00 pm.  7:00 flooping pm.  

[BG45]

Unlike Hasan, I have been followed more than once by the police while out walking at night and I'm pretty pale white.  One time was much like the experience Lilla described; another I got the third degree for being out alone at midnight.  The cop didn't believe I was walking to my car from my office until I showed him that I had keys to open the car and open my work building and office.

 

It can be suspicious behavior. Most people don't like walking around in the rain at night, it's out of the ordinary. If you do it at night a cop can legitimately find it as suspicious.

 

"A cop".  However, there were no cops involved in this shooting, except after the fact.  

 

 

[CatholicsAreKewl]

get this: several years ago  I was (unwisely) choosing to treat my clinical depression with exercise. Sometimes that meant I was walking in my (mostly white, well-to-do) neighborhood at all hours of the night. Once I was out alone, about 3 in the morning, just walking and being morose, when a car pulled up beside me. The window rolled down, and a man in the drivers seat asked "are you on your way somewhere?"  I took a couple steps away from the car and said I lived in the neighborhood and was just out for a stroll. Only then did he id himself as an off-duty police officer. Maybe he saw the anxiety on my face (in the darkness I never saw his. couldn't make out his age, race or anything it was absolutely pitch) because he apologized for scaring me. He drove away, I continued my walk, the end.

 

Everyone made it out alive.  So what was different?

 

You were a girl. I imagine they either thought you were a nightwalker, a teen up to no good, or a "damsel in distress". They could have also been bored. 

 

 

 

Unlike Hasan, I have been followed more than once by the police while out walking at night and I'm pretty pale white.  One time was much like the experience Lilla described; another I got the third degree for being out alone at midnight.  The cop didn't believe I was walking to my car from my office until I showed him that I had keys to open the car and open my work building and office.

 

Stories like this one made me dislike cops until I realized that much of the problem has to do with the amount of power we give them. Cops are normal people trying to do their jobs. Like the rest of us, they're subject to make mistakes based on their biases and prejudices. Power can be one of the biggest factors. After a cop recounted a particular story to me, I lolfully asked, "wait, you guys can't actually beat people up like the old days, right?". She looked at me for a second and responded, "I have a gun and a badge. I can do whatever the hell I want."

Edited July 14, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[PhuturePriest]

You were a girl. I imagine they either thought you were a nightwalker, a teen up to no good, or a "damsel in distress". They could have also been bored. 

 

Nothing ends boredom like scaring the heck out of citizens for comic effect.

[Socrates]

1-Well, he decided to stalk a black kid.  Harboring an intense suspicion that black teens are really up to no good is sometimes associated with racism.  

 

2-Both Hispanics and Obama voters can be racist.  While you've never been a rigorous thinker your particularly sloppy and sophistic tonight.  

 

I'm going to go drink some more and go out.  But have fun backing the guy who stalked a black kid and then killed him when he started to lose the ensuing fight.  But given that you apparently consider stalking a black teen who is walking home with some skittles and ice-tea to be perfectly normal, non-racist behavior, you may well think that Martin had it coming.  HERITAGE NOT HATE!!!!

 

Zimmerman was part of a neighborhood watch program, and there had been a series of burglaries in the neighborhood he was patrolling.  Martin was walking on the lawns or such of properties, rather than the sidewalk.  Such behavior was thus suspicious to Zimmerman, so he chose to observe him.  (You can argue whether the suspicion was sufficiently warranted, or whether it was prudent to follow him, but in the circumstances, his behavior was not totally without cause.)

 

If Zimmerman had seen a Hispanic or white teen acting in the same way in these circumstances, would he have acted differently?  We'll probably never know the answer, but we have no evidence to presume otherwise, much less that this incident was motivated by racial hatred on Zimmerman's part.

 

I won't deny that Zimmerman's actions may have been stupid (after all, the guy did vote for Obama), but there's no evidence that he acted maliciously or illegally.

 

There is simply no actual evidence that Zimmerman was a racist of any sort, beyond the usual dishonest and asinine race-baiting of Revs Sharpton, Jackson, & co.

 

 

But I guess in the "open-minded" world of "tolerant" p.c. liberalism, people are to be presumed racist until proven innocent.

 

 

 

I'm glad this jury apparently reached its decision based on the facts and the law, rather than emotion and racial politics.

 

That said, this entire incident was tragic and unfortunate, but the race-baiting and calls for vengeance are bogus and will do no good.

[Socrates]

Praise the lord, it's still legal in America to kill unarmed black men.

 

 

(sarcasm in case anyone doesn't get that)

 

 

Socrates will explain to you how that's not really racist.  Like flaying the symbols of the Ku Klux Klan, stalking and then killing unarmed black men is just perfectly normal, justified behavior.  What sort of person wouldn't have been alarmed and immediately suspicious of seeing a black teenager in their neighborhood????

 

Except that Zimmerman never pulled his gun until after Martin had already began beating him to a bloody pulp.

 

But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good racial-political tantrum.

[Socrates]

Those were the tapes that were passed around that made it seem racially based. If you check out the unedited tapes, Zimmerman never mentioned race or anything like that, until the operator specifically asked him the ethnicity of the person he was talking about. "uhh, maybe black i guess"

 

Given his background(Hispanic American law student, raised in a racially integrated household, and has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather, he partnered with a black friend to start a business as a young man, he mentored and tutored minority children for free, he lead the inquiry into the official death of a black homeless man, and publicly criticized the Sanford Police Department for allegedly covering it up, he lived in a gated community, in which 20% of the residents were black and no one testified that Zimmerman had been stalking or harassing people in the neighborhood, or that he had shown any type of bigoted or racist behavior.), the allegations that he was at least somewhat racist dont have any basis in fact to me.

It isnt racist to see someone skulking about in the rain in a neighborhood that had had a bunch of recent breakins and go "maybe that guy is suspicious". There are plenty of sketchy white guys in hoods where i live.

 

Is there any evidence that he was racially motivated, aside from the overwhelming creation of it in the media based on edited tapes and speculation? one thousand "Is Zimmerman a racist child murderer? more at 11" and all of a sudden "It is known" that he is a racist.

 

I dont think this story would have ended any differently had the races been switched around, or both the same or whatever. It is hard to separate from the media coverage, which has been pushing the race angle hard from both sides, but i just dont see it in the actual incident.

 

But just because he's Hispanic with African ancestry, partnered with a black man, helped black children, voted for a (half) black man for president, and never to our knowledge said anything of a racist nature, doesn't mean he isn't really a hateful foaming-at-the-mouth racist.

 

Racist until proven innocent!  If you harbor any doubts as to his racism, you're obviouslyy a crazy racist KKK rightwing extremist, and just as guilty as Zimmerman.

 

 

 

Way to let the facts get in the way of a good race war, J-lol.  Keep this up, and folks are going to start calling you an Evil Conservative.

[Semper Catholic]

Except that Zimmerman never pulled his gun until after Martin had already began beating him to a bloody pulp.

 

But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good racial-political tantrum.

 

 

Right, he tried picking a fight and was getting his you know what beat so he pulled his ace up his sleeve (or is it waistband?)

[4588686]

Zimmerman was part of a neighborhood watch program, and there had been a series of burglaries in the neighborhood he was patrolling.  Martin was walking on the lawns or such of properties, rather than the sidewalk.  Such behavior was thus suspicious to Zimmerman, so he chose to observe him.  (You can argue whether the suspicion was sufficiently warranted, or whether it was prudent to follow him, but in the circumstances, his behavior was not totally without cause.)

 

If Zimmerman had seen a Hispanic or white teen acting in the same way in these circumstances, would he have acted differently?  We'll probably never know the answer, but we have no evidence to presume otherwise, much less that this incident was motivated by racial hatred on Zimmerman's part.

 

I won't deny that Zimmerman's actions may have been stupid (after all, the guy did vote for Obama), but there's no evidence that he acted maliciously or illegally.

 

There is simply no actual evidence that Zimmerman was a racist of any sort, beyond the usual dishonest and asinine race-baiting of Revs Sharpton, Jackson, & co.

 

 

But I guess in the "open-minded" world of "tolerant" p.c. liberalism, people are to be presumed racist until proven innocent.

 

 

 

I'm glad this jury apparently reached its decision based on the facts and the law, rather than emotion and racial politics.

 

That said, this entire incident was tragic and unfortunate, but the race-baiting and calls for vengeance are bogus and will do no good.

 

1-Zimmerman didn't say anything about him walking around on private property when he called 911.  Maybe he went onto private property after he saw Zimmerman watching him closely from his car and ran away.  You know, right before the grown man with a gun decided to follow the kid running away.  

 

2-Nothing to indicate that Zimmerman was a racist until he decided to chase down a young black kid (or 'goon' as Zimmerman said) who was minding his own business.