George Zimmerman Arrested On Domestic Violence And Weapons Charge

[Medicine Man]

How about addressing this.

You were writing that in response to a comment that said, "even if he was a jerk or a bully, why does that make death an appropriate response?"

And I don't think you've said anything that changes the obvious answer away from, "it doesn't. Even if he were a jerk or a bully, death is not the appropriate response to that."

I mean, if you look at Zimmerman's own record(s) of violence, does this mean it was appropriate for someone to have shot and killed him, what, SIX different times now?

1. When he punched the undercover cop, should the cop have shot him?
2. When he smashed his wife's tablet and threatened her, should she have been okay shooting him to death for that?
3. When he threw that drunk woman down on the floor - appropriate for her to get up and kill him?
4. When he smashed his girlfriend's glass table, should she have just shot him instead of leaving?
5. When he shouted at that motorist, "I'm going to kill you!" the guy would have been right to pull out a gun and shoot him dead?
6. And when he threw this wine bottle against the wall at his girlfriend, instead of crying and leaving and getting pulled over by the cops, would it have been justifiable, in your mind, for her to just shoot him dead at home, instead?

I don't get your logic.
Yes. Even if Martin had been a jerk or a bully, yes, the shooting/murder was STILL unjustified.
He's a very lucky man that the rest of the world doesn't feel entitled to what he feels entitled to. Yanno? I mean, YOU KNOW!?

(edited to add, although if that first undercover cop had just shot him for being a "dangerous thug," Trayvon Martin would still be alive today.)

And I don't get your logic that equates all those instances of alleged (and convicted) crime both before and after the Martin case with a situation in which Zimmerman was actually in a fight against a person he didn't know with no witnesses as to who started it! You are comparing apples to oranges. And do you believe every allegation you hear about someone? Even if they had pushed an undercover cop who they thought was assaulting a friend? I don't doubt Zimmerman has some serious problems - but I'm also not falling down the slippery slope to hell spawn (=the party line).

I'm sorry to say, it appears you've already slipped a bit on that slope. Zimmerman was told his friend was being questioned outside the bar because the guy was underage. Zimmerman apparently thought the guy doing the questioning was a bouncer but it turned out to be a cop. When Zimmerman threw the cop against a wall, he wasn't preventing an assault, he was committing one.

Yeah, we all know that Zimmerman killed Trayvon in Florida. And nothing (even factual evidence that TM may have initiated the physical altercation) can change the fact the GZ killed a teenager and was not indicted for murder..

There is no factual evidence that Trayvon initiated a physical altercation, and as soon as you start with the "TM may have..." you are speculating - which means it is not a factual statement.

Stop.

We have no direct evidence of who was the first to punch, shove, slap, grope, grab, or tackle the other.​

....But, there IS "evidence" NONE of (this event) would have happened....if Zimmy had stayed in his van....WHERE HE BELONGED!!!​

 

[Mumbles]

Agreed--Martin didn't want to be followed and he used street tactics. Unfortunately it convinced Zimmerman he needed his gun.

Street tactics? Is that the same thing as "stand your ground"?

Zimmerman managed to escape prison because killing Martin eliminated anyone who could have shed light on the reasonable doubt which let him get away with murder.

To be honest, I don't even think that this is true. I think that it's mostly because the prosecutors in his Martin case just...dropped the ball.

Put that aside, and he's just a typical domestic batterer.

 

[RavenSky]

Agreed--Martin didn't want to be followed and he used street tactics.

Is this an admission that you've given up trying to suggest Martin was up to illegal actions?

It sounds like an admission that Trayvon was forced to use self-defense against Zimmerman's aggression

 

[RavenSky]

Street fighting is not a special skill, but I can testify, getting your ass kicked a couple times is an incredibly effective training technique. One of the first things you learn is to get in the first hit(punch, kick, whatever) and make it count. The only goal of a street fight is to make the other person decide the fight was a very bad idea and to make this decision very quickly. Martin seems to have accomplished that much.

Agreed--Martin didn't want to be followed and he used street tactics. Unfortunately it convinced Zimmerman he needed his gun.

Zimmerman had already convinced himself he needed to use his gun when he took it with him to wrongly pursue the innocent teenager he'd wrongly decided was "up to no good"

 

[Medicine Man]

There is no factual evidence that Trayvon initiated a physical altercation, and as soon as you start with the "TM may have..." you are speculating - which means it is not a factual statement.

Stop.

"conservatives" are HUGE fans o' hypotheticals!!

They've sold more Wars (and, other such money-making schemes) to the World's population....with the scariest-hypotheticals they could dream-up....than ANY other hu$tle they've attempted!!!!

Last edited by RavenSky; Today at 08:21 AM. Reason: removed disruptive fonts to allow all members to be able to read the posts

'Cause, who needs more help, than those Florida blue-hairs?​

 

[Frikki]

Street fighting is not a special skill, but I can testify, getting your ass kicked a couple times is an incredibly effective training technique. One of the first things you learn is to get in the first hit(punch, kick, whatever) and make it count. The only goal of a street fight is to make the other person decide the fight was a very bad idea and to make this decision very quickly. Martin seems to have accomplished that much.

Agreed--Martin didn't want to be followed and he used street tactics. Unfortunately it convinced Zimmerman he needed his gun.

Street tactics?

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WHBO_Qc-Q[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Bronzeage]

Street tactics? Is that the same thing as "stand your ground"?

Zimmerman managed to escape prison because killing Martin eliminated anyone who could have shed light on the reasonable doubt which let him get away with murder.

To be honest, I don't even think that this is true. I think that it's mostly because the prosecutors in his Martin case just...dropped the ball.

Put that aside, and he's just a typical domestic batterer.

It's a simple observation. Zimmerman's account only had to be plausible, in order to create reasonable doubt. Since the only other person who could dispute his story is dead, all that is left if doubt.

 

[EPresence2]

Yeah, we all know that Zimmerman killed Trayvon in Florida. And nothing (even factual evidence that TM may have initiated the physical altercation) can change the fact the GZ killed a teenager and was not indicted for murder..

There is no factual evidence that Trayvon initiated a physical altercation, and as soon as you start with the "TM may have..." you are speculating - which means it is not a factual statement.

Stop.

...and as soon as you start with the "GZ may have..." you are speculating - which means it is not a factual statement. GZ may have attempted to detain Martin. There is nothing in the factual record that determines he would have done something that stupid and aggressive. His pattern was to follow suspects to their house - not attempt to detain them. But he may have and I've not said otherwise. I know you feel like the connection you're making is stronger than the alternative, and I can see why you think that given what GZ said on the call ("these assholes always get away") and other factors. I just don't see that necessarily negating a reasonable doubt.

 

[EPresence2]

How about addressing this.

You were writing that in response to a comment that said, "even if he was a jerk or a bully, why does that make death an appropriate response?"

And I don't think you've said anything that changes the obvious answer away from, "it doesn't. Even if he were a jerk or a bully, death is not the appropriate response to that."

I mean, if you look at Zimmerman's own record(s) of violence, does this mean it was appropriate for someone to have shot and killed him, what, SIX different times now?

1. When he punched the undercover cop, should the cop have shot him?
2. When he smashed his wife's tablet and threatened her, should she have been okay shooting him to death for that?
3. When he threw that drunk woman down on the floor - appropriate for her to get up and kill him?
4. When he smashed his girlfriend's glass table, should she have just shot him instead of leaving?
5. When he shouted at that motorist, "I'm going to kill you!" the guy would have been right to pull out a gun and shoot him dead?
6. And when he threw this wine bottle against the wall at his girlfriend, instead of crying and leaving and getting pulled over by the cops, would it have been justifiable, in your mind, for her to just shoot him dead at home, instead?

I don't get your logic.
Yes. Even if Martin had been a jerk or a bully, yes, the shooting/murder was STILL unjustified.
He's a very lucky man that the rest of the world doesn't feel entitled to what he feels entitled to. Yanno? I mean, YOU KNOW!?

(edited to add, although if that first undercover cop had just shot him for being a "dangerous thug," Trayvon Martin would still be alive today.)

And I don't get your logic that equates all those instances of alleged (and convicted) crime both before and after the Martin case with a situation in which Zimmerman was actually in a fight against a person he didn't know with no witnesses as to who started it! You are comparing apples to oranges. And do you believe every allegation you hear about someone? Even if they had pushed an undercover cop who they thought was assaulting a friend? I don't doubt Zimmerman has some serious problems - but I'm also not falling down the slippery slope to hell spawn (=the party line).

I'm sorry to say, it appears you've already slipped a bit on that slope. Zimmerman was told his friend was being questioned outside the bar because the guy was underage. Zimmerman apparently thought the guy doing the questioning was a bouncer but it turned out to be a cop. When Zimmerman threw the cop against a wall, he wasn't preventing an assault, he was committing one.

Yeah, we all know that Zimmerman killed Trayvon in Florida. And nothing (even factual evidence that TM may have initiated the physical altercation) can change the fact the GZ killed a teenager and was not indicted for murder..

There is no factual evidence that Trayvon initiated a physical altercation, and as soon as you start with the "TM may have..." you are speculating - which means it is not a factual statement.

Stop.

We have no direct evidence of who was the first to punch, shove, slap, grope, grab, or tackle the other. We have evidence one of them had shoved, grabbed, and fought others in a not-friendly manner before that night, but that is not proof he did it again on the night in question. But to pretend it is equally likely the other one did the shoving, grabbing, punching, etc. is dishonest. The likelihood strongly favors Zimmerman over Martin, both in terms of personal history and in the role each had at the outset of the conflict: armed pursuer vs. unarmed pursued. "TM may have punched Zimmerman" is not nearly as likely as "Zimmerman may have tackled Martin".

Also, as others have pointed out, under Florida's SYG laws Martin had the right to throw the first punch and no duty to retreat from the creepy ass stranger following him. If anyone is arguing that a resident of the State of Florida and a US citizen exercising that right is at fault if he gets killed by his pursuer, please make it clear that is your argument, because right now it just sounds like blaming the victim and denying blacks the same rights of self defense enjoyed by whites.

Agreed, "assaulting a friend" was a mischaracterization that is really damning for Zimmerman - shoving is so very violent. Anyway I wasn't suggesting there was "factual evidence" that TM initiated the fight. And as I've explained to Squirrel, the SYG defense depends on what the SYGrounder feels about the escalating situation - if they feel like their life is in danger. Are you a mind-reader arctish? Furthermore, even if the alternatives don't seem to equal... that DOES NOT NEGATE A REASONABLE DOUBT! That said - I think the SYG laws create more problems than they solve and Z should have been charged with a serious crime for creating the questionable situation.

 

[Jayjay]

Here we have theories about ZImmerman, one which requires an assumption that he is a compulsive liar, and one that does not. And none of Mumbles' examples show that he is a compulsive liar that would make up incredibly elaborate scenarios even when it doesn't benefit him in any way - only that he makes stupid and rather simple lies to cover his own ass.

How does this make his trustworthy or credible? Does he tell the truth when his ass does not need cover?

Compulsive liar are not delusional. They don't make up elaborate scenarios. They make up plausible scenarios. The fact that he is so poor at it, is not evidence that he not a compulsive liar. That is one of the strange things about lying. One doesn't really get better with practice.

The lies that Zimmerman would have had to concoct would have to be both elaborate and plausible. Someone pointed out earlier, criminals who try to make up such lies are usually failing miserably. So the simpler theory is that Zimmerman's basic story was what really happened: he parked his car near the T, walked or ran to the middle of the T around the time he said "he ran", then walked to RVC, stayed there for a moment, and walked back towards his car and met with Trayvon on the way.

 

[Jayjay]

Here we have theories about Zimmerman, one which requires an assumption that he is a compulsive liar, and one that does not. And none of your examples show that he is a compulsive liar that would make up incredibly elaborate scenarios even when it doesn't benefit him in any way - only that he makes stupid and rather simple lies to cover his own ass.

An example of an elaborate lie would be somethign akin to what I mentioned before, that maybe he did not have a car at all but actually was riding a bicycle. If you think Zimmerman is a compulsive liar, how do you know he didn't have a bicycle? Or a unicycle for that matter, as long as we are accepting any crazy shit just based on the assumption that everything that Zimmerman said must be a lie.

You are confused. We have concluded that he's lying, because his story is contradicted at nearly every point by the evidence - Jeantel's testimony, his police recording, the fight location, basic understanding of human behavior.

The point is, that you presented a hypothesis that requires Zimmerman to have made up everything happened at the T, because in that scenario he was never there. The evidence that you cited for this as that Zimmerman had lied before, so it's a fair question: does he have a pattern of making up lies of that magnitude and level of complexity? The only examles you've given were minor fudging of timeline or small details, which are nothing of the sort.

 

[Jayjay]

But there is also a huge difference in the scenario here too where with your friend he has no reprocussions if he is found out to be a liar, where Zimmerman has to either be very close to the truth. There are a lot of things that break if there is an unknown witness.

This is where the stupid impulsive aspect comes in. An impulsive liar doesn't consider all the consequences of their deception being discovered. And Zimmerman with his violent history has proven himself to be impulsive. His history of lies ie art fraud etc has shown him to be a liar. Ergo his is an impulsive liar.

I don't need any testimony from Zimmerman to know he wrongly killed Martin. When you have a known liar the best thing is to reconstruct the scenario without their input. All the other evidence suggests an angry Zimmerman pursued an innocent Martin and shot him dead.

I don't think that anyone is denying that Zimmerman shot Martin. It's the specific details of their encounter that are unknown. And the point is that when reconstructing the scene, we can't rely on Zimmerman telling the truth, but we can't rely on him necessarily lying about any specific detail either. All we can say is whether his story is consistent with other evidence or not. And in this case, location-wise it seems that the overall path he took up to the point where him and Martin exchanged words, seems to be what really happened.

 

[RavenSky]

You are confused. We have concluded that he's lying, because his story is contradicted at nearly every point by the evidence - Jeantel's testimony, his police recording, the fight location, basic understanding of human behavior.

The point is, that you presented a hypothesis that requires Zimmerman to have made up everything happened at the T, because in that scenario he was never there. The evidence that you cited for this as that Zimmerman had lied before, so it's a fair question: does he have a pattern of making up lies of that magnitude and level of complexity? The only examles you've given were minor fudging of timeline or small details, which are nothing of the sort.

No one has ever said Zimmerman was never on the top of the T. Every hypothetical presented by anyone also has Zimmerman on the top of the T at some point.

What most of us realize is that it is not rationally/factually possible for the fight itself to have happened on the top of the T as Zimmerman claimed in two out of three of his self-serving versions of what happened.

So if Zimmerman was just walking back to his vehicle, or walking one way or the other across the top of the T looking for addresses rolleyes, how did he end up 45 feet south in the alley behind the rows of townhouses.

 

[Jayjay]

Maybe, but that would mean Zimmerman did not reach the T until end of his 311 call. So why couldn't he tell the address where he was at? All he had to do was look at the number on the closest building. And why would he say that he went all the way to RVC...

You will have to ask Zimmerman those questions. He's the one who stood there like a complete idiot during his video-taped "reenactment" telling the police he had to go to RVC because he couldn't see any addresses on Twin Tree even those there was a house number clear as day in the same frame.

The re-enactment obviously does not have a correct time-line of events, and certainly does not match Zimmerman's location and his explanation exactly. I think it is doubtful that Zimmerman was standing there when the dispatch asked for an address. Although, it was established that he didn't know the street name so just seeing a number might not have crossed his mind.

 

[RavenSky]

It was established that he CLAIMED - after the fact - to not know the name of the street. His claim is not credible given that he also claims to be the Neighborhood Watch captain, and to know all of the neighborhood residents. It is also not credible because there are only three streets in the entire neighborhood.

 

[Jayjay]

This could easily be explained as misremembering details of what he told to the dispatch or choosing his words poorly. For example, the word "circle" is not necessarily full 360 degrees around the car.

He specifically states "He walked around my car in a circle" and holds up a finger and moves it in a circle.

So? You are saying Zimmerman can lie, but his fingers tell the truth? Besides we don't know whether Martin circled Zimmerman's car or not. The exact location of the two is not known. Martin certainly had enough time to do so.

And he told the dispatch that Martin was checking him out, whether it was a circle or not.

This was paranoia on his part. Martin clearly walks by him because Zimmerman is directly on his path home, not to "check him out".

I think Martin walked past Zimmerman when Zimmerman described him as "staring at him", because that wouldn't make much sense if Martin was still behind Zimmerman. Then a bit later Zimmerman says that "he's comign to check me out", and that is probably what he later described as circling the car (or finishing the circle... Martin just walking past Zimmerman is already 180 degrees).

You do realize Zimmerman's observed Martin before he called 311, right? So of course, the time Zimmerman was on the call is shorter.

So we're instead stating that he was stalking him *before*calling dispatch? Then he's still lying.

Yes, Zimmerman was "stalking" Martin before calling dispatch. He spotted Martin near where Martin cut through houses to RVC, drove past him, stopped or parked near the clubhouse and called 311. And we know Zimmerman described Martin acting suspiciously, which we know he did because he was on a phone, so that could easily have taken minutes if Zimmerman slowed down to observe Martin before passing him by and making the call. But what makes you think this is lying? It matches with what he told the police and in the re-enactment... your annotated re-enactment video doesn't challenge it either.

Maybe not four minutes, but it's not unreasonable that it took more than a minute to spot Martin, slow down, drive past him, park to the clubhouse and make the call. Also, I listened to the 311 call again, and presumably that's where you got the 2 minutes because it take approximately that long from the beginning of the call to "he's running". But where do you get the six minutes from?

Google Maps. Given his description, that would be how long Martin would have had to walk to make all of the moves that Zimmerman claims before running.

Not really. The distance from the clubhouse to the T is maybe 100-150 yards, depending on where you assume Martin's starting point is or where he actually started running. Just walking that distance takes only about a minute, so there was plenty of time to stop and check out Zimmerman, even circle his car (though I don't think that's what happened).

Meanwhile, if Zimmerman is telling the truth about stopping where he did, nd about Martin "coming to check him out" We discover, remarkably, that martin would be approaching the clubhouse at around that time.

if he was lying about everything, why can't you point out a single lie that would be anywhere near the scope of the lie that you are proposing?

The video I linked shows exactly that.

The video had a laundry list of small contradictions and mismatches only.

You have not convinced me that Zimmerman is a criminal mastermind that would be required by your scenario.

I never said anything about a criminal mastermind. I think the man is a violent idiot, and the DA and former police chief idiots to publicly state "Everything is adding up to what he says", when it's obvious that the exact opposite was the case.

You presented a scenario, that Zimmerman had ultimately parked his car somewhere else than he said he had, and that Zimmerman was running down Twin Trees Lane to cut Martin off. For this scenario to be true, Zimmerman would have had to concoct a very elaborate scenario of him walking through the walkway to RVC instead, and somehow manage to keep his story straight and not contradict any witness statements or other evidence. That shows the hallmarks of a criminal mastermind rather than a violent idiot.

 

[Jayjay]

The point is, that you presented a hypothesis that requires Zimmerman to have made up everything happened at the T, because in that scenario he was never there. The evidence that you cited for this as that Zimmerman had lied before, so it's a fair question: does he have a pattern of making up lies of that magnitude and level of complexity? The only examles you've given were minor fudging of timeline or small details, which are nothing of the sort.

No one has ever said Zimmerman was never on the top of the T. Every hypothetical presented by anyone also has Zimmerman on the top of the T at some point.

In Mumbles' scenario where Z went down Twin Trees lane, he would not be at the T until after he had already intercepted, chased and attacked Martin.

What most of us realize is that it is not rationally/factually possible for the fight itself to have happened on the top of the T as Zimmerman claimed in two out of three of his self-serving versions of what happened.

So if Zimmerman was just walking back to his vehicle, or walking one way or the other across the top of the T looking for addresses rolleyes, how did he end up 45 feet south in the alley behind the rows of townhouses.

Fighting Martin. Who says they had to go down to the ground immediately? The stuff they were carrying was scattered all over the place.

 

[Jayjay]

It was established that he CLAIMED - after the fact - to not know the name of the street. His claim is not credible given that he also claims to be the Neighborhood Watch captain, and to know all of the neighborhood residents. It is also not credible because there are only three streets in the entire neighborhood.

He didn't know the name of the street during his 311 either. And we know he got the number of the clubhouse wrong so obviously he did not know the addresses that well. So how is it "after the fact"?

 

[RavenSky]

It was established that he CLAIMED - after the fact - to not know the name of the street. His claim is not credible given that he also claims to be the Neighborhood Watch captain, and to know all of the neighborhood residents. It is also not credible because there are only three streets in the entire neighborhood.

He didn't know the name of the street during his 311 either. And we know he got the number of the clubhouse wrong so obviously he did not know the addresses that well. So how is it "after the fact"?

Well that claim is easy to refute. Here is the transcript of the 911 call. http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html

He had no problem whatsoever recalling the address of the clubhouse. The "problem" with addresses is that he had no intention of staying at the clubhouse or the mailboxes to wait for police because he was too busy wrongly pursuing Trayvon. If he hadn't been pursuing Trayvon, he could have easily looked at the brightly light house numbers to tell the dispatcher where he was. He couldn't do that only because he wasn't there any more

 

[Jayjay]

He didn't know the name of the street during his 311 either. And we know he got the number of the clubhouse wrong so obviously he did not know the addresses that well. So how is it "after the fact"?

Well that claim is easy to refute. Here is the transcript of the 911 call. http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html

He had no problem whatsoever recalling the address of the clubhouse.

Except that he got it wrong. It wasn't "111 Retreat View Circle" but 1111, as is clear from the transcript. If he didn't rememeber that, is it unreasonable to think that he couldn't remember the Twin Trees Lane either? Besides, he clearly describes which way the cops should go, so there was no need to deliberately omit the street name or pretend he didn't know it.

The "problem" with addresses is that he had no intention of staying at the clubhouse or the mailboxes to wait for police because he was too busy wrongly pursuing Trayvon. If he hadn't been pursuing Trayvon, he could have easily looked at the brightly light house numbers to tell the dispatcher where he was. He couldn't do that only because he wasn't there any more

Zimmerman never said he intended to stay at the clubhouse or at the mailboxes. During his call he instructs the police to go past them. The reason why he couldn't tell the street name is that he didn't remember it; the reason why couldn't tell the number is that he was already out of his truck and at least halfway through the T when the dispatch asked him.