Court of public opinion looms large in George Zimmerman murder trial

Interesting. I didn't see any organization signs though.
 
naisho said:
low education, hype, low IQ or something along those lines. It boggles my mind too.

Some people (of all races) don't seem to realize that the Oakland police are not related to the Sanford FL Police, nor is the city of Oakland/state of CA is related to Sanford/FL.
Click to expand...

Yes, some of those as well no doubt.
 
AlleyCat said:
Oh Mike, you didn't get enough on the other political forums you jumped to? All because our AD political section closed? Welcome back (sarcastic :lol: )

(Oh, wait, I'm betting you got banned from them. What a shame.)
Click to expand...

I simply took a voluntary leave of absence. No other forums were attended or participated during that time. Never been banned elsewhere because being a member of one discussion web forum is enough. I responded in this thread after seeing the GZ verdict. The jury has spoken.
 
Reba said:
I wouldn't depend on other drivers to make the calls. Unless there's an actual wreck, they probably won't bother to call it in.

In our area, you can't use 911 when reporting a traffic incident. You have to call the right jurisdiction, and it's often not clear which one, or, while you're driving, you go in and out of different jurisdictions. If it's the highway, then we call the highway patrol.

If it's not the highway, then we have to know if we are in one of three counties, and then are we in the city limits of half a dozen cities. We've tried to report dangerous, drunken drivers but by the time we got the right connection they were gone out of sight.
Click to expand...

I saw an accident happen once , and an older woman much of had a medical condition and loss control of her car . She hit a power line pole and knocked it down then her car hit a fire hydrant before it came to a stop. No one was calling 911 and I had to tell someone to call 911 as I do not have a cell phone .
 
Interesting note:

Last night I watched Fox news interviewing with one 50s black woman. She made a good point that she doesn't understand why black people don't speak out about black on black crimes where alot of black people kill each other everyday. Black people don't say or do anything about it. Not even Rev. Jesse Jackson! And yet they including Rev. Jesse Jackson speak out about white on black crime which doesn't happen often. It disgusts her. She said that black people and black leaders should focus on black on black crimes which are very common.
 
I've had a little emergency training and one thing they tell you to do is give people specific jobs. Like when you told someone to call 911, that's exactly what they told us to do. They said that if there is a group of people no one single person will feel the responsibility to call 911. It is important to tell a person and not the crowd to call for help.
 
The February 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martion might never have happened if school officials in Miami-Dade County had not instituted an unofficial policy of treating crimes as school disciplinary infractions. Revelations that emerged from an internal affairs investigation explain why Martin was not arrested when caught at school with stolen jewelry in October 2011 or with marijuana in February 2012. Instead, the teenager was suspended from school, the last time just days before he was shot dead by George Zimmerman.
Trayvon Martin was not from Sanford, the town north of Orlando where he was shot in 2012 and where a jury acquitted Zimmerman of murder charges Saturday. Martin was from Miami Gardens, more than 200 miles away, and had come to Sanford to stay with his father’s girlfriend Brandy Green at her home in the townhouse community where Zimmerman was in charge of the neighborhood watch. Trayvon was staying with Green after he had been suspended for the second time in six months from Krop High School in Miami-Dade County, where both his father, Tracy Martin, and mother, Sybrina Fulton, lived.
Both of Trayvon’s suspensions during his junior year at Krop High involved crimes that could have led to his prosecution as a juvenile offender. However, Chief Charles Hurley of the Miami-Dade School Police Department (MDSPD) in 2010 had implemented a policy that reduced the number of criiminal reports, manipulating statistics to create the appearance of a reduction in crime within the school system. Less than two weeks before Martin’s death, the school system commended Chief Hurley for “decreasing school-related juvenile delinquency by an impressive 60 percent for the last six months of 2011.” What was actually happening was that crimes were not being reported as crimes, but instead treated as disciplinary infractions.
In October 2011, after a video surveillance camera caught Martin writing graffiti on a door, MDSPD Office Darryl Dunn searched Martin’s backpack, looking for the marker he had used. Officer Dunn found 12 pieces of women’s jewelry and a man’s watch, along with a flathead screwdriver the officer described as a “burglary tool.” The jewelry and watch, which Martin claimed he had gotten from a friend he refused to name, matched a description of items stolen during the October 2011 burglary of a house on 204th Terrace, about a half-mile from the school. However, because of Chief Hurley’s policy “to lower the arrest rates,” as one MDSPD sergeant said in an internal investigation, the stolen jewerly was instead listed as “found property” and was never reported to Miami-Dade Police who were investigating the burglary. Similarly, in February 2012 when an MDSPD officer caught Martin with a small plastic bag containing marijuana residue, as well as a marijuana pipe, this was not treated as a crime, and instead Martin was suspended from school.
Either of those incidents could have put Trayvon Martin into the custody of the juvenile justice system. However, because of Chief Hurley’s attempt to reduce the school crime statistics — according to sworn testimony, officers were “basically told to lie and falsify” reports — Martin was never arrested. And if he had been arrested, he might never have been in Sanford the night of his fatal encounter with Zimmerman.
In fact, the reason Zimmerman was patrolling the townhouse community the night of the February 2012 shooting was that there had been a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood, although there was no indication that Trayvon Martin was involved in any of those crimes.
As for Chief Hurley’s policy, it was the controversy over Martin’s death that accidentally exposed it. In March 2012, the Miami Herald reported on Martin’s troubled history of disciplinary incidents at Krop High. Chief Hurley then launched the internal affairs investigation in an attempt to find out who had provided information to the reporter. During the course of that investigation, MDSPD officers and supervisors described Chief Hurley’s policy of not reporting crimes by students. Chief Hurley was subsequently accused of sexually harassing two female subordinates. He resigned in February, about a year after Trayvon Martin’s death.
Click to expand...

The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : How a Miami School Crime Cover-Up Policy Led to Trayvon Martin's Death


...an executive order hiring race-sensitive bureaucrats to hold meetings and mandate racial discipline quotas.
The order charges his new racial justice team, in part, with "promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools." In plain English, that means that if different races have different incidences of disciplinary action, those of a favored race who act worse will be punished less, or those of a disfavored race who act better will be punished more, or both.
It's true that a higher percentage of black students than white students receive school discipline such as suspensions or expulsion. A recent, representative study of nearly half the country's school districts found that 17.3 percent of black students were suspended in 2009-10, whereas 4.7 percent of whites and 7.3 percent of Latinos were. Only 2.1 percent of Asians were suspended that year. The black graduation rate is 64 percent. For whites, it's 82 percent, and for Asians, it's 92 percent.
Given these and similar statistics on practically every measure of academic success and self-discipline, [...] wants to require schools to punish equal proportions of white and black students, regardless of how individual students behave. That will mean overlooking infractions by black students or punishing more white students for pettier infractions.
Punishing students differently based on skin color -- that's not racist?
the superior performance of Asian students must indicate that schools are racist against whites, according to his thinking. Requiring equal discipline outcomes would punish good behavior by white, Asian, and Latino students and reward bad behavior by black students. That is just a horrific moral example, teaching students that rewards and punishment should be dictated by race, which you cannot control, instead of behavior, which you can.

Policies would perpetuate a victim mentality among minority students -- and such a mindset victimizes no one more than those who hold it. A person who believes that her unhappiness is someone else's fault will be demoralized or motivated to act out against those she thinks have oppressed her, rather than inspired to rise above her circumstances.
That will accelerate the cycle of futile violence and lack of academic ambition already roiling urban schools. Black high school students are 60 percent more likely than whites, and more than twice as likely as Asians, to be in a physical fight on school property, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The CDC lists risk factors for violent behavior, including family instability, poor self-control, antisocial beliefs and attitudes (such as, perhaps, "everyone's out to get me because of my race"), low parental education and income, low parental involvement, and poor academic performance.
All these behaviors also correlate with something more prevalent among blacks than any other major U.S. group: single motherhood. Two-thirds of black children live with a lone parent. Children of single mothers are more likely to drop out of school, never attend college, and learn less. They are more likely to be aggressive, depressed, and distressed. These children have been irrevocably harmed by their own parents, not by school discipline policies.
Eliminating racial disparities requires race-blindness so all people will rise on their own merits and know they can do so, not giving children a free ride for failure. The real tragedy is that while the president attempts to mandate injustice through race-based school discipline quotas, he refuses to address black Americans about what gives their children the best chance at a good life: an intact family.
Click to expand...


http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/obama_demands_race-based_school_discipline.html#ixzz2Z9lBPIV9


:hmm: I think I have figured out who is responsible for Trayvon's death....
 
Last edited:
Jiro said:
the 2nd part... you-know-what is not allowed in AD
Click to expand...

That isn't political. Not a bill before the house or senate. :lol: That is like saying "you can't say 'Freedom Of Speech'" because that is political. You have spent weeks debating "Stand Your Ground" laws. If the topic doesn't interest you perhaps you should move on and let people who are interested discuss it.

Edit to add: I did redact the article for you though.
 
TXgolfer said:
That isn't political. Not a bill before the house or senate. :lol: That is like saying "you can't say 'Freedom Of Speech'" because that is political. You have spent weeks debating "Stand Your Ground" laws. If the topic doesn't interest you perhaps you should move on and let people who are interested discuss it.
Click to expand...
"Stand Your Ground" is a law.... not an executive order signed by the President...

and you might want to reconsider what you've just said because you and I know very well that what you've just said is untrue. recall your previous thread? and recall that you keep hollering around that politic is not allowed in AD? there you go. follow your own advice.

TXgolfer said:
Edit to add: I did redact the article for you though.
Click to expand...
you mean... you edited it to be a false disguise. a lie.

you get to tell us what we did is political and but what you did is not political? oh I see. :roll:
 
CrazyPaul said:
Interesting note:

Last night I watched Fox news interviewing with one 50s black woman. She made a good point that she doesn't understand why black people don't speak out about black on black crimes where alot of black people kill each other everyday. Black people don't say or do anything about it. Not even Rev. Jesse Jackson! And yet they including Rev. Jesse Jackson speak out about white on black crime which doesn't happen often. It disgusts her. She said that black people and black leaders should focus on black on black crimes which are very common.
Click to expand...


It's a simplistic or perhaps insular mentality which is common in tight knit, non-gentrificated areas, only trust your own. In truth, it's really just a code of silence for organized crime. To be sure, you can't blame a society created from slavery for this kind of thinking. However, crime's greatest friend is silence. At some point, all communities recognize this. I believe that point, for that community, will be coming soon(It's a natural evolution).
 
Jiro said:
"Stand Your Ground" is a law.... not an executive order signed by the President...

and you might want to reconsider what you've just said because you and I know very well that what you've just said is untrue. recall your previous thread? and recall that you keep hollering around that politic is not allowed in AD? there you go. follow your own advice.


you mean... you edited it under false disguise. a lie.

you get to tell us what we did is political and but what you did is not political? oh I see. :roll:
Click to expand...

No, I mean redacted. I removed the names since you had an issue with it. No "content" was changed, therefore, not edited per se. The informationin the article is still valid and interesting. It helps to explain WHY the school was't enforcing law as it should. An EO is essentially a law. It has the full fore of a law.
 
TXgolfer said:
No, I mean redacted.
Click to expand...
which is the same thing as editing... :lol:

TXgolfer said:
I removed the names since you had an issue with it.
Click to expand...
incorrect - I simply reminded you that it's not allowed in AD but you are free to break a rule and post it.

TXgolfer said:
No "content" was changed, therefore, not edited per se.
Click to expand...
:lol: the content has been edited... therefore changed.

TXgolfer said:
The informationin the article is still valid and interesting. It helps to explain WHY the school was't enforcing law as it should. An EO is essentially a law. It has the full fore of a law.
Click to expand...
so you said you may have figured out who is responsible for Trayvon's death.... Obama?
 
Jiro said:
which is the same thing as editing... :lol:


incorrect - I simply reminded you that it's not allowed in AD but you are free to break a rule and post it.


:lol: the content has been edited... therefore changed.


so you said you may have figured out who is responsible for Trayvon's death.... Obama?
Click to expand...

1 No
2 you complained
3 No
4 No


Moving on...
 
TXgolfer said:
1 No
2 you complained
3 No
4 No


Moving on...
Click to expand...

:lol:

oh you! typical of you to have the last word prior to "moving on". well then I'll just let you have it your way :cool2:

so who may be responsible for Trayvon's death?
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/opinion/the-whole-system-failed.html?hp
In a way, the not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman for his killing of Trayvon Martin was more powerful than a guilty verdict could ever have been. It was the perfect wrenching coda to a story that illustrates just how utterly and completely our system of justice — both moral and legal — failed Martin and his family.

This is not to dispute the jury’s finding — one can intellectually rationalize the decision — as much as it is to howl at the moon, to yearn for a brighter reality for the politics around dark bodies, to raise a voice and say, this case is a rallying call, not a death dirge.

The system began to fail Martin long before that night.

The system failed him when Florida’s self-defense laws were written, allowing an aggressor to claim self-defense in the middle of an altercation — and to use deadly force in that defense — with no culpability for his role in the events that led to that point.

The system failed him because of the disproportionate force that he and the neighborhood watchman could legally bring to the altercation — Zimmerman could legally carry a concealed firearm, while Martin, who was only 17, could not.

The system failed him when the neighborhood watchman grafted on stereotypes the moment he saw him, ascribing motive and behavior and intent and criminal history to a boy who was just walking home.

The system failed him when the bullet ripped though his chest, and the man who shot him said he mounted him and stretched his arms out wide, preventing him from even clutching the spot that hurt.

The system failed him in those moments just after he was shot when he was surely aware that he was about to die, but before life’s light fully passed from his body — and no one came to comfort him or try to save him.

The system failed him when the slapdash Sanford police did a horrible job of collecting and preserving evidence.

The system failed him when those officers apparently didn’t even value his dead body enough to adequately canvass the complex to make sure that no one was missing a teen.

The system failed him when he was labeled a John Doe and his lifeless body spent the night alone and unclaimed.

The system failed him when the man who the police found standing over the body of a dead teenager, a man who admitted to shooting him and still had the weapon, was taken in for questioning and then allowed to walk out of the precinct without an arrest or even a charge, to go home after taking a life and take to his bed.

The system failed him when it took more than 40 days and an outpouring of national outrage to get an arrest.

The system failed him when a strangely homogenous jury — who may well have been Zimmerman’s peers but were certainly not the peers of the teenager, who was in effect being tried in absentia — was seated.

The system failed him when the prosecution put on a case for the Martin family that many court-watchers found wanting.

The system failed him when the discussion about bias became so reductive as to be either-or rather than about situational fluidity and the possibility of varying responses to varying levels of perceived threat.

The system failed him when everyone in the courtroom raised racial bias in roundabout ways, but almost never directly — for example, when the defense held up a picture of a shirtless Martin and told the jurors that this was the person Zimmerman encountered the night he shot him. But in fact it was not the way Zimmerman had seen Martin. Consciously or subconsciously, the defense played on an old racial trope: asking the all-female jury — mostly white — to fear the image of the glistening black buck, as Zimmerman had.

This case is not about an extraordinary death of an extraordinary person. Unfortunately, in America, people are lost to gun violence every day. Many of them look like Martin and have parents who presumably grieve for them. This case is about extraordinary inequality in the presumption of innocence and the application of justice: why was Martin deemed suspicious and why was his killer allowed to go home?

Sometimes people just need a focal point. Sometimes that focal point becomes a breaking point.

The idea of universal suspicion without individual evidence is what Americans find abhorrent and what black men in America must constantly fight. It is pervasive in policing policies — like stop-and-frisk, and in this case neighborhood watch — regardless of the collateral damage done to the majority of innocents. It’s like burning down a house to rid it of mice.

As a parent, particularly a parent of black teenage boys, I am left with the question, “Now, what do I tell my boys?”

We used to say not to run in public because that might be seen as suspicious, like they’d stolen something. But according to Zimmerman, Martin drew his suspicion at least in part because he was walking too slowly.

So what do I tell my boys now? At what precise pace should a black man walk to avoid suspicion?

And can they ever stop walking away, or running away, and simply stand their ground? Can they become righteously indignant without being fatally wounded?

Is there anyplace safe enough, or any cargo innocent enough, for a black man in this country? Martin was where he was supposed to be — in a gated community — carrying candy and a canned drink.

The whole system failed Martin. What prevents it from failing my children, or yours?

I feel that I must tell my boys that, but I can’t. It’s stuck in my throat. It’s an impossibly heartbreaking conversation to have. So, I sit and watch in silence, and occasionally mouth the word, “breathe,” because I keep forgetting to.
Click to expand...
 
In Florida in a non-capital case, a jury can be six people. In most states you would need 12 for a criminal case, but not in Florida.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlin...ge-zimmerman-case-now-that-we-have-a-verdict/

Florida court rule? Florida don't need capital case.

Supreme court case determined that 6 jury members is enough to provide good sufficient deliberation. And in the state of Florida, there is a statute that 6 jurors for standard criminal cases, and 12 jurors for capital offenses. Capital offenses meaning charges allowing the death penalty sentence. 2nd degree murder only allows for up to life in prison, thus not capital offense, and only 6 jurors
 
Back
Top