Now that George Zimmerman has been acquitted, it’s time to make note of a few bottom lines in the case, and there are quite a few.
Gregory Kane
Bottom line number one: Trayvon Martin broke no laws before his fatal confrontation with George Zimmerman.
You wouldn’t expect Zimmerman’s defense team to hammer that point home, but anybody with a yen for the facts can easily come by that information.
Zimmerman made several calls to the police dispatcher the night of February 26, 2012. All of them described Martin’s actions.
Not one of those actions can be construed, even remotely, as a criminal act.
Supporters of Zimmerman— many of them bona fide, right wing nut jobs— might point out that Martin committed a crime when he attacked Zimmerman. That just brings me to the next item on the bottom line list.
Bottom line number two: The right of self-defense and “standing your ground” applies to 17-year-old black boys being followed and stalked.
Martin, in the final telephone call of his short life, told his friend Rachel Jeantel that a “creepy cracker” was following him.
The youth might have lost some points with me for using the racial epithet, but he got the “creepy” part right. And when he finally confronted Zimmerman, even if Zimmerman’s version of events is to be believed, Martin did what any 17-year old-boy might have done.
He attacked the creepy creep that was creeping up on him. That’s a legitimate case for self-defense, one that should have canceled out Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense.
Bottom line number three: Martin wasn’t armed the night of February 26, 2012.
Despite efforts of both of Zimmerman’s defense attorneys to depict Martin as a homicidal maniac, that fact can’t be denied. Martin carried no gun, no knife, not even a set of brass knuckles. That brings me to the next item on the bottom line list.
Bottom line number four: George Zimmerman WAS armed.
In his closing statement, Mark O’Mara, one of Zimmerman’s defense lawyers, dredged up the gall to say this:
“We know he [Martin] had the opportunity to go home, and he didn’t do that. The person who decided to make the night violent was the guy who didn’t go home when he had the chance.”
Excuse me? Didn’t George Zimmerman also have the option of “going home,” especially after the cops told him they didn’t need him to follow Martin? And wasn’t Zimmerman the one who was armed?
So who was looking to “make the night violent”? The unarmed teen, who was minding his own business, on his way home and who had just bought some Skittles and an Arizona iced tea?
Or the guy running around totin’ the big-ass gun, who was following and stalking that unarmed teen?
Would O’Mara have us believe that Zimmerman carried the handgun to “shoot rattlesnakes and such?”
Bottom line number five: Trayvon Martin didn’t kill anyone the night of February 26, 2012.
Bottom line number six: George Zimmerman DID kill someone the night of February 26, 2012.
Bottom line number seven: Jurors in the Zimmerman trial must have some strange standards about what makes for a “depraved mind.”
To find Zimmerman guilty of second-degree murder, jurors would have had to determine that he acted with a “depraved mind” when he shot Martin. Judging from the verdict, jurors must have concluded that Zimmerman was quite the normal guy.
That means they think it’s perfectly normal for a guy to follow and stalk someone that— a.) has not committed a crime; and b.) has not even been suspected of having committed a crime.
I repeat, for the benefit of those Zimmerman supporters who seem to be living in denial about this fact, Trayvon Martin committed no crime the night of February 26, 2012.
Nor was there a crime reported to police in which Martin could reasonably have been considered a suspect.
So Zimmerman doesn’t see Martin commit a crime; he doesn’t have any knowledge that a crime has been committed in which a suspect fitting Martin’s description has been spotted.
But what does Zimmerman do? He follows and stalks Martin. He makes comments about “these bleepholes always getting away” and “bleeping punks.” That’s not only depraved, but also what Martin said it was: Downright creepy.
Bottom line number eight: A Florida jury has just let a homicidal, creepy creep back on to the streets. If I lived in the state, I’d invest some money in a bulletproof vest.