Trayvon Martin - my blood is boiling

In case you’ve been living under a rock the past few weeks, Trayvon Martin was a seventeen year old teenager shot to death in a Florida neighborhood by a twenty eight year old man, George Zimmerman. Zimmerman has walked away scot-free from the crime because Florida has a ‘stand your ground’ law which claims that, if you feel threatened, you can harm or kill that threat in the name of self-defense.

Here is a summary of what happened the night Trayvon was shot:

“Consider what the evidence tells us about what happened that night. Martin was walking through a neighborhood when Zimmerman spotted him. Zimmerman calls 911 and reports suspicious activity, which is really all a neighborhood watch captain is supposed to do anyway, and is told that officers are on the way and that he shouldn’t pursue the person he saw. Zimmerman pursues him anyway, and the two end up in some kind of altercation. We don’t know what set it off, because there are no other witnesses, but at some point during this altercation Zimmermann shot Martin. Can we really say that Zimmerman ever had a reasonable fear that his life or safety was in danger, or that he didn’t bring the physical confrontation on himself by ignoring police advice and pursuing someone whose identity and intentions he was not even aware of? Surely, Zimmerman was not in any physical danger when he first saw Martin and called the police, that only happened afterwards when he chose on his own to pursue this person. And, surely, one could surmise that Martin may have thought that he was in some kind of danger from this unknown person that was following him. Rather than self-defense, this easily could be seen as a confrontation that Zimmerman invited and even initiated, which is what makes the police’s initial decision to decline to pursue charges in this case so disturbing.”

Doug Mataconis, ‘Murder or Self-Defense?’, http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/murder-or-self-defense-florida-case-raises-questions/

I cannot believe the audacity of the Florida police. A boy gets shot dead, and the shooter gets no charges held against him because ‘they have no evidence to contradict his story that it was an act of self-defense’. WTF?!  I mean, really?!

Police Officer: “You’re under arrest for murder.”

Suspect: “Err… it was self-defense.”

Police Officer: “Oh right, sorry Sir. You’re free to go. Have a great day; I’ll just clean up this corpse.”

It’s outrageous that Zimmerman, after being explicitly told by police to leave them to assess the situation, pursues the unarmed teenager and is released without charges after shooting him dead. When Zimmerman initially rang the police, he told them, “Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real suspicious guy… he looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something.”

He looks like he’s up to no good OR on drugs OR something. Talk about shooting in the dark to find a cause for suspicion (if you’ll pardon the pun). Since when does walking along the street make you appear suspicious?! OK granted, this is America where everyone drives everywhere, but still! Zimmerman made a completely baseless stereotype of a young boy in a hoodie walking along in a neighborhood where he wasn’t immediately recognized by the local ‘nosy neighbor’. Instead of letting the police deal with it, as he was instructed, he followed the boy who shortly after, ended up dead.

Had Zimmerman left it to the authorities, Trayvon would probably have been asked where he was headed (his father’s fiancée’s house) and maybe searched for the drugs or paraphernalia that were apparently causing him to appear ‘up to no good’. They would have found nothing on him but a packet of Skittles and a can of ice tea, and let him on his way.

If Zimmerman did indeed feel threatened by Trayvon, I imagine this was something to do with the fact that the young boy felt afraid and asked what Zimmerman was doing, considering he was being pursued by a strange man with a gun. I think the case here is more that Trayvon felt like the victim, and it was he, not Zimmerman, that was defensive. If there was a confrontation, surely Zimmerman initiated it when he chose to follow a seventeen year old down a dark street with a gun. He had a gun! I cannot stress this enough, the local vigilante who one day dreamed of joining the police force, followed a ‘suspicious’ teenager after being told to stay where he was, armed with a gun, and has not been charged with shooting the unarmed boy.

What the fuck.

All of this comes across as utterly unbelievable, and that’s before the question of a racially motivated shooting comes into play. Yeah, forgot to mention, Trayvon was African-American. George Zimmerman is not.

Have a think about Trayvon’s family, who right now are dealing with the high possibility that the man who shot their son dead is going to walk away without any consequences to his actions. Whether Zimmerman acted due to racial motivations or not, how can a man admit to killing a boy and still be considered innocent?

Read here for more information:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-trayvon-marti

Here is a link to an online petition calling to bring Zimmerman to justice:
http://www.change.org/petitions/prosecute-the-killer-of-our-son-17-year-old-trayvon-martin