On this day in 2012, Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen walking home from a trip to a convenience store, is fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer patrolling the townhouse community of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman later claimed to have shot the unarmed 17-year-old out of self-defense during a physical altercation. After police initially opted not to arrest Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother is Hispanic, the case sparked protests and ignited national debates about racial profiling and self-defense laws. Zimmerman later was charged with second-degree murder; following a high-profile trial that riveted America, he was acquitted of the charges against him.
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On February 26, Martin, a Miami high school student, was in Sanford visiting his father. Dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, the teen was on his way back to the home of his father’s fiancée, after buying a bag of Skittles and a bottle of juice, when he was spotted by Zimmerman, a 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator who was captain of the neighborhood patrol at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, which recently had experienced a series of break-ins and burglaries. Zimmerman called the non-emergency line of the Sanford police to report that Martin looked suspicious then ignored a police dispatcher’s advice not to follow the young man. Moments later, gunfire rang out. When officers arrived, Martin was dead at the scene. Zimmerman, who had a bloody nose and cuts on the back of his head, was questioned then released. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, and police chose not to arrest Zimmerman, who claimed to have acted in self-defense.
After Martin’s parents raised concerns about the police investigation into the death of their son, who had no criminal record, the case gained national attention. Protest rallies were held in cities nationwide, including New York City, where on March 21 hundreds of people gathered for the Million Hoodie March and demanded justice for Martin, who many believed Zimmerman had profiled as suspicious and threatening simply because the teen was black. Two days later, President Barack Obama said of the shooting: “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.” In addition to raising a national debate about race relations, the shooting drew attention to Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law, which allows people to use lethal force if they fear for their safety and does not require them to retreat from a dangerous situation, even when it’s possible to do so.
On April 11, 2012, following weeks of demonstrations, a special prosecutor appointed by Florida’s governor charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial in June 2013. In court, the prosecution portrayed Zimmerman as a wannabe cop who had profiled Martin as a criminal, chased him down and fought him. Prosecutors also tried to poke holes in Zimmerman’s self-defense claim by pointing to inconsistencies in his statements to the police. Defense attorneys for Zimmerman, who did not take the stand, contended he only shot Martin after the teen attacked him.On July 13, after deliberating for 16 hours over two days, a jury of six women found Zimmerman not guilty.
In November 2013, the city of Sanford announced new rules forbidding volunteers in its neighborhood watch program from carrying guns and pursuing suspects.
Trayvon Martin was a thug that deserved his fate. He WAS a “career criminal”, but due to juvenile criminal non-disclosure laws, his true criminal record was sealed and will never be known.
On the night of his demise, he was “casing the neighborhood”, walking between houses, and generally “up to no good”. He was sent to live with his father as he was out of control.
Previously, he had been found with stolen jewelry and burglary tools. Of course, his juvenile status made the discovery of his criminal actions a moot point.
Zimmerman was not “the sharpest knife in the drawer”, but as a neighborhood watch volunteer was within his rights in observing and talking to anyone in his “area of responsibility”.
The “lugenpresse” has much to answer for, showing a photo of Trayvon as a 12-year-old boy, conveniently refusing to show his then-current “thug” social media picture, as it would have destroyed Trayvon’s “angelic image”.
The “lugenpresse” also went after George Zimmerman, describing him as a “white Hispanic” with a bloodlust for Trayvon. They also “doctored” his dispatcher conversation to make him appear “racist”. They even “photoshopped” the initial photo of his injuries to make his injuries less apparent.
Trayvon Martin caused his own demise…period.
Skittles lives matter.
I hear Skittles are used with a cough syrup to make some kind of drug.
No, Anon, you are referring to Trayvon’s favorite concoction using cough syrup, soft drink and Jolly Rancher candy.
From Wikipedia – Purple drank is a slang term for a concoction which includes a prescription-strength cough syrup used in a manner inconsistent with its labeling, thus making it a recreational drug. The mixture became popular in the hip hop community in the southern United States in the 1990s, originating in Houston.[1]
The prescription-strength cough syrup used in purple drank contains codeine and promethazine (not to be confused with dextromethorphan; DXM).[2] The cough syrup, used in doses much higher than medically recommended, is typically mixed with ingredients such as the soft drinks Sprite or Mountain Dew and optionally “a Jolly Rancher hard fruit candy thrown in for extra sweetness.”[1] The purplish hue of purple drank comes from dyes in the cough syrup. The amount of cough syrup used “can exceed up to 25 times the recommended dose.”[3] The concoction is “Typically consumed out of Styrofoam cups”.[3]
There are numerous slang terms for purple drank, including sizzurp,[4] lean,[5] syrup,[4] drank,[4] barre,[4] purple jelly,[4] Texas tea,[6] dirty Sprite,[7] and Tsikuni.[8]
EC – You have it all mixed up. Drank is made with Skittles and Watermelon punch along with cough syrup. That whole thing was BS.
Great summary and analysis. Its too bad Obama and his minions did everything they could to divide this nation and attack the police. Obama did become the greatest firearms salesman the world has ever seen.
Even old church ladies in my area are now buying guns.
Other than the 2016 presidential election, there is no other domestic news event/story I followed as closely in recent years as the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman story.
Martin did not deserve to die, and his death was tragic. Zimmerman could have simply stayed in his car, and I am not in agreement with some of his actions after his acquittal.
But I agreed with the verdict; I celebrated it, even, and it was the shamelessly lopsided coverage of the trial and case given by the lügenpresse. There was probably no more blatant example than NBC’s doctoring of the 911 phone call between Zimmerman and local police.
Zimmerman was portrayed as a “white Hispanic” because he did not clearly look white. He would have stood out and looked Hispanic, mixed, or perhaps even Middle Eastern had he lived in a 99% white town in Maine, New Hampshire, or North or South Dakota. Had Zimmerman been black (he did have black ancestors), this case would have never made the prime time news.
Martin came from a troubled background, but he was not an innocent little angel. He had often bragged about bloodying opponents in MMA-style fights. He cut 53 days of school in a recent (if not the current) school year, and was once found to be in possession of women’s jewelry and tools that could have been used for burglaries. Those jewels did not belong to him and they weren’t a gift for his mother. And he had posted photographs of himself with a semiautomatic pistol – which he was (to my knowledge) too young to legally own in Florida.
Angela Corey was a disaster as a prosecutor. She arrived saying she wanted “justice for Trayvon Martin,” which showed from the beginning she was not impartial – which is not what the judicial system is about. She submitted a deeply flawed affidavit (which anti-Second Amendment, liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz blasted and said was enough reason for the withdrawal of charges against Zimmerman) and was behind the firing of a Florida public employee who testified in the trial that certain information that was damning against Trayvon was withheld.
I do not fail to see the great grief Martin’s family suffered; this was a difficult and complex case. Had Martin turned his life around, he would’ve had a good future – he was only a teenage boy. But the media’s coverage, the bias, the lies, the sheer dishonesty… all this disgusted me to an extent I find hard to describe in writing. I was already a libertarian, Ron-Paul supporting person then, but it was this incident that further hardened and hurried my tilt farther right.
The bias was later repeated when Michael Brown and Freddie Gray died. But by then it was all too predictable.
It wasn’t a “complex case” at all. “Tray-Tray” ATTACKED and attempted to murder Zimmerman. IF Zimmerman had been murdered, it would not have made page 10 of the “lugenpresse”…
As far as I am concerned, Zimmerman “took out the trash”… Trayvon got what he deserved…
I have NO sympathy for either Trayvon or his dysfunctional “parents” (who hit the racial lottery after the incident…
If you had been the one being pounded upon by a career criminal we all know that had it been you being pounded that you would have done things so differently than Zimmerman, because you knew you deserved death rather than Martin.
Right. Get thee back to the rubber room.
Another one who can’t read. 🙂
“Zimmerman could have simply stayed in his car ……. ”
And Trayvon could have simply ignored him instead of circling back and attacking him.
Hindsight is always 20/20 isn’t it? Especially when applied to someone else’s actions.
I never said Zimmerman did anything immoral – and had you read carefully, you would’ve noticed I agreed with his acquittal.
But you still criticize Zimmerman and place no fault on Trayvon.
The reality is that Trayvon brought on his own death by attacking, and trying to kill, Zimmerman. Had he not done that he would not have died that night.
“But you still criticize Zimmerman and place no fault on Trayvon.”
I wrote that I agreed with and CELEBRATED Zimmerman’s acquittal. It was precisely because I believed he spoke the truth when he claimed Trayvon assaulted him that I agreed with his acquittal.
Furthermore, I noticed Trayvon’s troubled history.
“The reality is that Trayvon brought on his own death by attacking, and trying to kill, Zimmerman. Had he not done that he would not have died that night.”
To conclude that not every action Zimmerman took was wise, to make critiques of him does not mean I cannot agree with his claims of self-defense. Trayvon Martin was very unwise, and Zimmerman acted to save his own life.
Were you willing or able to read with a bit more attention, you would’ve made these conclusions without me having to spell them out for you.
My lack of being able to “willing or able to read with a bit more attention” is not the problem.
Your lack of clearly stated intent in writing that doesn’t count on others to draw some conclusion you expect to be drawn through unstated and unsuggested standards is.
You still have only partially and seemingly reluctantly blamed Trayvon.
And because I “reluctantly” blamed Trayvon I celebrated the acquittal of the man who killed him… ‘kay.
Another dindu nothin. That thug culture is the problem. It grates on my teeth when I hear talking heads justify it as them “expressing themselves”, well, when gun carrying folk get assaulted by dindu’s expressing themselves, the gun toting folks have the right to express themselves with lead. If it ventilates a thug, well, the message was not quite loud enough.
Can you imagine this problem in the 1800’s? Yea, thought so. This is not a black thing, it is a thug thing. These thugs walk around with their “limp”, and their baggy pants and act like they own the place. They are arrogant and merciless. I know of older folks that live in FEAR in their own homes because these thugs will sit right outside their homes, drinking their 40 ouncers “forties” sitting on their car. If the old guy / gal even looks at them wrong, they will walk towards them with a look of “I will kill you old man”.
How do you think that situation would change if, for example, a Clint Eastwood type old guy goes out on to his front lawn, points an AR or a shotgun at these dindu’s and tells them to take their thuggery elsewhere or else they will be ventilated, in a city where it is known that a Trayvon will NOT be glorified for his color, but will be seen as what they are – thugs. Well, I would bet that those asshats and their low rider and “forties” would utter the words “sorry sir, we will move right away”. That is why an armed society is a POLITE society.
Ahem, …well, speaking of Grand Torino:
A white hispanic guy, an angelic little teenager and a goofy illegal alien US president walked into a bar.
The bartender looked up and said, “Get the fuck outta here”.
Hopefully gone before reproducing.
The disgusting part of the whole mess was obummer’s reaction. He used it as an integral step towards his ulterior motive of undermining race relations by adding to the hysteria surrounding this event. By itself it was a fairly trivial matter (imagine the deafening silence if it was a black shooting a white/Hispanic). The big Oh added fuel to the fire. Not without it’s comical side though. He said Trayvon could have been his own son. Does that mean that he plowed Trayvon’s mother back when or is this just another case of a black father not keeping careful records on their off springs?
More race baiting revealed: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/26/lawyer-racist-note-given-black-waitress-fake/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social