The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin

Brant Gaede · April 17, 2012

What is your opinion on gun control laws?
I do not know enough about it to have an opinion, except to say that it’s not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, noncriminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It’s not an important issue, unless you’re ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn’t very practical.
What is your attitude toward gun control?
It’s a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people–they are not carried for hunting animals–and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim.

Jews! Register your guns!

--Brant

caroljane · April 17, 2012

But the only sensible comment at the root of the whole issue of an armed citizenry I have read was made by Ayn Rand: the handgun is a tool for killing people. That's all she said, and when she's right, she's right.
Carol:
Except when she is wrong as in this case. I have had guns all my life, properly trained. A handgun is a tool for protecting yourself. It is a shield which converts to a sword when necessary.
More people are killed with knives than you could possibly believe.
Now let us say that the members of that group that attempted to murder George's truck driver had grown up in a civilly armed society, one of two (2) possibilities would have developed from their exposure to that civilly armed society:
1) they would have been walking on tip toes and much more cordial and respectful; or
2) someone would have killed them long ago.
The results are a more courteous society wherein people respect each other because they have to.
Additionally, rape and assaults on women decreases dramatically when the civil citizenry are armed.
You may not like what I am saying, but it is a fact of reality. More guns, less crime.
Adam

More guns, fewer people.

Selene · April 17, 2012

More guns, fewer people.

Precisely...we will save the planet, end global warming, save the polar bears, prevent the seas from rising...Hallelujah - praise the LORD...pass the ammunition...

Yes we shall save the planer....

Selene · April 17, 2012

Trayvon Martin's killer showed signs of injury: neighbors

By Chris Francescani

SANFORD, Florida | Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:40pm EDT

(Reuters) - Neighbors of George Zimmerman say he had bandages on his nose and head the day after he shot dead Trayvon Martin, supporting statements by the neighborhood watch volunteer that he was beaten in a confrontation with the black Florida teenager.

The extent of Zimmerman's injuries could be crucial to his legal defense under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law, which allows the use of deadly force when someone has the reasonable belief he could face death or great bodily harm.

Police said Zimmerman, who has been charged with second-degree murder in the racially charged case, was bleeding from the nose and the back of his head and was treated by medics before being taken to Sanford police station after the February 26 shooting.

But public doubts were later raised by the release of a grainy surveillance video from the police station in which no injuries were readily visible.

Zimmerman later sought medical treatment for injuries including a broken nose, his former lawyers have said.

Jorge Rodriguez, Zimmerman's next-door neighbor, told Reuters that when he saw Zimmerman the day after the incident, "he had two big, butterfly bandages on the back of his head, and another big bandage...on the bridge of his nose." He was talking to a police detective in his driveway.

Rodriguez's wife Audria also said she saw the bandages and a third neighbor, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, agreed with the Rodriguez couple's account. "I saw two bandages on the back of his head, and his nose was all swollen up," said the witness, who had watched from a nearby second-floor window.

The neighbors spoke to Reuters on Sunday and Monday, saying they felt they owed him their public support after he was charged with second-degree murder.

Zimmerman, 28, was originally released after the shooting, when Sanford police accepted his claim of self-defense. He was arrested and charged by a special prosecutor last week after demonstrations around the country at which the police were accused of failing to properly investigate the death of the black 17-year-old.

Zimmerman, who had been in hiding since shortly after the shooting, turned himself in.

Witness accounts have supported Zimmerman's story that there was some kind of fight between him and Martin. Martin was returning with candy from a convenience store to his father's fiancee's home in a gated community when Zimmerman spotted him and called to police to say the teen appeared suspicious.

Zimmerman's father and brother have said he had his nose broken and feared for his life before taking out his licensed handgun and shooting Martin dead.

The neighbors said they spoke to Sanford police and the FBI in their investigations but did not recall speaking to the office of special prosecutor Angela Corey, who charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder.

Corey's office and Sanford police declined to comment on the matter and Zimmerman's attorney Mark O'Mara did not return calls for comment.

(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Daniel Trotta and David Storey)

http://www.reuters.c...E83F19Y20120416

BaalChatzaf · April 17, 2012

What is your opinion on gun control laws?
I do not know enough about it to have an opinion, except to say that it’s not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, noncriminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It’s not an important issue, unless you’re ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn’t very practical.
What is your attitude toward gun control?
It’s a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people–they are not carried for hunting animals–and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim.

There is no sure fire resolution. If people are allowed to kill to defend themselves, then some people will make bloody murder look like self defense.

As Heinlein said: An armed society is a polite society.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Dglgmut · April 17, 2012

More guns, fewer people.

Why is it just an unfortunate event if someone falls onto the subway tracks and gets killed, but if they threaten or attack someone and get killed then all of a sudden it's an avoidable death?

Threatening to kill someone or attacking someone should be considered equally as stupid as fooling around on the subway tracks, and people should expect it to be dangerous.

caroljane · April 17, 2012

More guns, fewer people.
Why is it just an unfortunate event if someone falls onto the subway tracks and gets killed, but if they threaten or attack someone and get killed then all of a sudden it's an avoidable death?
Threatening to kill someone or attacking someone should be considered equally as stupid as fooling around on the subway tracks, and people should expect it to be dangerous.

Because everyone has a right to be stupid, unfortunately. But as Rand said, not a right to kill people.

Dglgmut · April 17, 2012

Because everyone has a right to be stupid, unfortunately. But as Rand said, not a right to kill people.

Whoa.... A right to be stupid? So attacking someone is just "stupid" but killing someone in self-defense is infringing on another individual's right to stupidity?

caroljane · April 17, 2012

Because everyone has a right to be stupid, unfortunately. But as Rand said, not a right to kill people.
Whoa.... A right to be stupid? So attacking someone is just "stupid" but killing someone in self-defense is infringing on another individual's right to stupidity?

Killing infringes on an individual's fundamental right to life, and if that life is stupid it is still a life.

caroljane · April 17, 2012

I don't know why these multiples keep showing up. I only push quote once and edit out the extras, but when I push save changes, they just reappear. Blame the coelacanth.

Mikee · April 17, 2012

You have the right to risk your own life with your stupidity, you don't have the right to risk others lives. You would not feel sorry for a young man who drove his car 120 mph over a cliff, you wouldn't even feel particularly sorry for a rock climber who climbed a 1000 foot cliff with no ropes and fell to his death. To them the "thrill" was worth the risk but the risk is nevertheless real. You're okay with taking the risk out of the "thrill" of smacking someone over the head with a 2x4 where the person doing the smacking is not risking his own life but someone else's. Somehow you think his life is the equal of the man being smacked. Punching someone in the head, banging someone's head into the pavement, hitting someone in the head with a board, these are not trivial things, not "boy's will be boy's" activities. Evidently you have never visited anyone in the hospital on a respirator with a tracheotomy, unable to read or write or see clearly who later died after being hit in the head. The people who impose their violence on unwilling others are cowards. They do not care what harm they do to get their thrill. This should be a very, very dangerous pasttime. I would like to see the day where these thugs were afraid to accoust every little old lady walking down the street for fear of getting their heads blown off. The life of a thug is not worth the life of a rights respecting person.

Brant Gaede · April 17, 2012

I don't know why these multiples keep showing up. I only push quote once and edit out the extras, but when I push save changes, they just reappear. Blame the coelacanth.

Then go to the edit function and edit out the dup. to see what happens.

--Brant

Brant Gaede · April 17, 2012

You can kill someone in self defense. There is no right to murder someone. If someone comes at you--to cite the extreme example--with deadly force, say a knife or a gun--he is giving you permission to kill him. It's a form of suicide. He has a right to kill himself. Some instances are called "suicide by cop." In the case of someone trying to do you harm, as opposed to the latter example, he may not know it's an attempt at suicide, but ignorance is no defense. What is primary is the right to self defense. If you don't have that you have no protectable rights that mean much. We cannot say the police have no right to kill certain criminals engaging in certain egregious behavior.

--Brant

anthony · April 17, 2012

It's all kind of egalitarianist. And that brings to mind the last Gaza - Israel war.

In all the "right" circles at that time, the gravest concern was the immorality of

'disproportionate response'.

"They killed only 3 of your people - how can you justify killing 20 of theirs' !"

("Um...suicide by cop?")

The egalitarian would insist that if someone comes at you with a 2 X 4,

you should find a 2X4 plank to defend yourself, too.

caroljane · April 17, 2012

I don't know why these multiples keep showing up. I only push quote once and edit out the extras, but when I push save changes, they just reappear. Blame the coelacanth.
Then go to the edit function and edit out the dup. to see what happens.
--Brant

I did that - I said I edited out the extras. But nothing happened.

caroljane · April 17, 2012

Look at that! It is happening every damn time. I only pushed quote once but it keeps quoting twice.

Dglgmut · April 18, 2012

You have the right to risk your own life with your stupidity, you don't have the right to risk others lives. You would not feel sorry for a young man who drove his car 120 mph over a cliff, you wouldn't even feel particularly sorry for a rock climber who climbed a 1000 foot cliff with no ropes and fell to his death. To them the "thrill" was worth the risk but the risk is nevertheless real. You're okay with taking the risk out of the "thrill" of smacking someone over the head with a 2x4 where the person doing the smacking is not risking his own life but someone else's. Somehow you think his life is the equal of the man being smacked. Punching someone in the head, banging someone's head into the pavement, hitting someone in the head with a board, these are not trivial things, not "boy's will be boy's" activities. Evidently you have never visited anyone in the hospital on a respirator with a tracheotomy, unable to read or write or see clearly who later died after being hit in the head. The people who impose their violence on unwilling others are cowards. They do not care what harm they do to get their thrill. This should be a very, very dangerous pasttime. I would like to see the day where these thugs were afraid to accoust every little old lady walking down the street for fear of getting their heads blown off. The life of a thug is not worth the life of a rights respecting person.

Thank you. Driving off a cliff would have been the perfect example of stupidity but I couldn't think of it.

Brant Gaede · April 18, 2012

I don't know why these multiples keep showing up. I only push quote once and edit out the extras, but when I push save changes, they just reappear. Blame the coelacanth.
Then go to the edit function and edit out the dup. to see what happens.
--Brant
I don't know why these multiples keep showing up. I only push quote once and edit out the extras, but when I push save changes, they just reappear. Blame the coelacanth.
Then go to the edit function and edit out the dup. to see what happens.
--Brant
I did that - I said I edited out the extras. But nothing happened.

Stop pushing the "quote." Use that only to initially quote the entire post you'd like to quote from. Then highlight all the text you want to delete and push the delete button on your keyboard. Then add your own words.

--Brant

Selene · April 18, 2012

Add your words on the line below the last "[ /quote ]" mark...

caroljane · April 19, 2012

What is your opinion on gun control laws?
I do not know enough about it to have an opinion, except to say that it’s not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, noncriminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It’s not an important issue, unless you’re ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn’t very practical.
What is your attitude toward gun control?
It’s a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people–they are not carried for hunting animals–and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim.
There is no sure fire resolution. If people are allowed to kill to defend themselves, then some people will make bloody murder look like self defense.
As Heinlein said: An armed society is a polite society.
Ba'al Chatzaf

He did not add, it's also a paranoid, hypocritical society.

Canada is a polite society, in the main, without the implicit threat that anyone who finds an individual discourteous can shoot him dead.

Dglgmut · April 21, 2012

How do these suicidal psychopaths find their way into your argument only when you're talking about the society that is allowed to defend themselves (or maybe even one another, when it's appropriate)?

People shouldn't be allowed to drive cars, either. Pedestrians have to walk right in front of cars at red lights! If only cars were banned or kept out of the cities people could cross the street without being paranoid!

But seriously, the only ones who should be paranoid are criminals.

Selene · April 26, 2012

This Reuters article is extremely revealing as to who Zimmerman is and why he does not appear to fit the nightmare profile of the race baiters on the left...

George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting

Wed, Apr 25 2012

By Chris Francescani

SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.

By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.

Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.

On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.

During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.

But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.

Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD

George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.

In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.

Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.

Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.

"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.

Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.

Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.

"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said.

Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.

"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."

George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.

After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.

YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT

On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.

"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."

In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.

Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.

That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.

In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.

In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.

Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.

On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."

A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"

Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.

"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.

Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.

Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE

On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.

Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.

Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.

Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.

Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.

"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.

The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.

This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.

"These assholes," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."

After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.

Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

(Editing by David Adams, Daniel Trotta and Prudence Crowther)

==========================================================

Now, if this Reuters recitation is reasonably accurate, it casts a completely different image on the events of that tragic day:

1) there was a significant rise in burglaries and home invasions by young black men in the community;

2) just prior to the tragic day, Zimmerman followed the advice of the dispatcher and the alleged perp got away; and

3) Zimmerman appears to be a solid, rational individual who was acting cautiously in all prior instances.

Adam

Selene · May 1, 2012

1. “Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.”

2. “Those who trade liberty for security have neither.”

3. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

4. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

5. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

6. Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.

7. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.

8. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

9. You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

10. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

11. 84,999,987 American firearms owners didn’t kill anybody yesterday and won’t kill anybody today.

13. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

14. What part of “shall not be infringed” do you NOT understand?

15. Guns have only two enemies; rust and politicians.

16. When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.

Selene · May 1, 2012

http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/100-blacks-beat-white-couple-media-buries-attack/

There’s outrage in Norfolk, Va., today after a white couple was attacked by a group of 100 black teenagers, and the local newspaper did not report on the incident for two weeks, despite the victims being employees of the paper.

Even today, the Virginian-Pilot did not cover the crime as news, but rather as an opinion piece by columnist Michelle Washington

"Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote, describing the onslaught that began when Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami stopped at a red light while driving home from a show on a Saturday night. A crowd of at least 100 black young people was on the sidewalk.

“Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that’s when the beating began. …

“The victim’s friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. It happened four blocks from where they work, here at the Virginian-Pilot.”

Washington says neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster’s torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami reportedly fears to be alone in her home., while Forster wishes he’d stayed in the car.

===================================

Stay in the car and floor the fucking vehicle...

Adam

Peter · May 2, 2012

George Zimmerman has collected two hundred grand the last time I checked but his bail was $150,000, which means the amount needed for a bail bondsman is usually ten percent of that. Then he has his living and legal expenses before his trial. The guy cannot work or show his face in public. I think a lynch mob mentality as fostered by Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson is despicable.

He may have been wrong to continue to follow the suspect after being told not to, IF HE DID, but I gave George Zimmerman ten bucks.

Peter

The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin

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