that you might have been in danger is an argument for a jury in an actual trial, it's not a reason to let you walk without at the very least investigating what happened.
This pretty much sums it up for me. The victim (of the shooting) could have been the thuggiest thug that ever thugged up a neighborhood, he could have been obviously casing up places to rob, he could have undeniably and completely beaten the crap out of the person who chased him down and confronted him before being shot, you still detain the guy who did the shooting and investigate the situation.
What is found to be true or probable or prosecutable or excusable after that is as it may be, that's what courts and juries and such are for, and of course the public will speculate to its heart's content.
Attempting to justify the Florida PD's procedure and handling of the situation, on the other hand, is rank, dishonest apologetics no matter how you dress it up. They screwed up, and whether it was due to good old-fashioned discrimination or good old-fashioned incompetence, they should be held accountable for it.
I can see the statistics, my husband was 6 foot 6 inches and according to him 130 pounds when he graduated from high school.
I think we're losing sight of the real villan here, what the fuck "gated community" needs volunteer neighborhood watch? Too cheap to hire security? Bad gates?
I really hate gated communities, when do we get to fire on them?
At one point I was on a committee that had a rep from the army there. He passed on that, if you want to be sure you win, merely "I have a gun" is not enough -- for instance, if you are of merely average skill, a skilled guy with a knife has a non-zero chance of taking you if he's within ten feet or so.
But this doesn't buy Zimmerman anything, because nothing compelled him to close with the guy.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
Manslaughter, not murder? Interesting. Sorta spooky, but I guess I shouldn't expect laws from those parts to make sense*.
[*] "those parts" = the areas of the universe occupied by humans.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
I'm human, therefore I have some degree of disparate response to people I can categorize into different categories. So, yeah, I guess so.
Not very good at it, though. It can take me months to realize that someone I know has an ethnicity.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
You do understand that those are rendered moot the instant a "neighborhood watchman" accurately perceives a clear and present danger to his personal safety, right?
Zimmerman: (safe in his car) "…Shit he's running."
Dispatcher: "Are you following him?"
Zimmerman: "Yeah"
Dispatcher: "Ok, we don't need you to do that."
I think that was phrased badly.
What they said: "We don't need you to do that."
What he probably heard: "If you're not going to do this dangerous and manly thing, nobody is going to hold it against you."
What they should have said: "You are a fucking civilian. Stay the fuck in your car and go home. If you do something stupid we'll haul your ass to jail."
At one point I was on a committee that had a rep from the army there. He passed on that, if you want to be sure you win, merely "I have a gun" is not enough -- for instance, if you are of merely average skill, a skilled guy with a knife has a non-zero chance of taking you if he's within ten feet or so.
Even without a knife. If you aren't good at martial arts and the other guy is, your chances of drawing and firing the thing are slim if you have less than five meters.
The guide most likely says manslaughter because that's an easier charge to prosecute, since you don't have to show intent to kill. So, I think the way it's meant is 'at least manslaughter' rather than 'at worst manslaughter.'
A friend of mine who used to be a cop and now works in Homeland Security tells me the term is BBITWP, pronounced bitwhip. It stands for Being Black in the Wrong Place, at least to the D.C. police.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I don't get why you all are still talking about this, seeing as how I have already posted on the subject.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
I'm human, therefore I have some degree of disparate response to people I can categorize into different categories. So, yeah, I guess so.
Not very good at it, though. It can take me months to realize that someone I know has an ethnicity.
Angakuk was making a bad an incredibly clever joke - a play on the word "spooky" - similar to another word used as a racial slur....
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
You bleeding heart pinko morons make me laugh. When the guy robs your house and rapes your dog you'll sing a different tune.
No they won't. They can't understand that reality and liberal fantasy don't have a lot in common.
It's a form of social self-Darwinization, actually: left-wingers become victims due to their utter cluelessness, and then revel in the new social status that comes with being a victim.
Self-fulfilling fantasy, actually.
__________________
What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
Is that particlar translation not disputed? There seems to be some argument that the original was effectively "Thou shalt not commit murder." Even His Holiness PJP II gave the OK for lethal force in certain circumstances.
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Originally Posted by Angakuk
That poor judgement led directly to the Martin's death at Zimmerman's hand. That, it seems to me, supports, at the very least, a charge of negligent homicide.
This I can more or less agree with. I was interested to read the level of intent that has to be proven in order to convict of 2nd in Florida (imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life), I would have thought any charge would have been on the manslaughter/negligent homicide level. Presumably the prosecutor has more evidence than has been released to date.
Quote:
Originally Posted by livius drusus
Bingo. As far as I'm concerned, the established facts of the case point to murder, not self-defense, not manslaughter. The disputed facts -- whether Trayvon was whupping him when he was shot -- are irrelevant, imo. Zimmerman's recklessness was in direct contravention not just of basic neighborhood watch principles but also of the explicit instructions the 911 operator gave him. That's what makes him a murderer.
Bad judgement is not illegal in itself, 911 operators do not have force of law behind their statements that I'm aware of. We know that Zimmerman reacted in a less than ideal manner to the situation in hindsight. Martin may or may not have reacted in the ideal manner himself. That's up to the jury, it would seem.
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for instance, if you are of merely average skill, a skilled guy with a knife has a non-zero chance of taking you if he's within ten feet or so.
The rule of thumb for police is 21 feet. See Tueller Drill
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He's a murderer because he shot someone in cold blood. He's not even denying it
Erm, yes he is. He's even putting the Not Guilty plea in.
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I've never seen it discussed before, but presumably "self defense" is not a legal defense in cases where you're defending yourself against someone who is only fighting you because you started something
It's called the 'principle of self-generated necessity', at least in the UK/Ireland and the recognition of its limiting the defence dates back at least to the Blackstone common law days. I have seen it applied in cases where the killer claimed self defence as a result of some patently illegal act. The Irish court quote I have to hand is "we are of the opinion, that, since a burglary is an act of aggression analogous to an assault or trespass to the person, a burglar, during the course of the burglary can never be regarded as wholly blameless in the killing of a householder or other lawful occupant"
That said, I have never seen it applied in a case of simple poor judgement and acts which are not of themselves unlawful. Not saying it hasn't or can't be, of course.
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"Reasonable match" is not a relevant criterion. It might be used to utterly disqualify claims of self-defense in cases where it's obviously impossible that the person claiming that could have been in any danger
Given that the Italian Army hired a 77-year-old to beat up its soldiers to prove that one should never underestimate one's opposition, and there are other examples of septuagenarians doing a number on youths, I wonder how 'utterly disqualified' such claims truly should be. Granted, in cases involving those bound to wheelchairs there's a better argument.
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You are a fucking civilian
This continued separation of police from the rest of the civilian population really does bug me. It differs from the original concepts of policing, and only in more recent American dictionaries has the term come to describe police in the 'not civilian' category.
Anyway, what's the timeline we're looking at for this anyway?
__________________
A man only needs two tools in life. WD-40 and duct tape. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40.
This continued separation of police from the rest of the civilian population really does bug me. It differs from the original concepts of policing, and only in more recent American dictionaries has the term come to describe police in the 'not civilian' category.
Well, in all fairness a police force is required to use means that normal citizens do not have. We do not grant the right to search someone's property to a non-trained person who is not supervised the way the police are, nor do we consider an application for the right to use a phone tap from the local neighbourhood watch. Policemen are civilians only in so far as they are not military personnel.
The original concept of policing was rather primitive to say the least, and did not at all correspond to the kind of services we expect from a police-force today.
I will have to check my Bible but I'm pretty sure the commandment reads "Thou shalt not kill, unless thou seest a dude walking down the sidewalk, then thou shalt pursue and kill him, and that is fine."
We do not grant the right to search someone's property to a non-trained person who is not supervised the way the police are, nor do we consider an application for the right to use a phone tap from the local neighbourhood watch. Policemen are civilians only in so far as they are not military personnel.
Various other occupations have rights not normally extended to other people. Some of these are quite invasive - surgery for instance. I'm not convinced this is a good reason to consider police forces to be akin to military forces. In fact the militarization of police is a pretty awful trend that should be resisted, and while the semantic point seems relatively minor it probably does have some effect on how police are viewed in peoples' minds.
I will have to check my Bible but I'm pretty sure the commandment reads "Thou shalt not kill, unless thou seest a dude walking down the sidewalk, then thou shalt pursue and kill him, and that is fine."
What's funny is, this sounds like joking, but if you actually read the OT, that's pretty much spot on.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
Re: Zimmerman to be charged
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