“What makes all these people who are threatening George any better than the person they think he is?” The Latest Zimmerman/Martin News Roundup

Okay, we have a lot of news stories and commentary to aggregate, so let’s jump into it.

As a way of review, in my legal analysis (here and here) there are three crucial questions to determine whether Zimmerman validly invoked self-defense:

1)      Who struck the first blow? 

2)      At the moment Zimmerman shot Martin, did Zimmerman have a reasonable fear that Martin was about to inflict legal force on him?

3)      If Zimmerman struck the first blow, did Zimmerman have a reasonable opportunity to escape?

I say that having reviewed enough evidence that it makes it pretty clear that there was some kind of fight between them before Zimmerman shot him.  Obviously things would be very different if Zimmerman shot him with no fighting beforehand.  So pay close attention and you will see that, maddeningly, for the most part the only person who can answer those questions is Zimmerman.

First, for the first time we have heard George Zimmerman’s account.  Via the Orlando Sentinel (hat tip to Dustin in the comments):

With a single punch, Trayvon Martin decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who eventually shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk, leaving him bloody and battered, law-enforcement authorities told the Orlando Sentinel.

That is the account Zimmerman gave police, and much of it has been corroborated by witnesses, authorities say. There have been no reports that a witness saw the initial punch Zimmerman told police about...

In his version of events, Zimmerman had turned around and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from behind, the two exchanged words and then Trayvon punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, and began beating him.

Much later in the article we get a much more fulsome version of that:

On Feb. 26, when Zimmerman first spotted Trayvon, he called police and reported a suspicious person, describing Trayvon as black, acting strangely and perhaps on drugs.

Zimmerman got out of his SUV to follow Trayvon on foot. When a dispatch employee asked Zimmerman if he was following the 17-year-old, Zimmerman said yes. The dispatcher told Zimmerman he did not need to do that.

There is about a one-minute gap during which police say they're not sure what happened.

Zimmerman told them he lost sight of Trayvon and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from the left rear, and they exchanged words.

Trayvon asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cell phone, he told police. Trayvon then said, "Well, you do now" or something similar and punched Zimmerman in the nose, according to the account he gave police.

Zimmerman fell to the ground and Trayvon got on top of him and began slamming his head into the sidewalk, he told police.

Zimmerman began yelling for help.

Several witnesses heard those cries, and there has been a dispute about whether they came from Zimmerman or Trayvon.

Lawyers for Trayvon's family say it was Trayvon, but police say their evidence indicates it was Zimmerman.

One witness, who has since talked to local television news reporters, told police he saw Zimmerman on the ground with Trayvon on top, pounding him — and was unequivocal that it was Zimmerman who was crying for help.

Zimmerman then shot Trayvon once in the chest at very close range, according to authorities.

When police arrived less than two minutes later, Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.

Paramedics gave him first aid but he said he did not need to go to the hospital. He got medical care the next day.

Who approached whom is not relevant, so it doesn’t suddenly make it Martin’s fault if Zimmerman is believed on that point.

And this is old hat by now, but it is worth noting The Narrative Against Zimmerman^®:

Civil-rights leaders and more than a million other people have demanded Zimmerman's arrest, calling Trayvon a victim of racial profiling and suggesting Zimmerman is a vigilante.

Trayvon was an unarmed black teenager who had committed no crime, they say, who was gunned down while walking back from a 7-Eleven with nothing more sinister than a package of Skittles and can of Arizona iced tea.

That will be important as we go forward.

Meanwhile ABC News adds an additional wrinkle to Zimmerman’s version of events.  We have video and text, and I’ll give you both after the break.  Please note that ABC video has a bad habit of starting on its own, so if I catch it doing that, I will cut out the video.  In that case, go here to see it.

And here’s the text of the article and there is indeed more in the text than there than in the ABC video:

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch crime captain who shot dead 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, originally told police in a written statement that Martin knocked him down with a punch to the nose, repeatedly slammed his head on the ground and tried to take his gun, a police source told ABC News.

More:

In addition, an eyewitness, 13-year-old Austin Brown, told police he saw a man fitting Zimmerman's description lying on the grass moaning and crying for help just seconds before he heard the gunshot that killed Martin.

That would be the second eyewitness who saw Zimmerman lying on the ground and calling for help, in addition to “John” in the video from the other day.  A police source also said that Martin’s father said that the voice calling for help in the 911 calls was not Trayvon, but he told a radio show that it was.

And a lawyer who actually knows something about the law weighs in:

The details of Zimmerman's early account of the confrontation could complicate pressing charges against him, which one veteran prosecutor has already said could be difficult.

"The stand-your-ground law is one portion of justifiable use of deadly force," veteran State Attorney Angela Corey told ABC News. "And what that means is that the state must go forward and be able to prove it's case beyond a reasonable doubt… So it makes the case in general more difficult than a normal criminal case."

But we should careful trusting this account, because ABC News gets a detail wrong:

Zimmerman shot Martin dead the night of Feb. 26 after following him for several minutes. Zimmerman told police Martin looked suspicious because he was wearing a hoodie, and when he confronted him the two fought -- ultimately resulting in a single bullet in Martin's chest.

(emphasis added).  So apparently ABC thinks that Zimmerman was following the “Geraldo” theory of suspicion.  The problem with that is we know that is not true.  Go and listen to the 911 tapes again, over at Mother Jones.  Zimmerman said that Martin was suspicious because of his behavior and speculated that the guy was on drugs or something.  Contrary to what reports suggest, Zimmermna didn’t mention Martin’s skin color or his clothing in discussing why he considered the guy suspicious.  Instead those details came out when he was asked to describe Martin.  And it was the 911 dispatcher who brought up color, not Zimmerman.

Also this ABC News report adds one more detail from Zimmerman’s lawyer:

"George Zimmerman suffered a broken nose, and had an injury to the back of his head, he was attacked by Trayvon Martin on that evening," Sonner said. "This was a case of self defense."

We knew previously that Zimmerman had cuts on the back of his head, and a bloodied nose, but this verifies that it was actually broken.  But we will read in a bit that he did not go to the hospital right away, which I admit is strange.

Meanwhile the Miami Herald tells us a lot more about Martin’s background.  As you might have heard he was suspended for ten days, which is why he was at his father’s house.  Now we are finding out a little more about his record:

The Miami Gardens teen who has become a national symbol of racial injustice was suspended three times, and had a spotty school record that his family’s attorneys say is irrelevant to the facts that led up to his being gunned down on Feb. 26.

They can say it is irrelevant, but in fact it is not, as we will see in a moment.

In October, a school police investigator said he saw Trayvon on the school surveillance camera in an unauthorized area “hiding and being suspicious.” Then he said he saw Trayvon mark up a door with “W.T.F” — an acronym for “what the f---.” [Aaron: No, no, it stands for Obama’s slogan “Win the Future!”] The officer said he found Trayvon the next day and went through his book bag in search of the graffiti marker.

Instead the officer reported he found women’s jewelry and a screwdriver that he described as a “burglary tool,” according to a Miami-Dade Schools Police report obtained by The Miami Herald. Word of the incident came as the family’s lawyer acknowledged that the boy was suspended in February for getting caught with an empty bag with traces of marijuana, which he called “irrelevant” and an attempt to demonize a victim.

Trayvon’s backpack contained 12 pieces of jewelry, in addition to a watch and a large flathead screwdriver, according to the report, which described silver wedding bands and earrings with diamonds.

Trayvon was asked if the jewelry belonged to his family or a girlfriend.

“Martin replied it’s not mine. A friend gave it to me,” he responded, according to the report. Trayvon declined to name the friend.

Trayvon was not disciplined because of the discovery, but was instead suspended for graffiti, according to the report. School police impounded the jewelry and sent photos of the items to detectives at Miami-Dade police for further investigation.

And yes that is relevant, for several reasons.  First, let’s not forget that Zimmerman thought that Martin acted like he was on drugs and now we get verification that he may very well have been on drugs.  We will see in a moment that when the coroner did an autopsy, he did test Martin for drugs, but we don’t know the result of the testing.  And the presence of items of questionable origin and a potential thieving tool suggest that Martin might very well have been a thief, thus backing up Zimmerman’s suspicion that he was casing the area out.  He may not have been as innocent as we were led to believe.

Or he might have been sober at that time, and he might have been telling the truth about the jewelry and the screwdriver being an unnamed “friend’s.”  Have the police ever followed up on that?  And even if he was a thief that didn’t mean he was up to anything right at that moment.  He might have been doing nothing more than walking back to his father’s house.  But it does deflate the narrative that it is self-evident somehow that Zimmerman’s suspicions were based purely on race.  As I said from the beginning, we didn’t see what Zimmerman saw.  We don’t know how reasonable his assessment was.

The attorney for the Martin family were not happy about these revelations:

“It’s completely irrelevant to what happened Feb. 26,” said attorney Benjamin Crump. “They never heard this, and don’t believe it’s true. If it were true, why wouldn’t they call the parents? Why wasn’t he arrested?”

Trayvon, who was a junior at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School, had never been arrested, police and the family have said.

“We think everybody is trying to demonize him,” Crump said.

And of course Sharpton steps in:

Trayvon’s parents viewed the new reports as an orchestrated campaign to demonize their son as a “junkie and thief,” a routine occurrence in such cases, the Rev. Al Sharpton said at an afternoon press conference. Zimmerman, Sharpton said, had no way of knowing about Trayvon’s school record — “because he didn’t interview him before he shot him.”

“The only thing that’s relevant is what Zimmerman knew,” Sharpton said. “Let’s not play this double standard of trying to damage who is dead and sanitize who is the cause of the death.”

Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, said her son never had any problems with gangs or the police. In fact, she said, when she transferred him out of Carol City High School to be closer to home, the school wanted him to stay at Carol City because they liked him and he was a good student.

“They killed my son, and now they are trying to kill his reputation,” Fulton said.

Well, with respect to the family, this is frankly ordinary and it is valid a defense tactic.  Indeed, we have watched Zimmerman be demonized—and indeed robbed of his Hispanic identity—in the press by people like Sharpton.  It is not solely relevant what Zimmerman knew, but whether what we know about Martin is consistent with Zimmerman’s story, and whether Zimmerman had reason to suspect that Martin was up to something, or whether it was a color-based assessment.  And his suspensions go directly to that.

Meanwhile, we get former NAACP leader C. L. Bryant denouncing both Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson:

Former NAACP leader C.L. Bryant is accusing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of “exploiting” the Trayvon Martin tragedy to “racially divide this country.”

“His family should be outraged at the fact that they’re using this child as the bait to inflame racial passions,” Rev. C.L. Bryant said in a Monday interview with The Daily Caller.

The conservative black pastor who was once the chapter president of the Garland, Texas NAACP called Jackson and Sharpton “race hustlers” and said they are “acting as though they are buzzards circling the carcass of this young boy.”

Jackson, for example, recently said Martin’s death shows how “blacks are under attack” and “targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business.”...

But Bryant, who explores the topic of black-on-black crime in his new film “Runaway Slave,” said people like Jackson and Sharpton are being misleading to suggest there is an epidemic of “white men killing black young men.”

“The epidemic is truly black on black crime,” Bryant said. “The greatest danger to the lives of young black men are young black men.”

Depressing and true.

He also criticized President Obama for his “nebulous statement” responding to Martin’s death that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

“What does that mean?” Bryant asked. “What was the purpose in that?”

It’s an inappropriate race-based argument, for sure.

Meanwhile, Herman Cain gets a lot of facts wrong (who can blame him with all the incorrect reporting?), but reaches the only correct conclusion: we don’t know enough to draw many conclusions (at least not as to the crucial three questions):

“Where is the investigation?” Cain said in an email to TheDC. “That is the question that should be asked, and answered, before all of this ‘swirling rhetoric’ creates an even more tense situation out of this very tragic incident. We need a complete investigation and all the facts, not a premature ‘War of Words.’”

Cain added that were there are some troubling questions about how police initially handled Martin’s death, the facts need to come out before the American people rush to judgment.

“On the surface, it appears this was a senseless killing,” Cain said. “And it appears as if the suspect was not taken into custody. It appears there wasn’t an immediate or thorough investigation.”

“I’m not an investigator, but I believe all the facts should be out on the table before we draw any more conclusions in this case,” he continued.

Good for him.  I don’t think he was the best candidate for President, but he would beat the crap out of the current occupant of the White House.  Not that that is a particularly high bar to set, but there you go.  Commentator Deneen Borelli also had some nice remarks, so let me suggest you read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, the Daily Caller busts the Brady Campaign for falsely stating that Zimmerman was allowed to keep the gun.  You know from that day-after video I posted the other day that this was not the case and its good of them to keep them honest.  Or at least call them on their dishonesty.

I’ll also reiterate that I don’t know how the Brady Campaign thinks this helps their campaign against self-defense laws.  Those who oppose a robust defense of self-defense believe apparently that the police should have a monopoly on the use of force.  When you show that the cops are incompetent or worse yet, biased, this doesn’t exactly increase your desire to see the police be your only appeal when your life is threatened, now does it?

Meanwhile through Reuters we get Zimmerman’s feelings about this:

Friends of Zimmerman, who has not spoken to the media, said he was extremely upset about the shooting.

"I mean, he took a man's life and he has no idea what to do about it. He's extremely remorseful about it," said his friend Joe Oliver.

"What makes all these people who are threatening George any better than the person they think he is?" he added. "You've got all these people wanting to lynch the man, and they don't know the whole story.

"There are huge gaps that are being filled in and interpreted without evidence," he said.

As you can see I liked that line “"What makes all these people who are threatening George any better than the person they think he is?” enough to put it as the title of the post.  It’s a little awkward, but as you untangle it you realize he is making a great point.  It sneaks up on you that way.  Zimmerman’s detractors assume he is a typical (honorary) white dude who thinks all black people are criminals including the young innocent Trayvon Martin.  They don’t know enough to know that is the case so it is in fact them that are demonstrating prejudice here, and you suspect that much of that prejudice is race-based.  And when it comes to the New Black Panthers or Farrakhan, the word “suspect” is no longer in play.  All these people assuming Zimmerman is guilty are every bit as bad as they suspect Zimmerman is.

And we also get this:

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, called on Sunday for a Justice Department investigation into "Stand your Ground" laws to determine if they increase violence and prevent prosecutions of crimes.

"They're all new. They've been passed very, very quickly and I think the states who passed them, if they find out the real facts, they may decide to repeal them," Schumer said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"I have a lot of faith in our police and in our sheriffs and I don't like a move to vigilantism," Schumer said.

Which is so clueless it is astonishing.  Actually the rule majority of jurisdictions in the US do not impose a duty to retreat on the non-aggressor, so rather than being new and novel, it is downright pedestrian in our jurisprudence.  Indeed if Schumer wanted to investigate those rules, he might start by examining the Federal common law of self-defense which appears to follow the same rule.

No, wait.  Nevermind.  I don’t want to give him ideas.

Also Florida Governor Rick Scott addressed the issue of Zimmerman’s safety:

Scott also said he was not aware of any requests for protection from Zimmerman, but would provide it if asked.

"If he feels unsafe, we'll make sure nothing happens to him," Scott said.

Good for him.

You can also see more ABC News video of Mr. Oliver, discussing several things, including whether Zimmerman said, “coons” and he adds the point that well...  coon isn’t a very common racial epithet even among racists for his demographic.

By the way, sidebar, what does the term “coons” even mean?  Are they saying that black people are raccoons?

Sometimes racists are so stupid it makes my head hurt.  Anyway, here is that Oliver video.

And note that Oliver also says it was Zimmerman calling for help, for what it is worth.

But, as for his theory that he is saying “goons,” well, you listen to the CNN enhancement and tell me what you hear?

The last time I revisted this issue, I said it sounded kind of like “coons” but it wasn’t sure.  It definitely doesn’t sound like “goons.”  But then Ace offered an interpretation: punks.  He argued that if you are listening for “coons” you will hear “coons” but if you listen for “punks”...

Well, listen again to the Cnn-enhanced audio.  At the risk of being accused of flip-flopping, I’m with Ace.  It sounds like punks.  Which lines up with my original assessment where I said it sounded like the first sound was a P sound and not a C sound.  But you decide for yourself.  And while I don’t agree with Oliver’s interpretation that it is “goons” I think he is exactly right to say that it is a weird racial slur for someone of Zimmerman’s age bracket.

Also the reuters article tells us a suprising fact about Zimmerman:

Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic neighborhood watch captain...

As Instapundit observes:

MORE: Reader John Oglesby writes: “Zimmerman is a ‘White Hispanic’? [I]t seems they’ll use whatever fits their narrative. If a Caucasian man had shot a hooded Zimmerman, there’s no way they’d be calling him a White Hispanic.” No, then he’d be a Latino, full-stop.

Next via the Chicago Tribune we get some myths busted for your benefit.  This is the article I mentioned before that told us that Martin was tested for drugs.  But it doesn’t tell us what the results of those tests were.  Do read it.  It straightens out a lot of what is going on.

Meanwhile we learn via Politico that Trayvon Martin’s parents will be going to a Congressional hearing.  To discuss what is as of this moment a matter of local law enforcement.  You know I was just thinking that what this scandal needed was some long-winded political grandstanding.

The Smoking Gun had an interesting story, but f—k ‘em.  I never forgave them for what they did to Mike Stack.  I am sure my personal boycott of their site won’t mean jack, but it’s the principle that counts.

Moving on, there has been some confusion about whether Zimmerman was actually in the neighborhood watch.  First at the Grio we see that the National Sheriff’s Association says that he is not in the “official” USAonWatch-Neighborhood Watch.  Relatedly a spokesman for that organization denounced Zimmerman’s conduct:

Chris Tutko, director of Neighborhood Watch for the National Sheriffs' Association, said Zimmerman broke some cardinal rules.

First, he approached a stranger he suspected of wrongdoing.

"If you see something suspicious, you report it, you step aside and you let law enforcement do their job," Tutko said. "This guy went way beyond the call of duty. At the least, he's overzealous."

Second, Zimmerman carried a handgun. Police departments and sheriff's offices that train volunteers advise them never to carry weapons — though Zimmerman broke no laws by doing so because he has a concealed-weapons permit.

"There's no reason to carry a gun," Tutko said.

For the last point, don’t make me laugh.  The man was one of the people who regularly stopped criminals.  He had a rational fear of being a target of violence himself.  To be blunt, I think this person represents law-enforcement’s desire to monopolize force.  For instance, take this decision to confront Martin.  Yes, this time it might have been the wrong decision, but next time he might stop a man from breaking into some woman’s house and raping her.  You cannot pay attention to solely the results in this one case. Instead you have to pay attention to the results in the multitude of cases when deciding what we think as a society of a person’s conduct.  Even assuming that Trayvon is an innocent victim, how many innocents had Zimmerman previously saved?

And as far as carrying a gun, he wasn’t actually “on duty” when all this went down:

Police said Zimmerman was running an errand in his SUV — with his gun — when he first spotted Trayvonwalking back from 7-Eleven about 7:15 p.m. Zimmerman called police to report Trayvon as suspicious, and although a dispatcher said he didn't need to follow the teen, the two got into a scuffle.

But as for whether Zimmerman was part of a neighborhood watch approved by his neighborhood, this would seem to answer that question:

Despite reports suggesting an imminent lawsuit, an attorney for Trayvon Martin's parents said Saturday night that the family won't be suing the Retreat at Twin Lakes homeowners association anytime soon.

"At this point, we haven't looked at that at all," said attorney Ben Crump late Saturday...

Earlier in the day, another attorney for the family, Daryl Parks, spoke with board members of the National Association of Black Journalists.

According to reports by National Public Radio and CNN, Parks told the NABJ members his firm has obtained documentation establishing that Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch captain.

So he was on a neighborhood watch but not in The Neighborhood Watch^®.  Okay.  But it still means he isn’t exactly a self-appointed neighborhood guardian.

Meanwhile, via the Orlando Sentinel we get a deeper glimpse of the human being known as George Zimmerman.  For starters we get a better picture than the mugshot that has been going around:

Holy, crap, is The Rock’s long lost twin!

But you also get this news:

Information provided to the Sentinel by one source indicates that Zimmerman has not been to work since the shooting. His title was "forensic loan review analyst" — basically an underwriter.

We also learn that he has been barred from college:

Seminole State College has expelled George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, setting off a debate over whether Florida has been too slow to charge Zimmerman in the shooting, WKMG News reported. College officials released a statement saying: "Due to the highly charged and high-profile controversy involving this student, Seminole State has taken the unusual but necessary step this week to withdraw Mr. Zimmerman from enrollment. This decision is based solely on our responsibility to provide for the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."

So basically this is harming his life.  He is in a real way already being punished without a trial.

Of course the fear to his safety is very real.  Previously I mentioned Louis Farrakhan’s implied threats, and the New Black Panther’s “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters.  And I didn’t report when they put a $10,000 bounty on his capture.  Well, you can see here they have upped it to $1 million:

Incidentally, it appears that such a citizen’s arrest is illegal unless the person is actually guilty.  Namely the law appears to say that a citizen can arrest based on illegal conduct in his or her presence, or without a warrant based on probable cause that the person committed a felony.  Otherwise it would seem that such an act would be kidnapping (among many other crimes likely to be committed in the process of carrying out such kidnapping), and on the part of the New Black Panthers, solicitation of kidnapping.

Of course we also find out that one of the people offering this reward has already been arrested for unrelated charges.  But one reasonably wonders whether or not this is a coincidence.

Likewise Spike Lee tweeted Zimmerman’s home address.  More than likely Zimmerman won’t be there, so if anyone attacks the place, only innocents are likely to die.  Weirdly, when the Daily Beast quoted from various celebrity tweets they included Spike Lee’s tweet where he suggested sending bags of Skittles to the Sanford PD, but they neglected his attempt to aid and abet vigilante violence.

Meanwhile the new Michelle Malkin venture Twitchy had an embarrassing error while announcing a new hashtag had sprung up called #TeamDueProcess.  If you are a twitterererer, use it. It is funny that apparently people like Spike Lee, the New Black Panthers and Farrakhan only object to lynching when the target is black.

At the same time, we get this coverage of various protests including this demagoguery from the Martin family attorney:

Ben Crump, the attorney for Martin’s parents asked, “Who made the decision for whatever reason to not do a background check on George Zimmerman who had just shot and killed Trayvon Benjamin Martin? But yet saw fit to do a background check on this dead child on the ground.”

Yeah, except that they did run a background check on Zimmerman.  I mean there is that.

Shifting gears a little, Geraldo’s silly commentary that the hoodie caused his death sparked this sarcasm from Melissa Harris-Perry:

Likewise, Laura Pullman compiles a list of famous celebrities who have been known to wear hoodies.

On a similar vein, we get this piece by Jesse Washington where an African American father talks about how he talks about the Martin killing to his son.  First we get this paragraph:

I thought my son would be much older before I had to tell him about the Black Male Code. He's only 12, still sleeping with stuffed animals, still afraid of the dark. But after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, I needed to explain to my child that soon people might be afraid of him.

Ah, Jesus, bud, you are telling the world that he is still using stuffed animals and is still scared of the dark?  At twelve?! That’s simply cruel.  It’ll take years for him to live that down.  Seriously, I am tempted to call child protective services because that is child abuse.  (Note: that entirely a joke.)

But the interesting part is where he gives his son a talk on the code of conduct that supposedly black males must live under:

When it was over, I turned off the radio and told my son about the rules he needs to follow to avoid becoming another Trayvon Martin - a black male who Zimmerman assumed was "suspicious" and "up to no good."

As I explained it, the Code goes like this:

Always pay close attention to your surroundings, son, especially if you are in an affluent neighborhood where black folks are few. Understand that even though you are not a criminal, some people might assume you are, especially if you are wearing certain clothes.

Never argue with police, but protect your dignity and take pride in humility. When confronted by someone with a badge or a gun, do not flee, fight, or put your hands anywhere other than up.

Please don't assume, son, that all white people view you as a threat. America is better than that. Suspicion and bitterness can imprison you. But as a black male, you must go above and beyond to show strangers what type of person you really are.

He goes on to discuss historically how he, his father and his grandfather had modified versions of that, being increasingly unable to stand up for themselves as we recede into the past.  I have no doubt that even thirty years ago simply wanting to be treated with respect would have been seen as “uppity” in many parts of the country and thus dangerous.  But what struck me when reading what he said to his son, today, was that it was pretty much exactly the kind of advice my family gave.

It reminds me of a story I tell now and then.  You might remember a few years back when the “ebonics” concept gained national attention.  I was in Texas at the time, and I remember reading an article in the Dallas Morning News that explained that unlike white people, black people often dropped the G from the “ing” sound, often used double negatives, as well as the word “ain’t.”  I read that part aloud to a coworker and then said in my most sarcastically over-emphasized Southern accent: “Oh yeah, I ain’t never heard of no white person doin’ that.”  My follow up joke was, “could you believe they had the nerve to write that that in Dallas, Texas?”

But thinking about it a little more deeply, we have heard many times over the last few years of the trope of “the Other.”  It’s the idea that people whom society wants to exclude or subordinate are made into an “Other,” a being that is seen as different and alien.  It is often claimed every time that Republicans suggest that Obama is out of touch that they are trying to make him into an Other and that this is necessarily racist.  I don’t deny that it is common to try to make politicians seem out-of-touch, whether they actually are or not, but I don’t see why the thing that is done to every other politician is suddenly sinister just because Obama happens to be “black.”  I mean what exactly do you think they did to George H.W. Bush with that false story of him being amazed by the cash register (it was actually technology that was about twenty years ahead of its time—anyone would have been impressed)?

But what we see here is African Americans constructing themselves as the Other in their own mind—they are “Othering” themselves.  Which is sad, but fully human and understandable given the unfortunate historical backdrop.

Also Congressman Alan West released a statement on Facebook:

First of all, if all that has been reported is accurate, the Sanford Police Chief should be relieved of his duties due to what appears to be a mishandling of this shooting in its early stages. The US Navy SEALS identified Osama Bin Laden within hours, while this young man laid on a morgue slab for three days. The shooter, Mr Zimmerman, should have been held in custody and certainly should not be walking free, still having a concealed weapons carry permit. From my reading, it seems this young man was pursued and there was no probable cause to engage him, certainly not pursue and shoot him….against the direction of the 911 responder. Let’s all be appalled at this instance not because of race, but because a young American man has lost his life, seemingly, for no reason.  I have signed a letter supporting a DOJ investigation. I am not heading to Sanford to shout and scream, because we need the responsible entities and agencies to handle this situation from this point without media bias or undue political influences. This is an outrage.

Well, actually Mr. West, Martin was identified within hours, given the fact that his father was on TV discussing the matter the next day.  And even if it took three days, that wouldn’t be hard to explain given that where in the bin Laden killing we pretty much knew who it was and only needed to prove it, while with Martin they needed to identify him, reportedly found no identification, and had no fingerprints or DNA on file for the kid.

Second, I don’t know how you can say that Zimmerman had no probable cause, given that you didn’t see what he saw.

Third, he was not directed by the 911 operator not to pursue, but merely advised.

So bluntly what you heard in the media is not accurate and I am a little disappointed Mr. West.  After all the distortions you have seen that you didn’t have a little more skepticism.

Of course that stupidity was nothing compared to that of Rick Santorum’s:

So after he says he is not privy to what is going on in someone else’s mind, he says that Zimmerman has a “sick mind,” a“distorted view of reality” and had a malicious motive.  He also said that it was “heinous act.”  Bear in mind, Rick Santorum, who was prejudicing the case left and right, is a lawyer.  Santorum lost me when he suggested it that a person might as well vote for Obama over Romney, but if he hadn’t before, he lost it now.  Now I positively want him to lose the primaries.  If he becomes president, and the DOJ charges Zimmerman with a crime his defense attorney can argue that the President himself has prejudiced the case with pre-trial publicity.  The correct answer is that we need to wait for the facts to come out.

What he said instead was un-presidential.

By the way, amazingly Mediaite calls this a “very tempered” response.

Meanwhile, a less tempered commentary is from Charles Pierce who writes a column called Trayvon Martin and the End of Excuses.  One of the excuses he doesn’t want to hear about is that

The Florida legislature, behind the leadership of the National Rifle Association, passed the "stand your ground" law, despite the fact that even police and prosecutors were warning that it amounted to a hunting license for anyone who had both a gun, and the ability to concoct a good story. Trayvon Martin is not dead by accident.

Of course as long as the justification of self-defense exists, this is a danger, so basically he wants us to decide that the defense of self-defense is never available, I suppose.  Yeah, no more of those pesky excuses like “I thought he was going to kill me.”  It’s emotionalism overcoming reason writ large.

More disturbing is this post over at the Corner which does rightly denounce the manipulation of the situation, but only after declaring Zimmerman guilty:

The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month by a neighborhood-watch volunteer was a sickening and — unless new facts come to light — unjustified loss of an innocent life. Unless Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, had reason to believe that Martin was armed, shooting him was a grossly disproportionate response to a fistfight, even leaving aside the fact that Zimmerman had initiated the encounter. If such a shooting is justified under Florida’s broad self-defense law, that law has licensed violence that goes far beyond legitimate self-defense.

Disgusting.

At the same time, The Mahablog, after citing evidence that Martin threw the first punch, writes this clueless passage:

Even if actual evidence comes to light that Trayvon Martin had “decked” Zimmerman, as Charles Blow says in the video above, “If you start a fight and are losing it, you don’t get to claim self-defense.”

Um, but that evidence you cited tends to show that Martin might have started the fight.  And as a point of fact, that isn’t quite the law.  If one person starts to escalate it to deadly force—or you reasonably believe he or she is about to—then yes you do get to use deadly force in response.  And the only relevance as to who started the fight is that there is a duty to retreat.  But bear in mind Martin was pinning Zimmerman down, then that answers even the duty to escape—if it applies.

And we also have Jesse Jackson’s whining and moral condemnation, even though he doesn’t have enough facts to justify any of it.  He even repeats the inciting line “no justice no peace.” 

But for the worst of the race baiting, there is Ed Kilgore, writing at the Washington Monthly, who really slathers it on.  We already confronted several people who thought that for some reason it was off limits to interrupt the beautification of Trayvon Martin with any facts that might make us think that maybe he was on drugs and up to something—that maybe George Zimmerman had just cause for his pursuit that is so roundly denounced—but Kilgore really takes the cake with this one:

Anyone familiar with the history of how rape cases are prosecuted and defended should recognize the M.O. of conservative opinion-leaders who are pushing back against the furor over the death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin: blame the victim.

Except of course the entire concept of self-defense is to say that the victim did something not necessarily wrong, but something to make the person concerned enough to allow them to invoke the appropriate level of self-defense (lethal or non-lethal).  This often involves outright “blaming” the victim, and sometimes merely pointing out how the victim’s behavior might have been reasonably misinterpreted.

And so we are being treated to an assortment of facts, half-facts, assertions and inventions about the kid’s questionable character and alleged misdeeds, none of which, of course, involves behavior punishable by the death penalty.

Of course not, but they do rebut The Narrative Against Zimmerman^®.  So there is that.  Alas he continues:

...the idea is to plant the suggestion that Trayvon Martin “asked for it”—a thuggish “youth” (itself a racially-tinged code word)

Did he just say “youth” is a racist dog whistle?  Really?

A lot of this stuff is clearly coming from the police who failed to make an arrest and the prosecutors who concluded Zimmerman was protected by the Stand Your Ground law. Now let’s be clear: that law, bad as it is, does not say anyone claiming to be interested in protecting his neighborhood can stalk, aggressively confront, and then execute anyone looking suspicious or inspiring—rationally or not—fear. What it does essentially do, however, is make the use of deadly force in an ambiguous conflict vastly less culpable. Once blows are exchanged, a gun is not necessarily any different from a fist, a foot, or anything else that can inflict serious physical damage.

Actually that is not even a feature of stand your ground laws, but indeed all self-defense laws.  The only question is whether a duty to retreat might be imposed before deadly force is used.

And actually it is generally hard to argue that a mere fist is a going to cause damage sufficient to justify lethal force.  Not impossible, but difficult.

But for there to be any clear-cut legal protection for Zimmerman, making even an official investigation of the facts unnecessary, you have to believe, somehow, that the guy with the SUV and the gun was defending himself against the guy with the sneakers and the Skittles.

That is right, it is illogical to think a man with an SUV could ever need to defend himself.  The logic on display is staggering.

Maybe that’s how it actually went down, but it’s hard to imagine that the facts so clearly establish that’s how it actually went down, to the extent that the police had no reason to arrest Zimmerman and the prosecutors were helpless to put together a case against him.

Thus proving that Kilgore is not getting this whole “presumption of innocence” concept.

Is that all the talk on the subject?  Probably not, but it seems like as good as any place to leave off.  Besides I have Obamacare arguments to listen to.  :-)  If they are done by now, maybe I can download it to my phone and listen to it over lunch.

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* And please note, saying that Martin threw the first punch—if he did—is not necessarily a condemnation of the young man.  He might have been genuinely scared and indeed might have been able to plead self-defense had he lived.  The guy who throws the first punch is not necessarily unjustified as a matter of law.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.