More From the Zimmerman/Martin Shooting

There’s a Video out from the Police Station
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The video is shit. Resolution is horrible, also ABC in their infinite wisdom decided to obscure the one important bit of their film with their banner. Given that this is an international exclusive, I have to see that part as intentional, as the alternative is rank incompetence of an ENTIRE National News Station.

Still what you do see is Zimmerman is not horrendously messed up from the fight. His hair is close cropped so you can see a mark on his scalp, but can’t see how severe it is. You can see his nose, can’t tell if its broken or swollen.

Certainly nothing is freely bleeding, and the blood reported by the cops either wasn’t there, or was stopped and cleaned up by the EMTs before he arrived on site.

Before I transition to my next point I’ll say the dumbest thing Zimmerman did hands-down was to be out on watch alone. If he had had a buddy riding shotgun help would have come when he was shouting. Further he’d have another set of eyes to supply another part of the story (or supply another story in the police interrogation which might point to somebody lying). **UPDATE** Maybe I’m being a bit rash. The cops responded in amazing time of about 6 mins, on what was a “Suspicious Person” call. All the 911 calls reporting the fight between Martin and Zimmerman, and the gunshot report Police on scene mere minutes after Martin was shot. Unless there was another watchman patrolling around in their car when Zimmerman called, I doubt they would have even beat the cops on scene, let alone been there before the alleged fight broke out which only lasted a few minutes. Depending on what I’m doing, it could take me a few minutes just to get my shoes on and grab my wallet and keys, and put on a jacket for the rain, let alone the time it would take to drive my car up the street. -Ed

Now I’ll use this to springboard to this story. People are expressing solodarity with Trayvon Martin by making this Friday “Hoodie Friday”.

How about “Bring Your Weed and Pipe To School Friday”? How about “Bring Stolen Jewelry To School Friday?”.

My point is neither Zimmerman nor Martin are people we should aspire to be…but one side is willing to make an angel of somebody who wasn’t.

There’s a reason for that…

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0 Responses to More From the Zimmerman/Martin Shooting

  1. Les Jones says:

    “Before I transition to my next point I’ll say the dumbest thing Zimmerman did hands-down was to be out on watch alone.”

    I don’t have a link handy, but my recollection is that Zimmerman wasn’t formally on watch. He was just riding to or from wherever when he saw Martin.

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Could very well be….still he probably never thought of it before, but a wiser call to make first would be to whoever was “on duty/on call” that night to get an extra set of hands and eyes on scene, THEN call 911.

      But again, I think of anything certain, Zimmerman wasn’t planning on getting into a gunfight that night, so it probably never occurred to him until it was too late. I say that so that others might avoid his fate.

      • Bob S. says:

        Multiple media reports have Zimmerman running to the grocery store when he spots Martin.

        If I spotted someone suspicious in my neighborhood, I might cut short my milk run to find out what is going on.

        I also doubt I would call someone — especially since like Zimmerman WAS I would be on the phone with the police.

        If you want to critique someone, how about the police for not responding faster?

        • Weerd Beard says:

          To be fair the police arrived around 6mins after the first call. That’s an AMAZING response time given that when they were first dispatched it was just a suspicious person report. They arrived minutes after Martin was shot.

          Honestly unless somebody else was already driving around the neighborhood when Zimmerman called, quite possibly another watchman might not have beat the PD to the scene, and possibly not made it until the fight had already gone bad and bloody.

      • Jake says:

        I suspect* his thought process was something along the lines of “I’ll just keep an eye on him from a distance until the cops get here, so I can tell them where he is.” I doubt he started out expecting a confrontation of any sort, and things just spiraled out of control from there.**

        * Assuming the theories supporting his innocence are correct, of course.

        ** I make no assumptions here about whether it was Zimmerman or Martin, or both, or neither, whose errors or misperceptions may have caused things to go out of control.

        • Weerd Beard says:

          Yeah I’ve mentioned I called 911 on a “Suspicious Person”, it was a young guy and a girl, and the guy was either on drugs or having severe mental issues because he was walking in the middle of a two-lane 35mph winding road and shouting at the cars as they swerved around him.

          I never got out of my truck, but I did pull into a side street that I thought close enough that I could keep the police abreast with details as they came, but not so I’d have to deal with him.

          Of course the creepy fucker decided to walk down the VERY street I was “hiding” in….he said some aggressive things to me and my wife. I told him I had no problem with him and he should keep walking….I doubt he saw the gun in my hand as I was still in my truck. He thankfully moved on without incident, and the cops said “Oh, that’s just X, he does that…”

          I’m sure they’d have been just as cheerful if somebody had run him down, or he started pitching rocks through people’s picture windows….

          But yeah you call 911, you’d rather not give them a string of “I don’t know”. So I really don’t blame Zimmerman from the call I heard. From his account Martin took off running, Zimmerman was just walking and complied with the 911 operator’s wish not to follow. Maybe he took off chasing after he hung up, but I find that harder to believe than the story that Martin doubled back and attacked him.

          Again it will ALL make more sense when Martin’s tox report comes out.

  2. Jake says:

    I’ll say the dumbest thing Zimmerman did hands-down was to be out on watch alone.

    According to police statements*, Zimmerman was actually on his way to the grocery store, not out patrolling. This appears to be yet another myth started and propagated based on nothing more than an assumption made by the media before they had actual information.

    I’ve always held the media in distrust, but right now if they told me my name I’d have to dig out my birth certificate before I believed it.

    *As reported by the media, so take it for what it’s worth. But it is supported by a statement released by the Sanford city manager (pdf warning) that he was “on a personal errand in his vehicle when he observed Mr. Martin”.

  3. RWC says:

    I find it amazing that out of the random videos I picked off from the ABC News site only this one has that huge in your face logo in the middle of the screen while all others have a tiny logo on the bottom right.

    Almost like they planned it that way. Nah, couldn’t be.

    • Weerd Beard says:

      And as an exclusive video (as far as I know nobody has released the raw video) in a story that’s being reported nationally and internationally.

      Further the logo is HUGE with a box below it likely for text, but its empty.

      Of course the images are filled with compression artifacts, so who know what it would even show in the raw footage.

      • Jake says:

        You can tell it’s the playback being filmed off of a monitor. I suspect someone took it with a cell phone so they could leak it, and it wasn’t supposed to be released at all.

        If I were the Sanford police chief I’d be seriously looking to clean house when all this is done. IIRC, this isn’t the first unauthorized leak, and they haven’t been happy about the others, either.

  4. I’m disapointed. I would have expected Zimmerman to have much more obvious injuries if he was being beaten badly enough that he should have “feared for his life” enough that deadly force was warranted. I suppose this ignores the possibility that he might be a puss-wimp, I’ve known people who would cry for hours over a simple little splinter, but nobody thinks that they are being reasonable.

    Most of the experts that I know (of, not personally) are saying Stand Your Ground probably doesn’t apply, and that includes Jon Gutmacher who knows more about FL firearms/self defense law that just about anyone. He wrote the book… literally. If you want a good read about the legal issues, I would suggest giving his blog a look.

    The more I see, the more I question if deadly force was in fact reasonable. Even IF Zimmerman’s story about being attacked from behind without prevocation was true, was deadly force really warranted? Fists are not generally considered deadly weapons, they CAN be, but not until the level of injury reaches a point where it is getting into “hey, that could kill you” terretory. I would think that injuries of that level would show up, even on a crappy fuzzy second-hand video.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not even close to joining a lynch mob. I’m just a little less convinced that his story of self defense is correct, and I’m also a little less convinced that he will escape some serious jail time.

    On the subject of jail time, if Zimmerman IS convicted of murder (or probably more likely manslaughter), because he used a firearm, that firearm was discharged, and there was serious injury because of it (death in this case), there is a mandatory sentences that applies. He’s looking at 25 years… HARD. No time off for good behavior, no parole, no es nada, serve every single day of it. The judge doesn’t have ANY leeway. Florida has some of the toughest sentences in the US when it comes to stuff like this.

    s

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Tough to make judgements, really. The injuries he alleged to have sustained really won’t show up in such a poor video if the blood was washed off his wounds by EMTs and the bleeding was stopped.

      The next morning the swelling and black-and-blue would start, as well as any abrasions would begin to scab over and look bad. I’m sure his lawyer documented all injuries sustained and will present them if they are serious. If they aren’t serious that will be an issue for the case.

      Still if Zimmerman was indeed on his back with Martin on his chest punching things can go VERY bad very quickly.
      http://3bxsofbs.infamousanime.net/?p=5260 good example. Once you get your bell rung so your defenses go down it doesn’t take too much effort to crush a windpipe or stomp a head until vitals stop.

      • Bill Baldwin says:

        you can see a mark on his scalp, but can’t see how severe it is.

        The injuries he alleged to have sustained really won’t show up in such a poor video if the blood was washed off his wounds by EMTs and the bleeding was stopped.

        A head wound doesn’t have to be large to be serious and can’t be deep without breaking the skull. I was once shot in the head (hunting accident). It didn’t penetrate the skull and only took two stitches to fix but I and others around me thought that I was going to bleed out. Within seconds (it seems like) half my torso was covered in blood. The funny thing is that at first I didn’t realize I was shot, I thought someone had slapped me in the head.

        The dangers of a head wound rest mainly inside of the skull. The brain being bounced back and forth get be deadly without any external injuries (shaken baby syndrome).

        As far as bruising, that can take days to develop. Anyone who’s been in an auto accident will understand. Bruising from the seat-belt doesn’t show up immediately after the accident.

        • Weerd Beard says:

          Yikes! Glad you made it out ok! The scary thing about head wounds is the skull is so tough and the brain is so delicate that it can sometimes seem like dumb luck weather a head injury is nothing serious or deadly.

          I’ve seen reports of centerfire bullets mushrooming against the skull and travel under the scalp until they gave up the last of their energy, and I’ve heard of people taking a stray .22 to the head and dying on the spot.

          I’ve seen people get nailed in the head and shake it right off with nothing but minor bruising, and heard of people who slipped on a curb and fell into an irreversible coma, and die.

          The head is a tricky place.

          • Pyrotek85 says:

            That’s why I /facepalm whenever anti’s act like fist fights and blunt weapons aren’t potentially deadly. You really don’t know if that blow to the head will kill you until it’s too late.

          • Bill Baldwin says:

            Yikes! Glad you made it out ok!

            Thanks, me too.

      • Jake says:

        Once you get your bell rung so your defenses go down it doesn’t take too much effort to crush a windpipe or stomp a head until vitals stop.

        This.

        As a similar anecdote, pepper spray does not rise to the level of lethal force (except for certain people with asthma), but a cop is pre-authorized to shoot you if you spray him. The assumption being that your intent is to disable him prior to killing him (probably by taking his sidearm).

    • Bob S. says:

      Another report, which I can not locate right now, indicates that Martin found Zimmerman’s pistol and tried to take it.

      If that happened, then it was clearly a case where lethal force was justified.

      As for as the scalp wound, why hasn’t anyone pointed out a simple solution: The Medics used a surgical glue to treat the scalp wound?

      Compression and natural clotting would slow or stop the bleeding, a couple of passes to clean off the blood around the area then an application of surgical glue to seal the wound.

      The medics would also clean the remaining blood off his scalp to make sure there were no additional injuries.

      • Shamed 2 B old fan of this site says:

        Ok, so IF emts or even police cleaned Zimmermans wounds up, 35-40 mintues after he pulled the trigger on those police tapes, and btw, google it now and since the first grainy abc tapes with logo placed in bad spot you say, more have been released, which are right from police videos and from many different angles from several different angles and several different hallways, much more clear.,,ok, so IF he was cleaned up, and we can’t see his wounds so good in the tape.,fine I give you that, them where is the BLOOD on his Tshirt and/or coat! I have seen several nose I juries and head wounds (big and very small) and all bleed like crazy, even small superficial head wounds bleed terribly, as well as if he has ANY blood coming from his nose, there would be SOME on the front of his shirt, AND his shirt is tucked in neatly? Cops would never allow him to change prior to getting into police station, nor would they let him retuck his shirt/do anything to harm evidence on his clothes/etc prior to taking him to the station to collect his clothes as evidence….ALSO, I would think, rationally that if he shot someone while that person was in top of him, he would ALSO have some of that persons blood on his front as well..and again, none on his pants or shirt?!
        Also, anyone ever think why they didn’t do a toxicology report on Zimmerman as well? Would make sense if doing for victim would do for shooter to PROOVE he would have been in the right mind frame for his self defense, to protect Zimmerman and the cops…seems like a lot has been mishandled s far by police to at least not just protect them in an I vestiges on, but also to protect zimmerman, to protect them both if they released him via self defense/stand ur ground, ya know?
        Regardless of color here, I know I tell my kids what to do if they encounter/feel threatened by a stranger, and it’s always been run/hit if they try to grab you/get away.,,should I tell them different because now that stranger I was protecting them, would/could then claim stand your ground and then shoot my child? Your child? What about the thought that Trayvon had the right to Stand his ground/defend himself, he had a right to be there, and was being followed (even Zimmermans own defense lawyer has stopped claiming Zimmerman was in his way back to his car now since the details of exactly where the shooting took place in relation to the timeframe and witnesses, which PROOVES Zimmerman had been instructed not to follow him as soon as he got out of his car, which was a long walk to where the shooting took place, so Zimmerman could not have turned around when he was told by 911, not even close, especially since the police arrived just about 5 minutes after that, and that was about 3-4 minutes after the shot was fired, so the timelines, once released, even Zimmermans defense dropped the story that Zimmerman was on his way back to his car when then attacked by Trayvon…withOUT RACE BEING IMPORTANT LIKE many here claim Shouldn’t be, think about what we teach our kids a out stranger danger.,,,
        AND one more thing, now we see how buff Zimmerman is now, really, someone 100 pounds LESS, MD Zimmerman is lots of muscle was pinned down by Trayvon? Hmm

    • dang, I really screwed up THAT link.

      s

    • Jake says:

      The kind of trauma Zimmerman describes (head being “slammed” into the sidewalk) doesn’t have to leave any visible injury at all to be deadly. I personally have treated a patient who fell and struck his head on a sidewalk with no visible injury, but who ended up being flown to a major trauma center with a subarachnoid bleed. I believe he survived, but he could have easily died without treatment. He’s not the only patient I’ve seen that with, either, and some of those showed no other symptoms right away either – the only reason some of them survived is that they went to the hospital and the CT scan showed an internal injury.

      I’ll also say that when you are the person receiving blows to the head, it can be difficult to tell how serious it is until afterward.

  5. Karl says:

    Seen similar thoughts above, so sorry for the redundancy: I’m not going to gauge the level of damage each time someone slams my head into the pavement to determine if I have the right to use lethal force. I won’t wait until I see a significant amount of my blood. I won’t care how it looks to liberals and second-guessers one month after the fact. I won’t mind sitting in a cell if that is what my local jurisdiction thinks is right.

    The only criticism of Zimmerman from me: he didn’t empty the clip.

    • Jay G. says:

      The theory on that is that he had the gun pressed into Martin’s chest and the semi-auto wouldn’t cycle. When the police arrived, they found a full magazine and an empty chamber, IIRC.

      • karl says:

        Did not know that Jay G.

        I retract my criticism, and I am glad Obama selected this shooting to be the first CCW event to make national news.

        I welcome the debate!

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