The present past and future of the Trayvon Martin case:
The past:
February 26th 2012 – in Sanford, Florida an unarmed, 17-year-old black boy, Trayvon Martin, is shot dead by neighbourhood watchman George Zimmerman. Zimmerman said they got in a fight and he shot in self-defence under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. The police let him walk free. A poll would later show that 73% of blacks and 33% of whites believed that if Martin had been white the police would have locked up Zimmerman.
March 16th 2012 – Police make public the 911 calls of the shooting. The tapes show that Zimmerman followed Martin in spite of instructions from the police dispatcher. Most chilling: cries for help cut short by a gun shot. Experts cannot agree whose voice it is. The shooting becomes big news.
March 21st 2012 – The Million Hoodie March in New York shows support for Martin’s family and protests racial profiling. One of many protests.
March 23rd 2012 – President Obama said if he had a son “he would look like Trayvon.” Some on the right go nuts.
April 11th 2012 – Zimmerman is arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Zimmerman raises bail. The story falls out of the headlines.
June 22nd 2012 – Sanford police chief Bill Lee is fired.
June 7th 2012 – Zimmerman put in prison and his wife charged with perjury after it was discovered that she lied to the judge when he set bail. She did not tell him about the $135,000 they had raised on the Internet.
July 6th 2012 – Zimmerman is let out of prison but without a passport or bank account and must have a GPS device so the police can always find him.
October 22nd 2012 – The judge allows Zimmerman’s lawyers to look at Martin’s school record and past Internet postings. They hope to find proof of “violent tendencies”.
December 3rd 2012 – A picture of Zimmerman with a bloody nose is made public. The first clear sign of any injuries.
December 6th 2012 – Zimmerman files a lawsuit against NBC for making him seem racist in their news stories.
February 20th 2013 – Sanford hires a black police chief, Cecil Smith, set to take over April 1st.
February 26th 2013 – Candlelight vigil held in Union Square, New York on the anniversary of Martin’s death.
The future:
April 22nd 2013 – hearing to determine if the case should be dismissed under “Stand Your Ground”.
June 10th 2013 – The murder trial set to begin. Just about when Trayvon would have been graduating from high school. The trial will probably end in the summer.
The prosecutor is state attorney Angela Corey, the same who sent away Marissa Alexander for 20 years, another “Stand Your Ground” case.
Bad for Zimmerman:
- He is out of money and cannot mount a proper defence by June 10th.
- His wife faces prison if found guilty of perjury.
- He cannot keep his story straight about the night of the shooting – nor do his stories always match what police detectives know.
Good for Zimmerman:
- A lie detector test shows that he truly did fear for his life when he shot Martin.
See also:
- The Root has been following the case closely week by week.
- Mother Jones also has a blow-by-blow.
- Trayvon Martin (March 12th 2012)
- Trayvon Martin: the 911 tapes (March 19th)
- The Thuggification of Trayvon Martin (March 27th)
- George Zimmerman (May 22nd)
- Should George Zimmerman be arrested? (March 23rd)
- Marissa Alexander
- racial profiling
“P0lice make public the 911 calls”…
That should be “Police”.
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Or was there an error in loading the page? Seems fine to me now.
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@ Not registered
I just caught that too. Thanks.
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One of the better discussions of the legal points of this case I’ve seen.
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Thanks for the update, Abagond. June 10, marking my calendar. No big surprise there re: Zimmerman’s fear and the lie detector test, he was suffering from a case of the “phantom negro weapon-syndrome”
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“A lie detector test shows that he truly did fear for his life when he shot Martin.”
How reliable is a lie detector ? I imagine there are cases (many) where the lie detector was dismissed because it didn’t corroborate the conclusions, right ?
What was he afraid of ? That he would shoot him with Skittles through his bottle ?
The American “justice” system is strange. Seems to be set to work reverse. Right ? The victim must prove he was violent even though he is dead. This is SO outrageous.
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Abagond, about the pic with the “broken nose”. Do you know how come it came out SO late after the murder and how come Zimmermann’s nose was fine on the video in the police headquarter the same night ? He didn’t even touch his nose on there…
Since you did the research on this, maybe you have come across something ?
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I guess you can follow someone like a creep and feel safe knowing whatever you instigate is alright because you have a gun and the person “doesn’t belong”. His solution to a fist fight is a shot in the chest, still sickening.
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There are so many holes in George’s stories that it’s absurd that he would released by the police at the scene. I hate the racism in this country sooo much. I am never having children here.
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What the hell does Alan Dershowitz exactly do? Does he just provide a cut-out right-wing straw man whenever the media requires one? He’s also a high-profile (yet largely inept) critic of Noam Chomsky.
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I smell a plea bargain (manslaughter) here.
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Gzim played his hand poorly. I hope the courts don’t follow. This case will again shine the light on ‘merica’s ugly underbelly, as it has played out in other cases many times before. I will be watching it closely. So far, all I know is that a 29 yr old man weighing 200+lbs., confronts a teenager, weighing maybe 150 and ends up killing him. Everybody knows a man doesn’t learn how to really hit hard until his mid 20’s ,let alone being able or having the will to kill a larger, fully grown, mature(?) man, who by the way looked in good fighting shape, with his bare hands unless provoked. And how many times have you told your child not to talk to strangers?
Did gzim call Trayvon a coon or something worse? Did he threaten him or make a sexual advance? We don’t know what either party said to escalate this meeting to violence but, we do know this: Gzim approached Trayvon first.
We learned from the tapes that someone cried for help. What’s easier to believe, a man with a gun screams for help or a youth being confronted with a gun?
For me this case resonates to what it’s like being black in ‘merica. Whites see people who are different as being a threat…(genetic annihilation)and decide to push these others to rage ( Raise your hand if you’re preparing for the race war!), and thus use this rage to say…”see, you’re racist, too or you hate me too,” thereby justifying their own rage and fear and in return hate. Approximately 7 in 10 people in this country are white. To me this means nothing in this country can happen without their approval or by their design.
But absolute power corrupts absolutely and the larger population, in this case represented by gzim,acts out his fantasy (“he looks like he’s on drugs..”)by demonizing this teen who had every right to be where he was while doing nothing wrong.
So all of you trolls out there in blankeland take accountability for what’s going on out here. Quit hiding. Let’s talk, but be men and leave your guns behind! While we can’t legislate morals we can work towards tolerance. All of you can’t be idiots…but, for those of you who are remember this:
My ancestors lived in an agrarian society and overnite were left to their own resources with no land, no mules, no money and naive to the “finer” points of living in that type of society. We were left to resume our lives becoming sharecroppers and contracted laborers in an extremely hostile environment . But we stayed strong. We purchased property and learned how to read. It took a while but we were able to gain some semblance of full citizenry and some of us were able to escape the mental chains that were left to hold us down. Our ancestors worked hard and made sure their children did, too! They taught us to be proud and work hard and that we too would one day see our children share in this thing called the American Dream. Thankfully, your racist numbers are diminishing and POC will not forget our journey to become what so many of you work to prevent.
Wake up! Stop wasting valuable resources. Let’s fix the schools that don’t seem to be able to educate all of our youth. White america understand that we’re not just dark skinned versions of you. We are wasting a lot of talented minds who have decided (h/t to the Kerner Commission)that they’re more comfortable in their separate society. Let’s stop the racial profiling and stereotypes that give some an excuse for underachievment. I know, for some this is falling on deaf ears but,let’s stop the racism, now!
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I hope the blacks that read this blog over-stand that this is just the beginning.
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I pray that justice for Trayvon is coming in the form of Zimmerman being convicted and sent to prison where he belongs.
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On the 911 tape you can hear george say fing coons,Anderson cooper even slowed and enhanced the audio on his show.Zimmerman needs to pay for what he did.Idc how they want to try and sugar coat it by basically saying oh well if trayvon is dead look at his school records and his twitter ,he was a thug.They were all sympathetic when romney had a hazing incident in his college days,eveyone was saying its in the past and he’s not like that now.WEll why can’t you give trayvon the same benefit of the doubt that he was not going to grow up and like he was at 17.People change and mature.
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wow so the murder trial is set on juneteenth,lets hope that he isn’t set free like the slaves were on that day.smh
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The question I always ask is would he be just as scared if he saw a young white man? Part of me doubts it. That is why this case is personal for a lot of black people. Young black men are always feared and/or hated just for being young black men. The constant framing of black skin with imminent danger is why so many lives of black youth continue to be taken away and no one seems to give a damn unless we make it an issue. The fact that we have to make this issue proves how little we value black lives in this nation.
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To Kiwi:
I am sure Zimmerman was telling the truth that he feared for his life when he shot Martin. Now the question is, “Would he have felt the same way if Martin were white?”
George Zimmerman claims (And I emphasize claims…) that Trayvon was on top of him beating Zimmerman in the face and trying to pound his head against the cement sidewalk. Zimmerman additionally claims that during their struggle, the pistol in Zimmerman’s waste-band was revealed and that Trayvon started reaching for the gun saying “You’re going to die tonight”. IF (and I emphasize that’s a big if…) what Zimmerman says is true I sure as hell would have been in fear for my life if the assailant were White. That said, I find it hard to believe Zimmmerman’s story about Trayvon reaching for the gun and declaring “you are going to die tonight”. I think that was a CYA manoeuvre, his facial expressions seem disingenuous when he is recounting that part of the incident. Other parts of the video seem more plausible.
Below is Zimmerman’s recount and reenactment of the incident:
Zimmerman’s interview with the police:
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[…] The present past and future of the Trayvon Martin case: The past: February 26th 2012 – in Sanford, Florida an unarmed, 17-year-old black boy, Trayvon Martin, is shot dead by neighbourhood watchman… […]
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I wonder how he got that bloody nose?did he so provoke trayvon that trayvon felt he needed to attack or defend himself?
Its seems obvious what trayvon was doing out at night at the time at that location.
And when you do the standard phenotype role reversals you predictably conclude that had Zimmerman been black and trayvon white – black Zimmerman would already be in jail ,no bail ,looking at possible life or the death penalty and that’s if he didn’t get shot down by the police on the spot.
And the very idea of white trayvon being considered a thug ,even if he was ,would be considered beyond the pale.
Its also interesting how one person – dying under certain circumstances becomes famous while millions die every day around world ,even in very public ,media focused circumstances yet most will never know their names.
Example – how many know the name of the first child killed during the sandyhook massacre ,the 2d?,third? fithteeth? ,in that case the killer became far more famous then the victims whereas in this case both killer and victim share the spotlight.
Just observations
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[…] Trayvon Martin Timeline […]
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I’ve just spent the weekend listening to well-meaning News reporters and people (white) in general refer to this 19 year old Boston bomber as a “kid”….
I just heard a newscaster on FOX refer to this 19 year old Dzhokhar as a “kid” and I felt the need to vent.
The media is showing pictures of this 19 year old bomber from when he was younger, like 12 y/o– I’ve yet to see or read anyone calling out the media for this — but white racists made a big stink about Trayvon’s pictures and so did FOX,
the same news channel that kept referring to 16 y/o, just barely turned 17 year old Trayvon Martin as a “man”
Please explain, white realists, how a 19 year old white killer gets to be a “kid” and walking home and minding his own d’mn business, 17 year old black Trayvon Martin miraculously morphed into a “man” — because the logic escapes me.
Anyway, “f’ck all of you” George Zimmerman defenders…none of you have any credibility and are a bunch of hypocritical POS.
and thank you Abagond for having this blog and a place to express my feelings.
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