Forums → WEPR → George Zimmermann Found Not Guilty

Ahh, hell, it was fricken self defence (so they ruled). Deal with it.

I'm pretty sure that the story being told has Trayvvon Martin attacking George Zimmerman first. George followed, and Trayvvon attacked him.

Maybe the deeper issue shouldnt be who's guilty or not, but whether vigilante neighborhood watches aren't an obvious road to disaster, with tragic results such as the one at hand to underline the issue.

There would also be a smaller number of suspect fatalities if cops weren't allowed to carry guns. Should we ban cops from carrying guns? ...or should we ban cops altogether? Are you guys sure you're not judging how the whole world should run based off of one micro event? In anything that involves one or more humans there will occasionally be deaths that could have been avoided had something been different. I think that if more neighborhoods advertised and practiced the act of active neighborhood watches that confronted the suspicious people walking around in the dark then we'd have less problems overall. Senseless break-ins leading to the deaths of the homeowners (or just property theft/damage) could easily be more avoidable if we had more neighborhood watches.

That being said... I wouldn't have made the same decisions as George... but I also wouldn't have made the same decisions as TM. I doubt TM would have assaulted George if he'd known about George's gun. For all TM knew he was beating a weaponless man's head into the pavement to the point of endangering the man's life. It could have been avoided had he not reacted with hostility towards George who supposedly told him that he was neighborhood watch and just making sure of who he was and that everything was ok.

There are pictures of TM acting all gangsta hood, yo! Like thug gun and marijuana pics and the like. There are even supposed texts from his phone (you can't prove he sent them....) of him talking about how he liked to fight and how he preferred to fight. The texts mentioned how whoever the person was that sent them preferred hitting people in the nose so that it incapacitated them and made it easier to take the person down... how was George assaulted? He had his nose broken and was repeated hit in the face. If anything of that is true, then it sounds more like George's story has the better chance of being true. He supposedly walked up and explained the situation and TM returned with "You're about to die," and commenced the gound and pound. I really don't know that it was the "vigilante neighborhood watch" as much as it was the "thug street fighter" to blame here.

and this picture aggravates me... it was put up in a florida courthouse (or just somewhere in the state). It doesn't accurately portray the scenario... it should have the lighter skin man getting beaten in the ground and pound position while firing the gun. Portraying Trayvon as having been shot in the back skews the whole scenario out of the bounds of what actually happened. AND putting MLK JR's picture beside him implies racism when racism had nothing to do with the trial. The picture was shown on national news at some point and it aggravated the hell out of me.

Two pieces I came across today:

Lindy West, Jezebel.com, "A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism'" (4/6/12)

Brittney Cooper, Salon.com, "The policeâs most outrageous, offensive lie. Racial profiling and stop-and-frisk are meant to make black and brown people feel safe? Here's what it really does" (Aug. 20 2013)

Are you guys sure you're not judging how the whole world should run based off of one micro event?

I really don't know that it was the "vigilante neighborhood watch" as much as it was the "thug street fighter" to blame here.

and this picture aggravates me...