George Zimmerman’s lawyer chickened out of an appearance on MSNBC’s The Last Word — but Lawrence O’Donnell asked his questions anyway.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Sanford police are leaking every smear of Trayvon Martin they can think of to justify the miscarriage of justice they are perpetrating. Trayvon is being portrayed as a juvenile delinquent who had been suspended from school for possession of an empty baggie that may have contained marijuana! So, obviously, shooting him was justified somehow.
Now the police are claiming that 140-pound Trayvon Martin had “decked” the 200-plus-pound Zimmerman with one punch and was pounding his head into the pavement when Zimmerman shot him. Zimmerman suffered a broken nose and head injuries! Although oddly, he didn’t need immediate medical attention. He went to a doctor the next day, police say.
But you know what doesn’t seem to exist?
- Photographs or medical reports of Zimmerman’s injuries
- Photographs of the crime scene, including the state of Zimmernan’s clothes.
- Zimmerman’s clothes, showing grass stains and other evidence that he was pushed to the ground.
Seriously, Sanford police? You expect us to just believe you that this happened, when the injured party can’t refute it, because he is dead?
Un-bee-lee-va-bull.
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.”
See also “What Everyone Needs To Know About The Smear Campaign Against Trayvon Martin (1995-2012)” and “Dishonoring Trayvon Martin.”
More like ‘unBull-ievable!!!
For Conservatives, the people they victimize are never the victims. They can’t possibly be the victims – because THEY THEMSELVES ARE ALWAYS THE REAL VICTIMS!!!
And, I’m still betting that, because of the comically, no, make that, CRIMINALLY, inept police work, it will be hard to prosecute Zimmerman.
No BAC or drug test on the shooter.
No securing the crime scene.
If something could have been done wrong, it was done wrong.
But you can bet your last dollar, that if a black teenager shot someone other than another black person, that crime scene would have been immaculately handled; with mandatory piss and blood tests for the shooter.
And a real CSI team would have been brought in, rather that the Sanford CSI – Criminally Stupid Investigators.
If Inspector Clouseau were brought in now as a consulting investigator, he’d stand there, frozen, with his mouth agape, at the sheer incompetence of the Sanford PD.
Come on now he was black, wearing a hoodie, and suspended from school, what else could Zimmerman do?
It’s a well-known ‘fact’ in the South that black people often magically acquire super-powers shortly before they die at the hands of white folk, allowing them to do all sorts of implausible things that require a civilized white person to, well, you know. Who knows what a hoodie-wearing kid hopped up on fumes from an empty baggie might be able to do to a guy much heavier and bigger, who was packing a gun?
I love that description, by the way. The baggie “might” have contained pot, though it was, in fact, empty. I suppose it also “might” have contained a ham sandwich. Or a goldfish. I realize that schools have ridiculous zero-tolerance drug policies these days, but this sounds like a new level – zero hypothetical drugs. What a crock, and what a BS leak to the press.
It was pretty interesting watching the reporter who printed that leak getting grilled by Lawrence O’Donnell.
Yeah, and she wasn’t used to that, was she? I was taught years ago that the first rule of journalism is “cover your ass.” Qualify, qualify, qualify! Assume nothing is actually true, just that somebody said it is true. Give sources and make liberal use of the word “allegedly.” She didn’t do that, which was sloppy.
The Sanford police have presumably heard the 911 tapes. I’ve heard the 911 tapes (or excerpts–Ta-Nehisi Coates posted a clip of himself commenting on the tapes on a New York radio show). Zimmerman says he’s going after Martin, and the dispatcher says “We don’t need you to do that.” So whatever actually happened, we can be sure it wouldn’t have happened if Zimmerman had followed those instructions. I’m not an attorney, but that strikes me as being pretty relevant to the question of whether he was acting in self-defense.
Also, I would like to posit that if Trayvon’s baggie had contained marijuana, it would have been possible to tell. It’s actually not that easy to get every last scrap of marijuana out of a baggie.
Stephen,
I don’t know, but somehow or other, I always managed to get every last scrap of marijuana out of a baggie.
And I don’t even know why I bothered, since I “never inhaled” either! 😉
I’m curious what the original Sentinel story said. Because now (http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-account-20120326_1_miami-schools-punch-unarmed-black-teenager) there’s way more of the kind of attribution that O’Donnell was looking for.
I would like to know what the original story said. Because I see what O’Donnell is saying, but I also see what the reporter is saying – it’s standard procedure to put some sort of “This is what Zimmerman/Zimmerman’s lawyer/the police say happened” and then not have to attribute every single sentence. (Or at least the reporter is TRYING to say that but O’Donnell isn’t letting her, which is uncool.)
How often you should attribute something is a subjective matter – as much as necessary so that there’s no confusion, and then maybe a little more just to make sure. But you really don’t have to do it in every single sentence. So where did this story fall on that scale? If I’ve got the right story linked, I don’t think we’ll ever know.
Something that everyone has lost sight of; Treyvon was a minor.
Several months ago in Brevard County Fl, two teenage boys got into a fight, one was rather badly beaten. The beaten boy’s father (early 30’s) called out the other kid; the boy was a brazen bully, and chest bumped the other kid’s dad. Dad then decked the little shit, but didn’t stop there, and clobbered him several more times.
The kid ended up getting stitches, bloodied and bruised.
Dad was just sentenced to 30 yrs for battery on a minor.
Treyvon was shot and died.No mention of battery on a minor.
Something is a bit out of wack here.
Mark my words; the big issue here is NOT race, it’s the damned Stand your ground law. Too many people, including too many in law enforcement ,are in favor of that law.Race is a secondary issue, although if Trevon was the scion of a country club magnate, things would be way different.(More social status than race)
I also heard that Z’s dad is a firmer judge in the area, which would explain and tie together tons of seemingly unrelated trivia surrounding the case.
Seems an easy fact to check…
Make that “former.” I have no information concerning his firmness…
Honest!
One ironic consequence of the Sanford PD’s amazing incompetence is that Zimmerman cannot use the self-defence argument, for lack of evidence.
I suspect the Right will look at Zimmerman’s rap sheet (restraining order for assault on ex-GF, thousands of calls to 911, mugshot for assaulting a police officer) and realize that he is not an ideal spokesman for law and order; then they will look at his mugshot and realize that he is not an ideal spokesman for white power either. And that, I suspect, will be that for Zimmerman.
None of this is new, except for the “stand your ground” law; now revealed as an open invitation to lawlessness. I did not know that there is an opposing ‘duty to retreat’ doctrine; and I approve of it, as it is in harmony with both rational discretion and natural cowardice. One’s home is one’s castle, to be sure; but the street is public property, and civilization is founded upon our collective wussitude.
One curious glitch in the human mind is that it’s always the other guy’s fault. Therefore ‘stand your ground’ is inherently unstable. I suspect that Z and M ‘stood their ground’ against each other. In retrospect, M had a better case, but Z had a better weapon.
The Feds need to come in and charge the creep. He should be in some holding cell carefully trying not to drop the soap instead of hiding behind some shyster mesothelioma ambulance-chasing scumbag lawyer. Try Zimmerman somewhere FAR away from Florida.