Commissioner of Public Safety Bull O’Connor rises from the grave.

Most everyone hopes this tragedy will bring some fundamental change to the ” wild west mentality ” and most liberal gun and self defense laws in the world outside of completely broken countries; think Somalia, Iraq and Mexico. But the actions of Zimmerman won’t change the Florida Republican legislatures’ thinking a bit. The money from the NRA, gun manufacturers, ammo makers, gun shops, etc will trump any attempts to slow down the carnage. Plus, and it’s a big plus, investigations into police dept. shootings of minorities and the mentally ill would inevitably be examined. This would lead to some really ugly truths about the ” enforcement ” part of law enforcement. And we can’t and must not go there as a country. It would reveal way to much information.

Zimmerman’s skipped town according to democracynow this morning. They also mentioned that Martin lay unidentified for hours in the morgue without anyone using his phone to look up his identity nor call the last couple of numbers dialed.

Zimmerman took a leaf from NYPD’s book: “I thought that cell phone was a gun.”

This murder was orchestrated by the racist republican party.

There is no murder without their despicable racism. It’s not the Police chief, it’s the white supremacists that occupy the republican party and their corrupt “Electronic Masturbation voting booths” that is where the blame lies.

Florida went from 13 to 36 ” self defense” homicides yearly since this racist law was passed.

At that rate it will take whitie a long time to get rid of all the people of color. They better speed up the pace.

They would treat a white kid like that if a white kid ever got shot/s

Lee has maintained that the “stand your ground” law in Florida, which asserts that citizens have the right to “meet force with force, including deadly force,” if they feel threatened, exonerates Zimmerman.

[...]

points to the fact that Martin was not being threatening and in fact felt threatened by Zimmerman himself, complaining of being followed and trying to get away.

Interestingly, under the Florida law, Martin would have been justified in shooting Zimmerman.

None of us have a problem recognizing a hate crime when we see one. This young man was shot because he was black and the shooter should be tried for murder – regardless of the stupid law.

Has the employee at the 7-11 given a statement to the police or media about his perception of Martin? I think his/her opinion would develop a more comprehensive picture of what happened that night. My suspicion is that the employee would say that Martin was not seen as a threat.

A family member was watching Ed Schultz last evening and heard that Zimmerman may be a paid informant for the police dept. We use to call those types ” snitches “. I expect this to be true and would bet dollars to donuts he expected immunity from the police. Steve Goodman sang a song written by Hank Williams about a nosy neighbor who ” picked up the party line when she knew it was your ring “. The chorus was ” why don’t you mind your own business, cause if you mind your own business, then ya’ sure won’t be mindin’ mine. ” I grew up in the era of party line phones in rural areas but this takes the work of paid informants to a whole new level; much more like paid ” hitmen ” to fade the heat off law enforcement rather than just informing. Oh, yah!

When a trained police officer fires his weapon for any reason, there is an investigation. When an untrained citizen kills someone in Florida, there is no investigation if he claims self defense and the other side of the story is silenced. How crazy is that? In those gated communities, I imagine that many residents see any black male as a threat.

The police “corrected ” eyewitness accounts.

Further question If this minority hunter called in to 911 43 times how many arrests and CONVICTIONS were made off of his calls ? How many of the forty three were about blacks carrying a cell phone and a pack of skittles ?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

One can only hope that justice will come to the family of Trayvon Martin and the families of all the Trayvon Martins that lie dead in the cities of America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and all war-torn parts of the world.

Being Black you can bet he wouldn’t be walking around a free man like his white assassin, after four weeks .

That’s for sure.

There’s some scurrilous back story here, which will prolly trickle out over time.

There doesn’t have to be.

Sanford is a zit-like suburb on Orlando’s outskirts. It’s two parts meth, one part hick, and a healthy mix of racism and stupidity, like much of rural Florida.

Also, being a “gated community” in that area of Florida doesn’t mean much in terms of relative affluence, in my experience. I’ve been in “gated communities” consisting entirely of mobile/manufactured homes and really old, seedy, run-down neighborhoods.

The fact is all that is required to explain this is “simple” racism.

For those who might care, the local Democratic Party of Orange County is organizing a march (they might have news or info about it on their website, which you can google if you care to) in support of justice for Trayvon and his family.

Zimmerman supposedly called 911 about “suspicious” people 46 times in 56 days last year.

Situation normal for Central Florida. Nothing to see here. Move along.

His Parents weren’t notified till three days after the shooting, so it’s possible that he sat in the morgue unidentified for longer than many hours, even though they should have had his phone.

This is the state that couldn’t convict casey anthony for ‘whatever’ happened to her child who was found dead.
So stupid is as stupid does. I’m sure race also matters in how stupid is activated as well.

Who has the phone ?

In case anyone is interested. The front page of the Orlando Sentinel on the whole thing.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/

Bill Lee and City Manager Norton (Lee’s boss) sounds like they’re trying to play this as a mutated version of Casablanca. Lee/Norton are claiming that since Zimmerman waved the Stand Your Ground law, that police were “PROHIBITED” from arresting Zimmerman. Norton/Lee are acting like they’re Rick Blaine/Captain Renault, Zimmerman is Victor Laszlo and Stand Your Ground is the Letters Of Transit:
In a statement, Sanford city manager Norton Bonaparte Jr. wrote:

“Mr. Zimmerman provided a statement claiming he acted in self defense which at the time was supported by physical evidence and testimony. By Florida Statute, law enforcement was PROHIBITED from making an arrest based on the facts and circumstance they had at the time.”
http://wusa9.com/news/article/198069/188/Police-Chief-Under-Fire-After-Shooting-Of-Unarmed-Teen
Of course with the “facts and circumstances,” the police decided what they wanted to investigate and what they didn’t, so it is rather self-fulfilling.

Hmmmm so lets imagine that it did turn out that way and Trayvon did have a gun and did shoot and kill the pinhead Zimmerman (Self appointed captain of the neighborhood watch…also known as dimminised penis syndrom) and then used the same defense as this clown is using… Just where do you think Trayvon Martin would be RIGHT NOW?????.

Man they better do right by this disaster…..I lived through the Rodney King episode here in Los Angeles and I can tell you the undercurrent going on with this case and the process of muliple incidents occuring and compounding one on top of the other….That is what builds up the frustration and soon enough people begin to feel like things will never change and the police always get away with stuff like this and then KAAABOOOMMM! And then everyone goes but why are they so mad????? Duhhhhh! I was thinking about this this morning and how previously police would be the ones to get away with this crap (and of course they still do I am sure) but this assinine law that alows an obviously racist idiot like Zimmerman to essentially execute a young kid and walk away is exactly the type of behaviour that caused every riot in America in the modern era. The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident. There had been muliple incidents against blacks in Los Angeles in the months leading up to the RK incident, including a young black girl being shot and killed by a store owner for esentially stealing a carton of milk. The girl was out of line true but did she deserve to die? What really upset the balck neighborhoods however was when the store owner went to trial and was convicted of I think second degree murder her sentence was …Probation! As regards teh Trayvon Martine case…TICK TICK TICK KABOOOOOOM!

I haven’t found anything that authoritatively says what the police gathered from the scene or if they had a phone or a wallet. We know now he was talking on his cell phone, so police should have gathered the phone if they were at all competent, there seems to be some unclear references to them having the phone.

They identified Trayvon Martin, because his father reported him missing and gave a description, it was only days latter they showed up at his house to see if the he could identify the picture of the body from the scene.

Does Zimmerman have it ?

I don’t think so, I believe the police have it, there was one statement I read that they haven’t unlocked the phone yet(this was on March 20) and were waiting on a subpoena for his phone records, which implied they have it, but this was an unnamed source “close to the investigation” not an official statement.

We all know that IF the teenager had been white and the neighborhood watch guy black, the watch guy would have been lynched, no questions asked. We continue to live in a racist sexist society.

So what would you estimate, by weight,volume, or any other factor, to be the ratio of attention to this incident vs. the fucking NRA that pushes these idiot killer gun proliferations? What has to happen before something is done about that?

Just what is the racial makeup of the NRA ?

All this is true, Zimmerman is clearly nuts, and Lee should have pressed charges against him. But in fairness it should probably be noted the Lee insists he was advised by the State Attorney General that there was not a prosecutable case. My assumption that it is the chief’s authority whether to prosecute, but ex-post-facto statements from Lee suggest he thought Zimmerman guilty but didn’t prosecute because of the advice.

The whole thing is a nightmare; these Republican freaks–who are not even in a majority in Florida but who control through outright corruption and connivance with monied state and national interests–inflict their brutal fantasies on the populace and this is what we get. We have our own Taliban and we need to overthrow them.

Dozens of cases have gone unprosecuted since the law was effected–I hope the press is digging into them.

The gun people are sincere in their belief that if they carry a gun their family and the people at large are more safe. They will argue on my local newspaper comments section forever. Not surprising they would have a sheriff who thinks like them. We need to be aware of our local environment because the courts and local government have been packed with people like this. I hope this case awakes people to the danger they are in even if they are not “walking black”. These people are looking for an opportunity to shoot and are unconcerned about wrong decisions.

No, I don’t think so, tjbs. I think if a white kid was shot by a black “neighborhood watch man” – said watchman would have committed “suicide by cop” when police arrived.

Also, OT, but… please, moderator? I am having problems with my logging in – whenever I enter my username/password and then click the “remember me” box – the site does not recognize my password as valid. If I do not tick that box, I get in fine. Is there something I can do on my end to aleviate my having to log in again every time I close and re-open my browser?

I’m a little surprised that everybody is saying the police chief made the decision. In the states where I’ve lived, the decision whether to arrest a person, based on the evidence at hand, is made by the District Attorney, or, really, a junior, inexperienced Assistant DA who happens to be on duty at the time. In a case where there seemed to be any ambiguity or possible political blow-back of course s/he would call his/her boss, but essentially the decision is made by the prosecutor. If that is not the case here I’m surprised the prosecutor hasn’t taken pains to make it absolutely clear that he wasn’t consulted and thinks the decision was made without a sufficient investigation/consultation. Maybe Sanford is such a small town they don’t have regular access to an assistant DA? Maybe death cases are so rare there that they have no policy in place and treat it the same as a case of littering or bar brawl? Well, I expect we’ll find out in the end. It’s really a nasty, sickening situation.

The thought occurs to me, even if Zimmerman can’t be prosecuted for murder or even manslaughter because of the Florida law, there are several other laws he can and will be prosecuted under now that the case has become a political cause celebre. At the very least the Feds are pretty sure to prosecute him for violating Wilson’s civil rights. I have a pretty strong suspicion that once they start looking into it the Florida State Attorney’s office will discover two or three statutes Zimmerman violated. The country we live in now has so many laws designed to increase the power of prosecutors to stamp out protest that it seems like all of us commit at least one felonious act a day. It’s entirely at the whim of a prosecutor whether we will be arrested and charged or not. And Congress and the state legislatures keep piling them on. I think everyone should read Jack London’s “The Iron Heel.” The language is pretty old fashioned, as are the mannerisms presented, but the overall idea is very much like what the world has become again. The Oligarchy is nearly ready to show themselves.

My local library has the Iron Heel tucked into Jack London’s “Novels and Social Writings” so I’m headed there as soon as I get offline. Thanks so much for the suggestion. Amazon’s first comment says Iron Heel is better than similar books on the same subject that are more cited (eg “Brave New World” and “1984″)