Tweet
Here are a few updates in the Trayvon Martin case:
• You may know by now about the new surveillance video showing George Zimmerman, the assailant, after the incident. Contrary to the reports of his lawyer and his close friend, Zimmerman shows no sign of a struggle, no blood, no bruises. There is a scar on his head, but it would take more than fifteen minutes for such a scar to form.
• An anonymous witness in the case appeared on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show last night, and corroborated the story that Martin was not banging Zimmerman’s head into the pavement. To the contrary, Zimmerman was straddling the unarmed teen.
A separate witness appeared on Dateline NBC with a similar story.
According to Mary Cutcher on Dateline NBC, she and her roommate both saw Zimmerman “straddling the body, basically a foot on both sides of Trayvon’s body, and his hands pressed on his back.”
Mary Cutcher told Dateline NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview:
“It sounded young. It didn’t sound like a grown man is my point. It sounded to me like someone was in distress and it wasn’t like a crying, sobbing boo-hoo, it was a definite whine.”
Cutcher added that Zimmerman told her and her roommate to call the police. “Zimmerman never turned him over or tried to help him or CPR or anything,” Cutcher said.
I should say at this point that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. All sorts of variables come into play. The best evidence we have that there was no major struggle comes from that surveillance video of Zimmerman shortly after the incident. Zimmerman’s lawyer has gone silent when queried about that video.
• The Department of Justice now plans to investigate the Sanford Police Department and their history of racial trouble, in addition to investigating the Martin case itself:
“The citizens of Sanford will continue to have some idea that their concerns would be heard by an independent agency when they have issues with the Sanford Police Department,” said Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte.
Bonaparte announced the new investigation Tuesday afternoon after receiving numerous complaints about the way officers handled other cases.
He said that so many people complained at Monday night’s city commission meeting about Sanford officers, the city asked the Department of Justice to step in.
“I am now in the process of talking with the Department of Justice and instituting a mechanism whereby citizens that have concerns or complaints about the Sanford Police Department can have their concerns heard and investigated by an independent agency,” Bonaparte said.
Clearly this case has brought to light what every racial minority in Sanford already knew.
• Protests and solidarity actions continue. In addition to Rep. Bobby Rush donning a hoodie on the House floor, a collection of California state lawmakers from the black, Latino and Asian Pacific Islander legislative caucuses donned hoodies as well. That included Asm. Steven Bradford, who after redistricting will become my state Assemblyman.
“I know thousands of Trayvon Martins,” said Assemblyman Steven Bradford (D-Gardena). “I know thousands of African American and Latino young men and boys who are victimized every day in America simply because of the color of their skin.”
Thank you, Asm. Bradford.
6 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL News Desk
Now what Mr. President?
Thayvan Martin’s execution and the continued defamation of his character in an election year? This is one of those cases where reality catches up to the delusions. Florida is puffing up its Confederacy at you and Mr. Holder in a big way. I did not vote for you so I am not surprised over any of this lack of a spine when it comes to real civil rights. How could you really know? A policeman from Cambridge punk’ed you out in the White House before the nation and the world over the Henry Gates ‘Crisis.’
Your apologists say that you have to be real careful because if you do the wrong thing, make the wrong people mad, you may be assassinated!
What is this with Pope’s and their Pope-mobile mentality?
Why does the Pope ride in a bullet-proof vehicle and then teach about Christian martyrdom? Seems that the Pope would not fear for his life, thats what their flock is taught from infancy.
Oh, about this fear of being assassinated. Here’s a little secret. It comes with the job description! Sort of. You see, if someone is afraid of being assassinated then the job of POTUS is not for them! It does not matter race, color, gender or politics, POTUS gets death threats. The Bushes got them and they are supposed to be the Establishment.
If a POTUS is afraid of being assassinated for what is said or done then its time for them to step aside or too have never ran for office. I am not saying this is you, Mr. President, I am saying this to your Black Groupies who have formed Apology Forums to explain your ‘Jackie Robinson’ approach to this job.
A lot of good people are fooled by you. I stood at the polls for almost 4 hours the day you were elected because people in my hood who never voted before joined those who stopped voting years ago to vote for you. I remember this elderly couple who refused chairs offered to them because that’s how important it was for them to vote for you!
I am speaking from Detroit, Michigan. You know, the city you have boycotted and dissed but still have 99.99% of the vote. You remember dissing Detroit dont you? Not to worry because the Detroiters shouted ’4 more years when you patronized them with a Labor Day 2011 campaign photo-op stop.
Does anyone wonder why Detroit was missing from the OWS movement? Think about Detroit’s legacy in labor activism, civil rights and even its notoriety. Where was it during OWS? Oh there was a little token OWS but very tame. No aggressive coordinated police riots here. Detroiters got your back but you don’t have theirs. Just like you did not have Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s back. POTUS is not baseball. Jackie Robinson was a baseball player. What he did was very important but the POTUS is power.
Apologists for you come in all sizes. There’s the Min. Farrakhan size. It goes something like this.
“They turned our brother.”
This is called ‘Denial’ and it also comes close to delusion. ‘They’ did not turn you and you were never their brother. That goes for both Rev. Wright and Min. Farrakhan.
As I write this the city of Detroit is about to lose its Home Rule to a state imposed Emergency Manager. Even though you were in Chicago, you should know something about the ‘Northern Method’ of disenfranchisement of Blacks under the guise of financial crisis. Detroit will be the largest city to go bankrupt and be taken over by the state. Let’s compare. Chicago is running a large deficit. Much larger then Detroit and yet you tried to get the Olympics and succeeded in getting the NATO and W12 summit.
Considering the issue of Detroit’s fiscal crisis, is Springfield threatening Chicago with the same Emergency Manager that Lansing is threatening Detroit with?
While its easy to blame Republicans for Detroit’s demise due to ideological politics of anti-Black and anti-Unionist Heritage Fund recipients from the Grand Rapids Social Conservative homeland what about what you and the Democrats have done? How many times have you and the Democrats dissed Detroit? Do you recall how the CEO’s of the automotive industry were humiliated before Congress? Compare that with how the major banks humiliated Congress while causing the economic disaster facing many Americans.
Since Detroit is about to lose their Home Rule because they have been victimized by decades of Neo-confederate policies aimed at destroying the Black and Labor power-base of the nation’s industrial sector, which includes Chicago, what about the financial health of states like California?
Oh yeah. Thayvan Martin.
Just as you did not have Troy Davis’ back when you and Mr. Holder could have stayed or prolonged his execution, this murder will serve to convince more of your Apologists of your total lack of a spine when it comes to real Civil Rights other than you kissing statues and busts of Martin Luther King!
I read a post from a conscientious White man who saw through your belated comments for what it was but felt it was not his place to criticize you or to tell Black people your words did not bring comfort to them. So I, who is a 58 Black man who is a descendent of slaves, Jim Crow and even of mixed heritage from the British Howes will say, your words are just that.
Thayvan Martin ‘looked’ like your son would look?
See that’s the whole problem. People, well meaning people, got hung up on your looks. See, you ‘Looked’ like their son or brother or father. You looked like a Black man but its not that simple. You were elected based on your looks and you have used this to deceive as we now have public record of it with regards to Rev. Wright.
Its not about what Thayvan Martin looks like see because the bigger issue was your total lack of comment on the execution of Troy Davis who was not murdered by a privileged vigilante but by a state with a stubborn pride over its Confederate heritage and maybe just cause for the ruthless Federal military campaign under Gen. Sherman during the Civil War. Troy Davis was executed in large part as a proxy for you. No comment!
No comment because you are not part of that heritage. How would you know? Thayvan Martin is different because some of your loudest apologists are in Florida protesting. But hopefully the sheep you are leading to slaughter will awaken to see you are a fraud!
Why? Because you have a White mother?
Heaven forbid no. Halle Berry has a White mother just to use a famous example. Your problem is that you have absolutely no personal connection with the Black experience in the USA beyond yourself.
See this is very difficult but most well-meaning people have been distracted by the Tea-Bags and Birthers lunacy to not stop and consider why do only Black men with no Black heritage in 18th or 19th Century USA get to be POTUS or high in the Presidential Succession? Colin Powell, Eric Holder and you. All of you are seen as Black men. None of you have any Black roots in the USA when the Fugative Slave Laws were in effect. This is most unusual when compared to the other White male Presidents. I am not dealing with your mother because she is not Black. The only Black with 19th Century roots to be high in the Cabinet succession was Condolezza Rice.
Whats going on? The fact that men who are descendents of those Blacks either in slavery or Free men who had to be concerned about bounty-hunters operating under the Fugitive Slave Acts are barred from the POTUS or high secession is no accident.
Why does this change only for Black men? Every single other President has male ancestry in the USA from the 19th Century but these 3 highest ranking Blacks. Holder’s father and maternal grandmother are from Barbados. Colin Powell’s parents are from Jamaica.
How could you possibly KNOW what happened in Georgia with Troy or is happening now in Florida with Thayvan?
Detroit’s lost of Home Rule obviously means nothing to you. Why should it? You got their vote.
Here’s the deal. You are an insult to African sovereignty. You are contributing to the continuing insult to Haitian sovereignty. You have set Black men in the USA up for a massive IRS issue when your fake Healthcare Reform Act takes effect in 2014.
Troy Davis and Thayvan Martin are a direct challenge to you and your Attorney General. Where is all your Constitutional and Civil Rights savvy now?
I voted for Cynthia McKinney and am proud of it but I know you are a Trojan Horse and I am Cassandra of Troy. No gloating because being right still means Troy is sacked. You have even fooled the Kenyans who believe you are their kinsman because of a well written narrative of the exchange scholar. Kenya loves having a presumed native son be POTUS so much that they have combat troops in Somalia which is only increasing the potential for a spread of the Somalian Civil War in their country. There’s a sizable Somali population within Kenya, some of them Kenyan citizens others refugees from Somali but you don’t care. Unlike the Birthers looking for Birth Certificates there is no one to prove you are Barak Obama Sr’s son.
I don’t hope I am wrong about you and Mr. Holder and I am not afraid of any of your Republican opponents because I am sure they are all capable of re-energizing the real grassroots protest movement which your candidacy and presidency has thrown water on.
The family of Thayvan Martin is going to find out the same truth that Troy Davis’ did. You are the closest thing to an android to ever be elected Head of State and this does not bode well for the most vulnerable, those you pander to for votes while carrying out the agenda of JP Morgan-Chase, Citi-corp, Goldman-Sachs and Company in their name. You need the victims of the corporate masters who created you in the RAND and Harvard Political Science labs to actually vote for you and effectively cut off all they have gained from hard struggles in the 20th Century YOU were never a part of.
You tried to evoke Abe Lincoln in your myth-making? Well lets see how well you do avoiding US Civil War 2. Your speech at that 2004 Convention was pure BS that only a Reverse Racist would say. Troy Brown, Thayvan Martin and a host of others about to be harassed by the IRS over your phony Healthcare Reform and windfall for the insurance company. What you have done was get a Life Tax passed that will charge all of us to be alive. How dare you call this Healthcare? Because you are a Poser for the Insurance and Banking industry all in Black face so that the most powerless are blamed for it by their dogged support of your fraudulent pretense as a continuum of the Civil Rights Movement.
Troy Davis and Thayvan Martin have just exposed your Post-Racial America nonsense for those who weren’t really listening to the all form and no substance fluff of your speeches.
Three tidbits,
1 possible the retired Judge Zimmerman and the prosecutor that stepped down served in Vietnam at the same time . Is there a past connection?
2 Trayvon was face down ,dead, lying on his hands . How does one get shot in the chest and fall on his face.
3 Did the bullets enter or leave from the front or back ?
That’s no comment that’s a great diary.
I urge you to post this on My FDl under your name because I haven’t seen anything as crystal clear about our “Black” president.
I agree with tjbs, Duwayne, this comment of yours needs to be posted on my FDL, it needs and deserves much broader exposure. Thank you, and I hope we may see your truly thoughtful and well-considered comments again. Very well said.
Along with this piece from Margaret Kimberly, at BAR, the two of you describe Barack Obama’s apparent perceptions and actual behavior with refreshing honesty and, I consider, exact precision.
http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-obama-and-trayvon-martin
DW
I used to break and train horses. I’ve had my nose broken twice. You can’t even tell now, but when it happened it bled profusely. My nose was swollen up huge and I had two black eyes by the next day. They took a while to heal. That guy did not have a broken nose. His shirt would have been a mess. And his face would have been pretty bad too. And his eyes would still be a little black and blue even now. Or that icky yellow that comes after a couple of weeks.
Bravo, sir, that was very powerful. I also wish you would make a diary out of it. I would just leave out the part about no slave era descendants reaching high office-it may be true, but it’s hard to prove your thesis, and will just give some an excuse to dismiss your whole worthy piece. The rest of what you said is very solid, and deserves to be heard by all, IMO. Bravo.