In the officer's defense.. one of them was wearing a hoodie.

two paragraphs in and @quantumushroom strawmans and ad homs as usual.

You are utterly incapable of making arguments without logical fallacies. If you think dressing like a thug warrants being shot, then my opinion of you is simply not low enough.

Who decides what a thug dresses like? you? Zimmerman? Geraldo? You do realize that you just committed prejudice, don't you? You are judging someone based on how they dress. Shock, how dare someone wear a hoodie when it was raining.

NO.

Even if Trayvon was ultimately the one doing the beating (lets ignore for a moment the video evidence of Zimmerman's lack of injuries and the funeral director saying that Trayvon's body didn't have any indicators that he had been punching someone), It was an incident CREATED BY Zimmermann. He followed him even though he shouldn't have. He carried a gun even though he shouldn't have. He provoked the incident, end of story. Trayvon was actually the one close to home, how do you know that it wasn't Trayvon that wasn't standing his ground, or are you just committing more prejudice?

The.boy.did.not.deserve.to.die.

Zimmerman should be arrested and put on trial. Period!

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^VoodooV:
How do these people function with so much paranoia?

They shoot hoodie wearing black teenagers.


Truf.

Hmmm Yes. It's all crazy. Why are people so afraid of people in hoodies?

Cmon people. It's engrained in our collective consciousness.

If you dress like a naval officer, people assume you're in the navy.

If you dress like a priest, people assume you're a priest.

If you dress like a cop, people assume you're a cop.

If you dress like a bank robber, well..

>> ^VoodooV:

How do these people function with so much paranoia?


They shoot hoodie wearing black teenagers.

?? Huh??
Not recognized because he wore a Hoodie?
So, unless you are wearing an expensive suit, your words are worthless?

Video of Congressman Bobby Rush wearing hoodie on House Floor 3/28/2012

Once again Democrats not obeying the rules.

Funny that Democrats only use GOD when they want to.

Hoodlums wear hoddies. They wear sneakers and baggie ass cloths also.

>> ^nanrod:

She's lucky they're not in Florida. The biker would have just shot her and claimed self defense.


Would fail. Neither was wearing a hoodie.

Sorry for the reeeaaally long post @marinara but I was trying to be brief:

1. "Zimmerman was not part of any REGISTERED neighborhood watch group."

Zimmerman did indeed say that he was "captain" of his neighborhood watch, and I can't find any proof that he wasn't, do you know why? Because there is no documentation regarding his neighborhood watch program, because it was unregistered and existed only in the heads of two or three people. And, might I add, it was certainly not "official".

When a person forms a neighborhood watch, it might be important to take into account the community that they live in. What if the community doesn't want a neighborhood watch program? What if they do, but they feel they don't want you representing them, as some people in Zimmerman's community clearly felt?

The fact is that Zimmmerman's self-appointed title carried no legitimacy at all. If my friend Cletus and I want to call ourselves the neighborhood watch, we can. I can call myself "secretary treasurer" and he can call himself "supreme overlord". But it has no more meaning than when my friend Nick and I get together and call ourselves a "fourteenth level archer", and "Nargok, the dwarven battlemage" (respectively). Only, in the case of the neighborhood watch titles, one must consider the community they are attempting to represent. This is why most watch programs (like the one you linked to) register themselves with the National Sheriff's Association, or some other organization.

2. "Oh and I documented a procedure for neighborhood watches to arrest people and a simple google search will correct you of the idea that the watch should not carry guns."

What you documented on the "City of Oxnard, Police Department" website was that citizen watch volunteers (who are registered) are encouraged to make arrests when they have seen a crime being committed, in particular, when they see someone committing the crime of vandalism. All US citizens have the right to make a citizen's arrest, but no one has the right to arrest or detain anyone for "suspicious behavior", even if that person is walking down the street wearing a hoodie, and looking skeptically at the person following them.

As to the gun, the same Oxnard website you linked to, on the same page, advises that no one carry a weapon at all, except for a heavy-duty flashlight that might be used to defend one's self in an emergency. Unfortunately, a Google search relating to neighborhood watch organizations carrying guns is inundated with articles and polls regarding this tragic case. The fox news polls indicate that a minority of people questioned think neighborhood watch members should carry guns, but those people do not reflect the views of any actual organization (that exists outside of its member's heads) that I know of.

I'd like to refer you to the response to the NY Times from Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. The Angels are one of the most prolific watch organizations in history, with chapters all over the world. They were founded in the late seventies in NYC when the areas they patrolled were considered wastelands. Despite several attempts on the founder's life, and the loss of a few of its members over the years, they still do not advise carrying guns.

3. "...why do you insist on saying martin was an unarmed child? This is absurd."

I say it for two reasons: the first is that Martin was unarmed. There are no eyewitness reports, or even statements from Zimmerman that I've heard, that indicate that Martin attempted to use his bag of Skittles or his can of iced-tea as a weapon. The second reason I say it is that according to the US legal system, Martin was still a child at the time of his death. If he were in the "Child Protective Services' program, he wouldn't have gotten out until he was eighteen, which is the age that US citizens officially become adults (unless they're insane). Some children are tried as adults in the US, but child-victims are never represented as adults.

I understand if you think it's more appropriate to refer to Martin as a teenager, or possibly an adolescent, or even a young adult. But I don't think so, and I'll tell you why: I'm thirty-one years old. I'm not much older by comparison, but when I see a seventeen-year-old kid, I rarely think to myself, "he's got everything figured out". In fact, I rarely think that about most adults. Sure, I think most kids are smarter than people give them credit for, but I don't think Martin was mature enough to know the law and develop an appropriate response to being pursued for no reason by a man armed with a gun. And the US legal system hasn't made a determination in his case yet anyway.

@enoch

I've been having this back and forth with a guy on another forum. He keeps insisting that because Zimmerman was hurt, he was within his rights to shoot Trayvon under SYG. And I keep trying to point out to him that SYG does not say that, but it falls on deaf ears.

And then it comes to witness testimony being the gospel the witness identified as "John" backs up Zimmerman. But the girlfriend of Trayvon who was on the phone with him is also a witness, but somehow her testimony is no good because she's his girlfriend, or underage, or is "speculation" and if she were really a witness the police would have talked to her, etc, etc.

I mean strictly from how events have been reported. We have Zimmerman's own words, phone call, and actions to judge him by. And with Trayvon all we know is that he's dead, was wearing a hoodie, and was a black teen going to the store and back. Yet somehow Trayvon was doing something wrong because Zimmerman identified him as suspicious. Even though there is AT LEAST one black resident in that neighborhood and being black in the neighborhood should not = auto-suspicion even if it's predominately white.

Zimmerman kept chasing and Trayvon should be covered under the law because of it, we KNOW Zimmerman followed him. He wouldn't have "lost" him if Trayvon hadn't tried to actively avoid him by running away. Running away from a creep is not a crime, following a kid is questionable behavior. More so after he was told not to, and the fact that he's neighborhood watch "leader" and should have known better.

The whole thing smacks of Zimmerman having a chip on his shoulder that he isn't "catching the bad guys" and him acting in accordance with that goal...even if it means forcing an encounter. Perhaps he didn't mean to kill Trayvon, or isn't a racist. But I believe he wanted an encounter to happen so at least one of these "punks/goons/coons" were caught. And then he claimed self defense, when he forced the thing upon an individual who was trying to get away from him. It's just compounded by the fact that Trayvon wasn't of a similar age, weight, and build to Zimmerman. He simply did not have the life experience to temper the encounter against, and Zimmerman should have not pushed it. In a role reversal, I'd have no problem with Zimmerman shooting a teenager who was pursuing him after he ran.....but that's not what happened. He forced it upon Trayvon, and got his ass handed to him and shot out of fear. Which does not excuse his actions leading up to the event, he was not immune under self defense laws until he met criteria.

Yup. Add this to the list of police-invented pseudo-crimes, like "Driving while black" and "Drunk while attractive".>> ^Yogi:

"This just in...200 obvious criminals were killed today as they chose with great malice of forethought to wear hoodies while walking."

"This just in...200 obvious criminals were killed today as they chose with great malice of forethought to wear hoodies while walking."

It was the hoodies fault!



What a douche