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Forensic Experts Say Screams Were Not Zimmerman's
Hugh Pickens writes "As the Trayvon Martin controversy splinters into a debate about self-defense, a central question remains: Who was heard crying for help on a 911 call in the moments before the teen was shot? Now the Orlando Sentinel reports that Tom Owen, a leading expert in the field of forensic voice identification sought to answer that question by analyzing the recordings. His result: It was not George Zimmerman who called for help. Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion. Owen used software called Easy Voice Biometrics to compare Zimmerman's voice to the 911 call screams. 'I took all of the screams and put those together, and cut out everything else,' says Owen. The software compared that audio to Zimmerman's voice and returned a 48 percent match. Owen says to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he'd expect higher than 90 percent. Owen cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon's, because he didn't have a sample of the teen's voice to compare however 'you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it's not Zimmerman.'"
I'm not sure if I could care less about this case. Also, some "expert" trying to promote himself doesn't belong on "news for nerds".
I love how we have all of these joke stories every April 1. It's good to ignore serious news for a bit.
We don't believe in that commie 'science' crap.
Slashdot just keeps going down in quality. Ugh. This used to be a great site to learn about technology and linux but now it is crap.
This site really knows it's audience. It posts tech industry news days to weeks after other sites, but somehow remains up-to-the-minute on the latest political scandal flamebait. They know that all the actual techies have left and been replaced with libertarian trolls.
Robert Zimmerman...
Zimmerman's claim of being badly beaten up before he shot the kid doesn't hold up either: there's some footage taken at the police station the night of his arrest, and he looks totally unharmed. No cuts to the back of the head, no broken nose, nothing. Guy's story has more holes than... eh, I'm on my eighteenth hour without sleep due to a project and can't come up with an apt metaphor, but something with a lot of holes.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
... until it is proven to in fact be him. It will help show what voodoo "science" most of these courtroom experts perform.
IANAL but it's my understanding only what is admissible to a grand jury or in a court of law is relevant. Otherwise it is hearsay.
Dammit /.
This website is supposed to be a haven from the GOP Primaries, Casey Anthony, and Martin-Zimmerman case.
I do not care they used some weird proprietary technology to determine if it was Zimmerman. Speech recognition is a technology still has difficulty with.. like a captcha. I trust the other guy more.
The screams were from Jenna Jameson as I cranked her down with my huge manhood. No, really - they were!
Has this software been subjected to repeated double-blind testing? Otherwise, there's no point in reporting this.
While I'm personally of the opinion that Zimmerman is guilty of manslaughter, I've also seen too many cases of "forensic science" of dubious validity being allowed in trials (for example Steven Hayne in Mississippi help convict dozens of people on the base of 'bite mark identification' techniques that are widely considered fraudulent). Can anyone point to any independent blind trials to demonstrate 1) that the metrics used by this program actually are invariant for a particular individual and 2) are sufficiently unique that they can be used to reliably distinguish two individuals?
yet videos showed no sign of bruising or blood. He is a medical miracle.
... and George just shot him in "self defense"?
Sounds like cold blooded murder, not self defense.
Who is shooting an armless scared teen?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Isn't it fair to assume the expert is using the publicly available samples? IIRC one of the experts in the Sentinel article suggested that the difference between the two samples (sound and screaming vs. being relatively calm) doesn't matter. Can someone explain more technically why it wouldn't matter? At the very least, doesn't interference and other factors come into play with the recording taken at a distance, i.e., the one where is screaming.
Was they located the ever elusive "white Hispanic." Not only are they using reputable software such as "Easy Bake Oven Biometrics" to prove that he did it, they were also able to make him of an entirely new race! Lets make sure we turn this into a race war as soon as possible!
Who is shooting an armless scared teen?
He shot a handicap? Or did you mean unarmed?
brandelf -t FreeBSD
..judging by the amateurish, information-devoid website and release date less than one month ago.
I'd be very, very leery of trying to do any sort of "voice print analysis" on the basis of recorded cellphone audio. There's a lot of coding artifacts. After all, the goal is to allow people to communicate, not to convey voice identity.
You can run voice through a fairly low bit rate LPC coder and it's quite intelligible on the other end, and actually "sounds" like the speaker, but if you look at the spectrogram, it's totally different. Your ear hears the dominant formants in the vowels, and you recognize speakers by that. LPC basically encodes the vocal tract as a 8-10 term filter plus a buzz excitation source. "voice print id" depends more on fine structure, which is lost in the encoding/decoding. It would be like trying to identify a paper document that was watermarked by looking at a photocopy. The watermark may or may not come through, but the intelligibility of the document is the same either way.
It's not a question of guilt or innocence, Zimmerman is guilty of shooting and killing Trayvon Martin. That is not in question at all. The question is whether he was legally justified in doing so. Unfortunately, one side of the story (Trayvon) has been removed and cannot be heard.
A human being *died*. A young man was shot and killed while bearing only a can of iced tea and a bag of skittles. An investigation of more than simply accepting the word of the shooter is definitely warranted.
"Trial by social media". "Trial by the self-righteous" Glad we have court systems to sort out all these rumors.
You can prove the voices match someone. You can't prove the voice don't match someone.
Easy Voice Biometrics
If it was based on psuedo-science it would have another name. Something like, Crystal Voice Biometrics, or Sonic Wave Biomagnetics.
Even if Zimmerman was the one screaming
He followed and confronted someone for no good reason, even after having been explicitly told (by 911 operator) to stay away
Even if Zimmeriman screamed through the whole process, the killing of Trayvon is not justified.
Voice Analysis, and/or Voice Stress Analysis, is even less reputable than Polygraph.
Polygraph is junk science. It is bullshit. It is not acceptable as evidence in a court of law, because it is junk science and bullshit.
These junk science bullshit methods need to be exposed for what they are!
If a cop murders a kid (unarmed, in the back, running away, etc) everybody says
A He/She feared for their lives/safety
B He/She was only doing their job
C They were resisting
D Oops!
And the cop get's a few days off with pay!
It's a good thing that this retard Zimmerman isn't a cop, maybe he'll get prosecuted!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I would think that 48% match is pretty good considering it was over a cellphone from a distance. It would have to be a really super awesome cellphone to get much better than that.
After the Richard Jewel case I don't get into rush to judgement any more.
However the initial response of the police to let Zimmerman walk without a real investigation deserves a whole lot of criticism. Now we are getting the investigation so hopefully the facts will become evident.
Duh!
How accurate is biometric voice analysis when the person was under physical/mental stress at the time of recording? (Honest question, I really don't know.)
Can't they just use the archived recording of the cell phone conversation between Trayvon and his girlfriend, or do they actually expect us to believe that the massive infrastructure put in place to record all domestic cell phone conversations is only be used for investigations involving muslims and "terrorism"?
Did we really have to bring this subject up on Slashdot? Isn't even other discussion group on the whole Intertubes enough for the race-baiting mob to rave about their desire for a 21st century lynching?
an unarmed 17 year old kid was shot and killed. You can't claim self defence when you are chasing someone down and you have a lethal weapon on your person. Why the police ever let him go is truly mind boggling. How could anyone take the story of the person who did the killing seriously?
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Call me a racist if you like, but I have heard a lot of african-american voices, and the voice calling for help on that tape is not that of an african-american teenager. Either this kid sounded incredibly white, or the voice is not his.
Note that Trayvon's dad was played the tape and asked if the voice was his son's, and he confirmed that it was not Trayvon's voice calling for help. And also note that his dad has a typical african-american accent when you hear him talking in the videos.
So all this guy proved is that his voice matching software is shit.
Lets just suspend our opinions until the trial please. I have no idea what happened here and neither does anyone else.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Was they located the ever elusive "white Hispanic."
These guys are not the first to apply that label to the shooter. Zimmerman identifies himself as "white hispanic" on his voting registration. Some of the very early news coverage - that came out over a month ago, just after the shooting - also used that label.
In other words, the concept of "white hispanic" is not new here. Not sure what planet you've been hanging out on lately but we've been using this term since this crime was first reported, and it has been a standard part of the language for some time.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Why was the black teen kid snooping around in a gated community? Why was the mexican guy that killed the kid walking around with a loaded firearm following him? FL has a "3 move" law regarding access to guns. Sounds more like the kid was up to no good, decided to bail out, and the mexican chap was out looking for trouble.
How many Slashdotters argued voraciously that Hans Reiser was innocent before all the facts were in? How many people signed the anti-Apple-FoxConn petition before the basis was found to be a hoax?
Aren't those protesting -- asking for "justice" (code word for arrest and conviction) -- engaged in the same sort of vigilante justice that got Trayvon killed?
Yes. I know, it's more politically correct to demand Zimmerman's head than to wait for facts to emerge. It's better to react to the distorted photos and the doctored 9-1-1 tapes then to wait for those who are dealing with all the facts.
Please, go ahead, mark this as "troll" because it doesn't fit your world view -- and you certainly can make all the correct decisions without really knowing what happened.
It's always bothered me that forensic science doesn't involve science. It would be easy enough to reproduce the events using the same phone and recording equipment and voice samples with a few different people to establish a baseline for what we "should" expect. But instead they simply can't be bothered with scientific controls. We are just supposed to take their word for it that it should be a "90%" match. I'm this context we don't even know what 90% means.
Listen to the audio, this is not a crime against blacks, he was getting off because his dad is a judge this could had happened to any other person listen to the kid scream for help then get shot. Stop with the racist crap this is an issue of power just happened that the black voice is louder had the kid been hispanic or white the family would have been to afraid to do anything. http://www.youtube.com/v/KmnqKotpSD0
I've tried to stick to the indisputable facts in forming my opinion on this case (of which there are few), but regardless of the legal outcome, it seems clear to me that Trayvon Martin did not need to die that night, and that his death was the result of George Zimmerman patrolling the neighborhood with a firearm and choosing to follow Martin.
Had Zimmerman not been patrolling, or had he been patrolling without a firearm, or had he been patrolling with a firearm but taken the 911 operator's suggestion and not followed Martin, Martin would not be dead.
Even if Zimmerman's actions were legally justified, it doesn't mean they were right or intelligent. I was assaulted in downtown Washington, DC in the middle of the day. I could have escalated the situation and probably have been legally justified in doing so, but for all I know I might have gotten myself stabbed or run down by the car the asshole was driving. And for what? And here, Martin is dead--for what?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
"Who is shooting an armless scared teen?"
A number of years ago I was badly beaten by four unarmed black "youths".
Five of my teeth were broken out. One of those bastards hit me with brass knuckles.
I was unarmed that night, but had I been armed, I'd have shot them all with no hesitation.
The idiots who beat me up did so not as part of a robbery, but for no reason. Anyone who
thinks such behavior deserves "mercy" has never been a victim of such behavior.
The bottom line on any situation where violence is involved is that if your were not there,
you have no idea what would have been an "appropriate" response.
If Zimmerman is not executed, a bunch of idiots will riot. Let them, and test out the new crowd
control devices on their sorry asses.
Once you've been beaten badly by someone you have never met, THEN you can tell me
about "mercy toward the criminal". Until then, shut your fucking mouth.
HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE, THE KID HAD NO ARMS!
Oh wait, you mean he was unarmed. Well, you'd have been better served by your argument if he HAD no arms, because your bare arms and fists are a plenty deadly weapon, even if you've not been officially trained in their use.
I'm never going to holiday in Florida ever again.
If one unarmed scrawny teenager makes you people that scared shitless, than a 50 year old tourist with enough money to cause major mayhem and an attitude to boot will probably cause mass hysteria in the streets. I'll skip you bunch of pathetic weak-minded losers and burn paper somewhere else.
Hopefully lots of our tourists feel the same way. Vote with your wallet, blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff.
He wasn't a criminal you fucking halfwit, and there was only one of him, not four.
There's so many opinions flying around here about this, yet I honestly can't pass judgment on any of this information.
All I do know is that the existing evidence is more than sufficient to merit formal charges and an arrest warrant.
If the DA has not put in for a warrant for Zimmerman as a suspect for murder by end of business on Monday, then I think the DOJ should pursue a more vigorous investigation into racism and misconduct within the DA's office and the Police Department.
Frankly, Zimmerman's story has stunk from the get go, the actions of the police have stunk and the more information comes out, the more the entire thing stinks. If we don't see the DA take swift and immediate action on Monday, we'll know where their motives truly lie.
I've tried to stick to the indisputable facts in forming my opinion on this case (of which there are few), ...
Are you admitting that you're decided guilt or innocence without knowing the all the facts? Or do you really think that all the facts have been released?
http://times247.com/articles/new-high-def-video-vindicates-zimmerman-s-account
http://times247.com/pset/zooming-in-on-george-zimmerman/page/13
But I doubt his broken nose claim is true.
I've seen at least two people's noses broken through accidental contact on a sports field. In one case, there wasn't even much blood. In both cases, you couldn't tell anything was wrong just by looking at them, and these were both people I'd known for years. Yet you expect to judge whether a nose is broken on a dude you've never seen in person, from a blurry, low resolution video? Seriously?
Also, what's with this "forensic voiceprint" bullshit? Is this of the same caliber as "forensic hair analysis", which was used to put hundreds of innocent (and mostly black men) people on death row? This is the most irresponsible bullshit I've ever seen Slashdot come up with - you're helping try him in the court of public opinion, not to mention providing a huge slashvertisement for owen.
Please help metamoderate.
I say that first we give him a fair trial and then we hang him. Gives 'em time to build a solid scaffold too.
? armless scared teen? have you been paying attention the case at all? the kid wasn't scared. this doesn't justify murder, but the kid called himself a "gunna" the kid refers to himself as a "killa" he's even swung and knocked out his bus driver BY HIS OWN ADMISSION, he's a 17 year old kid and the news have been showing pictures from 5 years ago (why? to get you to believe he's innocent) bigger question ? why is this case so important right now? deaths happen all the time, even worse than this situation. it's to get you peoeple all worked up over "racism" and "self defense" and "justified or not" ... you only know what you're being sold, and you're buying all of it.. this may seem rude but baaa baaa baaaa.. its time to wake up sheeple
>> F6'3" (1.9m) athlete
Weighing 140 pounds vs Zimmerman's 250. "Athlete?" Martin was a walking stick! Try using your brain retard.
Also, Martin was a decade younger, at 17. Between 28 y.o. and 17 y.o, my experience says that 28 is physically stronger on average.
>> there was at least one eyewitness that corroborated that Zimmerman was on the ground being attacked
And there is at least one more account stating that Martin was on the ground. You'd know if you wanted to.
the DA office doesn't seem to understand that "Stand Your Ground" is just an affirmative defense against a crime, not a magic spell that means someone can't be arrested.
All this time the DA has been desperately casting "Dispel Magic" and other charms, frantically trying to arrest this guy before the citizens storm in with pitchforks.
Zimmerman was an armed man following him
Why does it matter if Zimmerman was armed? Why does the mere presence of a gun freak you out so totally you lose the ability to think through the situation?
It might if Martin knew the gun was there, but obviously Zimmerman still had it concealed or WHY WOULD AN UNARMED GUY ATTACK A MAN WITH A GUN?
So all you have is one guy, free able to walk where he wants, followed by another guy who is also free to walk where he likes.
Don't like being followed? Fine, but that's not call to attack someone.
We know from a witness in the end that Zimmerman was on the ground being attacked. We know from the police reports Zimmerman was wounded on the back of the head. That's not a wound you can really get if you are simply going to shoot a guy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The legal wrong is shooting someone dead.
Attacking someone physically is also wrong.
If that happened first shooting someone dead was not actually legally wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There's no doubt to me that Zimmerman initiated violent action.
He followed the guy and very likely stopped him and "interrogated" him.
If there was an attack by Trayvon it was very likely Trayvon's defense to Zimmerman initiated hostility, probably with the intent of finally firing his gun at somebody "suspicious".
Who is shooting an armless scared teen?
He shot a handicap? Or did you mean unarmed?
He was playing golf? Or did you mean handicapped person?
"...reports that Tom Owen, a leading expert in the field of forensic voice identification ... used software called Easy Voice Biometrics to compare Zimmerman's voice to the 911 call screams."
Say what? If the engineers at Boeing started using "Easy Airplane Building" software, I think I would stop flying.
Goddam lib-tards trying to take away my guns.
HURRRRRRRR
I think the real issue is removing the Duty to Retreat is a horrible idea.
Saw this one coming a mile away...
Innocent or guilty, Zimmerman has to hang. Do it now and get it over with.
My opinion has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. The indisputable facts--which Zimmerman himself (or at least his lawyer/spokesperson) admits--are that Martin was unarmed, that Martin was returning home, that Zimmerman was armed, and that Zimmerman (at least initially) followed Martin. That's really all I need to know to conclude that the end result--Martin ending up dead--was not inevitable. And that conclusion has nothing to do with guilt or innocence or legal justification, which was my point.
To put it another way: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I know this can be Googled, but I don't think it would kill the submittor or editor to include a link to who these people are and why we should care.
I've never heard of either of these people. I know Phil Zimmerman was involved with PGP but that's not this guy is it?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Double blind tests remove biases from humans testers/testees who may otherwise respond to non-test signals. Algorithms cannot be biased (unless certain bias is itself part of algorithm/UI).
All that I can see that's required here is a blind test where a sample known sample of voices is passed to the algorithm, and the software results tallied against actual known facts. If the error rate s low enough, the confidence in the matching can be high enough.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Regardless of who is guilty, the world will greatly miss no_limit_nigga. His bitches will miss being fucked by him, his school will miss suspending him, and we will all miss him showing off his grillz while he's giving fingers and telling us he's going to kill us all. It's a tragedy indeed.
WHAT? Before his death, this Trayvor guy was almost an adult, caught bringing drugs to school, caught with women's jewelry, this asshole would barely be considered human but somehow after his death he becomes a sweet innocent 12 year old boy with a bright future loved by everyone. My disdain for him is not because he's black or what he looks like. There are plenty of this type of idiots running around and they come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Look at him, this Trayvon asshole is too much of a scumbag to even be on Jerry Springer.
And to make it worse, people are getting rich over his corpse. They're trademarking "trayvon" sentences, selling t-shirts, mugs, hats, bumper stickers etc. This is worse than Sony raising Whitney Houston's CD prices 30 minutes after her death. The vultures are stirring the wound to profit from the ensuing hysteria. They will start a race riot if it means extra $$$$ lining their pockets, they will cruising on their luxury yacht when society breaks down because of them.
Perhaps a reasonable person would do as the dispatcher said and stay away. The concept of what a reasonable person would do is a tried and true tool for the courts.
Nice how you made this whole situation all about you.
The good people of Florida, through their scaremongering legislature created a stand your ground law for just such a situation, and I see no other purpose for it. It is not clear to me anyone has the facts to win a conviction with diligent police, prosecutors, judges and juries.
...all the other news topics have so few comments...
Had Martin used an umbrella and walked on a sidewalk like a normal person, likewise. Actually he may have had an umbrella for all I know. And perhaps the hood of his hoodie was not to be found on his headie. I have no idea. But neither do you idiot! So stop forming opinions. Yours are worthless anyway.
Zimmerman wasn't patrolling, he was running an errand, and when told that he didn't need to follow Martin he agreed and told the 911 operator he was returning to his vehicle.
Martin is still dead, though.
What kind incompetent idiot makes these statements without first obtaining samples of Treyvons voice and running it through the same process? If they are too lazy to do this then why should anyone trust their result?
The black kid was in the gated community too, since the entire story is that he was not there as a criminal but as a visitor of family, his BLACK family was living in the same gated community as the white man that this BLACK family KNEW was part of the neighborhood watch. Do you have any evidence that Zimmerman ever protested this residence of this BLACK family?
Gosh, how easy it is to point out your bigoted nature. Clearly a white man living in a gated community is a racist but a black family doing the same is.... well is just what? Why are they different?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Our blacks are Moroccans and the hoody is the fur colored coat. Anyway, a person who claimed to have been mugged killed one of them on a moped by slamming their car in to them. RACIST. Then tiny details started to emerge. First the family claiming that he was just an normal muslim kid doing normal every day things... THEN it emerged that the person who claimed to be mugged was not only female, but a BLACK female. Oops, so much for the white man ganging up on a poor kid.
THEN it turned out that the kid was on his way back from court, where he had been involved in a mugging case.
Conclusion? The woman was not prosecuted and a new "joke" was born.
Kid committing a robbery on his way back from court for robbery? Heel normaal, voor een marrokaan. (Very normal, for a Morrocan).
Most people in the beginning were willing to believe that the person in the car had overreacted, Holland is a liberal nation but we are not fools. More incidents like this have now made it perfectly normal for any story along these lines to question any report in favor of the minority person. The media and the minorities have lied so often about the real truth that they fully well knew.
In the US, this case will do nothing but divide the races further. A lot of people try to focus on their favorite points, like the fact this happened in a gated community and ignore the counter points (the black kid was there to visit relatives, who I can only presume are black so the attempt to make Zimmerman a racist for living in a gated community falls flat).
It is like the shootings in France, the image of Muslims in France would have been a LOT better after the shooting if the father hadn't acted like a self-righteous asshole in making demands while he full well knew one of his sons was a mass child killer and another a thief (other son stole the moped). Just a few seconds of keeping your mouth shut can do an awful lot of good will. Instead, the entire Muslim family and by extension all Muslims in France are shown to be criminals with zero sense of values or morals.
At this point I very much doubt that the outcome of the case will really matter. It is more like the Simpson trial all over again. People divided along racial lines with a desperate few to try to hide their own bigotry behind attempts to see the other sides point of view without really doing so.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Zimmerman's whole case seems to ride on him "feeling threatened" which apparently makes it okay to murder people in Florida.
In most states (I'm not sure of the details for Florida) the standard is not whether HE felt threatened. The standard is whether a REASONABLE AND PRUDENT person IN HIS SITUATION would feel threatened - at risk of the loss of "life or limb".
As to "murder" there's a difference between that and "justifiable homicide". If the prosecutor thinks he has enough evidence to prove the former, expect him to bring it to court to let a judge or jury decide.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Let's assume a large black man follows a 17-year-old white boy into an alley, claiming the boy looks suspicious. There, the black man shoots the white boy. The black man emerges with minor wounds to his head and claims that he, for unknown reasons, was attacked by the white boy, who, it turns out, had done nothing wrong and wasn't carrying anything suspicious. The prosecutor decides to not prosecute because they have no proof the black man didn't act in self-defence.
Would people be so quick to jump to the black man's defence?
Not quite... when Zimmerman was told he didn't need to follow Martin, he did anyway. It wasn't until he lost track of Martin he returned to his vehicle. Then the call was disconnected, so we don't know exactly what happened after that.
Personally, I find it far-fetched that Martin attacked Zimmerman for no reason. It's conceivable that Martin was upset for being treated like a criminal with no reason, and they got in a fight where Zimmerman felt threatened. It's also conceivable that Martin simply defended himself against the unknown assailant with a gun who was stalking him, and that's how Zimmerman got the minor wounds on his head.
In any case, I think it's strange that the prosecutor won't even bring this to trial.
911 call: "I saw a man laying on the ground that needed help that was screaming. I was going to go help him but my dog got off the leash." There was only one witness according to the police and he said Zimmerman was on bottom. If this caller is the same one, then is also saying Zimmerman was screaming.
The Easy Voice Biometrics program has been on the market for 30 days. In it's demo below, it shows two "possible matches" at 54% and 55%....and these are good audio sources. Given that he was testing 1-syllable screams through a wall, 48% is like a perfect match. That expert seems to be the foremost authority on this subject and there is no telling how many cases revolved around his opinion. He is accredited by organizations he formed and has testified to get this stuff certified. The problem is that he is making a subjective call with a program he does not have experience with, and that the program does not claim it is not Zimmerman. There needs to be a comparison with Trayvon's voice, and the program needs to assign a variance based on a broad sampling of the population so that the statistical chance can be calculated.
This Program's demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh4HEBVviRM&feature=relmfu
"a mixture of art and science understood by only eight sanctioned experts in the country. This is the sort of gray area that tends to make legal observers worry about the state of forensic science. "Too often, I've seen cases of people wrongly accused of making threatening calls," admits retired Michigan detective Lonnie Smrkovsky, the acknowledged grandfather of forensic audio analysis. "I think at some point in time, we have to find a way to fully automate voice identification."
If you look at the right sanford police AVI upload direct to youtube (no chance of modification, linked to from their website), you can clearly see two sizeable holes with streaking blood in the back of zimmerman's head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqKSMMEYHxA
Most people are viewing the composite video which smooths things out so much there is no sign of the gashes.
I'm from the UK, and have only headline knowledge of this case that is apparently huge news on your side of the pond, so I feel I am in a position to offer an opinion as a relatively unbiased outsider. Having not RTFA, I would like to say this:
If I was involved in a court case that concerned a person being shot to death, I would NOT be reassured that key evidence came from software with the word "Easy" in the title.
Neiborhood watch people will never be the same, at least not in Florida.
Zimmerman with his irresposible action pretty much painted a big target on all their backs.
"Sorry officer, the Neiborhood Watch guy was comming towards me and I felt threatened. And I did not want to die like that kid trayvon so I shot him"
Stand your ground.
This "forensic voice" expert is missing a very important point.
The software does NOT ALWAYS match a poorly recorded voice with it's true owner, which is why the matches are only quoted as percentage of how sure IT IS, NOT how sure IT ISN'T.
This means that unless the software matches the voice with Trayvon's voice, then there can be no conclusion drawn, this is sensationalism and the undereducated media love to report on such things.
Had Zimmerman not been patrolling
Let's ban all neighborhood watch programs.
had he been patrolling without a firearm
Let's abolish the second amendment
had he been patrolling with a firearm but taken the 911 operator's suggestion
Lets enact a law, whereby all "suggestions" from 911 operators (or the police) are punishable by prison time, if they are not acted upon.
Or, educate our young to be aware of how their dress-code/actions can influence people's perception of them. There is no smoke, without fire.
No, the police didn't. Which is why the lead homicide investigator wanted Zimmerman charged. It was the DA that rejected that on the basis that, given "SYG" and the inconsistencies in the evidence, there was insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.
Guilty until proven innocent". Crowdsourcing is probably a neutral technology with both good and dumb applications. Despite the fact that financial promoters would claim its the best thing ever invented.
You guys are looking at this all wrong. It's not news; it's a product.
The point is to introduce enough doubt that we'll argue over it, take sides like at a soccer/football match, call each other racists and criminals, buy hoodies on Amazon.com, watch hours of advertising and buy a lot of newspapers.
The profit motive here is for them to obscure and limit the information released, not the full story.
Hmm...
If you'll pardon me, me and my popcorn will be sitting back and watching before I leap in with some judgment one way or another.
Owen says to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he'd expect higher than 90 percent. Owen cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon's, because he didn't have a sample of the teen's voice to compare however 'you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it's not Zimmerman.'"
And so this is worthless. Mr. Owen doubtless has plenty of experience matching voices under reasonably normal conditions. Under extreme stress? Who knows?
Without a positive match to Trayvon, this isn't worth anything.
(Actually, from my point of view, the biggest problem with the whole situation is that the mere fact of having been arrested is in the US a significant legal impediment to living what most of us would call a normal life. That's a problem. If a mere arrest record can make it difficult for me to get hired, travel abroad, get a college scholarship or whatever, then you have to treat an arrest almost like a criminal conviction.
An arrest "should" mean precisely one thing - that the police believe that a crime may have occurred, and that if that crime has occurred, and you are the criminal, you need to be detained at least temporarily in order to acquire physical evidence, identify you, and/or prevent you from absconding. An arrest should be completely non-disclosable for any reason. The way that arrests are treated in the US means that "innocent until proven guilty" has been replaced by the laws of innuendo and "where there's smoke, there's fire".)
Care to actually look into the background of the "expert" who made these claims? He's as qualified as your average hobbyist.
He names himself by the nickname nigga, that suggests to me a person with an attitude problem. They are not unknown to try to start a fight knowing that the moment things go wrong, the other person will back down since no-one wants to take things to far. This is a dog who barked at a cyclist hoping to scare him off. This cyclist stood his ground.
Is the above true?
The left is claiming the right is trying to make the black kid look bad by posting a posing picture he himself made. No mention of how it came to be that the ORIGINAL picture was half a decade out of date and showed someone who didn't look at all like the young adult at all.
Same with weight. Lots is made by the bleeding hearts that Zimmerman was twice as heavy. Nothing about that the black kid was far taller and far younger and far more fit. Gosh, a self proclaimed gangsta nicka, 2 meters tall, shot FROM THE FRONT, so he wasn't running away, is a purely innocent little boy hunted down by an old white oops, wait, latino man.
I used to like to think that these cases were clear cut but I am to used to both sides lying their ass off.
Oh and basically you are saying that intimidating behavior is okay, just as long as you don't do it with people who won't take it anymore.
For every real racist incident, there are 10 where so called minorities hide behind excuses. The first non-white non-christian president of the US is a black man with a muslim family background. Not a jew, not a hindy, not a native american, not an asian, not an atheist. Black. And still blacks are the biggest complainers of racism. I think people should have learned from the Simpson trial, the same lawyer is even involved for crying out loud.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
With a complete media circus, public examination of evidence and death threats against the accused; proving that we had not hit rock bottom.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Even if Zimmerman's actions were legally justified, it doesn't mean they were right or intelligent.
Which of course has nothing to do with whether or not he should be tried...
I was assaulted in downtown Washington, DC in the middle of the day. I could have escalated the situation and probably have been legally justified in doing so, but for all I know I might have gotten myself stabbed or run down by the car the asshole was driving.
Yep, too bad it's not possible to get a CCWP in DC. Then you might have been able to defend yourself.
And for what?
The main point of self-defense is to avoid injury or death...right?
And here, Martin is dead--for what?
Allegedly, for committing a felonious assault on the wrong person.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Which of course has nothing to do with whether or not he should be tried...
I agree. Whether or not he's guilty/innocent or should be tried is not necessarily connected with whether his actions were intelligent. The former is a matter of law. But even if he is tried and acquitted, or never even tried, I think I'm still justified in thinking this outcome was not inevitable, and that he is responsible for the outcome.
Yep, too bad it's not possible to get a CCWP in DC. Then you might have been able to defend yourself.
I think you're missing my point. I was able to defend myself. I did not escalate the situation, and no one was injured. On the other hand, if either of us had a gun, including a legal one, one or both of us might have ended up injured or dead (or, bystanders might have been injured or dead). I fail to understand how the end result of my situation, in which no one was injured, is worse than me being "able to defend myself" and someone ending up injured or dead.
The main point of self-defense is to avoid injury or death...right?
Sure, and on that count, I ended up fine, and so did he. If I had aggravated the situation, I expect that one or both of us would have ended up in the hospital and/or jail. I don't see how that's better than what actually happened.
Allegedly, for committing a felonious assault on the wrong person.
It was a rhetorical question.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I agree. Whether or not he's guilty/innocent or should be tried is not necessarily connected with whether his actions were intelligent. The former is a matter of law. But even if he is tried and acquitted, or never even tried, I think I'm still justified in thinking this outcome was not inevitable, and that he is responsible for the outcome.
Given that you have the advantage of infallible 20/20 hindsight... It seems to have been swept under the carpet lately that Zimmerman's neighborhood had a recent rash of breakins, and he was concerned about losing a possible suspect. When it's a matter of seconds, the police are only minutes away...
Yep, too bad it's not possible to get a CCWP in DC. Then you might have been able to defend yourself.
I think you're missing my point. I was able to defend myself. I did not escalate the situation, and no one was injured.
I congratulate you on your good fortune, as well as the benefit of infallible 2/20 hindsight. ;-)
On the other hand, if either of us had a gun, including a legal one, one or both of us might have ended up injured or dead (or, bystanders might have been injured or dead).
On the gripping hand (sorry couldn't resist) if your assailant had a knife, pipe, baseball bat or one of any number of potential weapons and the inclination to use it, you could have ended up permanently injured or dead, in the absence of your own weapon. Concealed carry is intended to provide a last resort if there is no better way to ensure your safety.
I fail to understand how the end result of my situation, in which no one was injured, is worse than me being "able to defend myself" and someone ending up injured or dead.
It's not, however you should also recognize that wasn't the only possible outcome.
The main point of self-defense is to avoid injury or death...right?
Sure, and on that count, I ended up fine, and so did he. If I had aggravated the situation, I expect that one or both of us would have ended up in the hospital and/or jail. I don't see how that's better than what actually happened.
You're not considering what might have happened had he aggravated the situation.
Allegedly, for committing a felonious assault on the wrong person.
It was a rhetorical question.
It was not a rhetorical answer. ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
In a case like this, I'd trust the statements of anyone who didn't have a motive to lie... which to me means anyone but George Zimmerman we can assume to be completely honest with what they believe they saw or heard. Mr Zimmerman's statements must be corroborated by facts.
Regarding the injuries to Mr Zimmerman, police and medical reports indicate a broken nose and gash on the back of his head. Video can be seen of officers examining the back of his head, and images released by abcnews seem to confirm that. Unless completely destroyed, a broken nose could very well be hard to see in that video. Nothing seems to contradict the injury claims in my opinion.
Regarding the voice fingerprinting claiming that the voice was not Mr Zimmerman, I find those claims suspect at best. The results show a 48% match based on background noise in 911 calls vs 911 calls made by Mr Zimmerman himself. A more apt comparison might be made by setting those results side by side against results from samples of Mr Martin's voice. But given the distortion in both sources of audio, the level of background noise, the distance from the event, the types of speech (screaming vs speaking... note the trouble voice identification software when it comes to identifying singers) and the state of voice wreckognition, I doubt we can pull meaningful evidence from computer recognition results.
Regarding the girlfriend of Mr Martin's phone conversation, I believe her factual statements are credible. She basically says that Travon saw a guy following him, lost him, and there was a confrontation where Trayvon asks "why are you following me?" and Zimmerman asks "what are you doing here?", followed by the start of a fight. There obviously is no clear way to determine who threw the first punch from those tapes.
Regarding the eye witnesses to the fight, one eye witness couldn't see much because it was so dark, but he thought he saw a man in red on the ground (zimmerman was wearing red). Media reports are sketchy, but a possible second eye witness in the same story backs Zimmerman's version of events. The bodily injuries, police reports indicating that Zimmerman appeared to be wet with grass stains, like he had been lying down with his back on the ground, and limited witness accounts seem to support the Zimmerman version, at least at some point during the confrontation.
What can we say with some level of certainty? Zimmerman called police to report a suspicious person, and began to follow him. At some point, Trayvon recognized that some random guy is following him, tells his girlfriend as much, and loses him around a corner. This is also confirmed on the police tape of the call that Mr Zimmerman made. Zimmerman is heard telling the police where to meet him, and he doesn't want to give out his full address while he doesn't know where Martin is. Martin tells the cops to call him when they arrive. At some point, Martin asks the guy why he is following him, and Zimmerman asks him what hes doing around there, and a fight breaks out, ending the call with Martin's girlfriend. The background audio in a 911 call picks up, we can hear a
It's fairly apparent that Zimmerman was itching to take someone out. The 9-1-1 call, in which he clearly says "fucking coons" and the way he went after an unarmed kid with a gun added to the fact that all his 50 or so previous 9-1-1 calls were in regard to 'suspicious blacks' shows a pumped up punk with nothing better to do than stew in racial hate and watch for an opportunity to 'be a hero'. Pathetic, and the police there have a history of completely overlooking violence against blacks - the previous guy resigned after refusing to investigate a cop's kid who mercilessly beat a black homeless man, and the current guy has just stepped down amidst this mess. It's a community wide problem.
Doesn't it look like one of the cops is looking at Z's jacket notices no evidence and lets Z scratch his back against the wall?
bullshit comment above. go cry into a diaper
zimmerman had that gun and he felt all big and tuff and had PREMEDITATED thought by engageing Trayvon Martin and then following him
punk zimmerman should be zimmerpunk he had every intention on useing that gun and is lieing about what happen!
You could have stood up for yourself, instead of being a pussy. You might have saved countless future victims, but I guess your life, your security are much more important. Stop being such a morally self righteous coward, grow a set. The sooner we all follow suit, the better.
Anonymous Cow-Tard thinks we are too credulous. Am I the only one here who's ever been protected and/or served?
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
The dude took a gun to a fistfight. Guilty of second degree murder, unless there's something special in this FL law that exempts white people because blacks can inherently kill them with bare knuckles.
Knucklehead.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Since we actually know so little about what happened, if Zimmerman had been patrolling without a gun, he might be dead. Actually no one needed to die that night but someone did and it will make a juicy court case.