Zimmerman Charged With 2nd-Degree Murder

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot Trayvon Martin, was charged with second-degree murder. He faces up to life in prison if convicted in the shooting. From the article: "Special prosecutor Angela Corey announced the charges but would not discuss how she arrived at them or disclose other details of her investigation, saying: 'That's why we try cases in court.' Second-degree murder is typically brought in cases when there is a fight or other confrontation that results in death and but does [not] involve a premeditated plan to kill. Corey would not disclose Zimmerman's whereabouts for his safety but said that he will be in court within 24 hours."

Comments

This is out of control

[VinylRecords]

Someone put six bullet holes, last night they shot up, a parked police car that was left near the scene of the shooting. The message being that violence against the police is coming if they don't arrest Zimmerman and charge him with murder. They shot up a cop car. As if that neighborhood didn't need a reason for a neighborhood watch now they have guys firing live rounds into police cars? That's a safe neighborhood?

The amount of media coverage. International press. 24/7 news cycle. The constant lies. "Zimmerman is white". Showing images of Trayvon Martin when he was only 12 and not 17 (and 6'3"). Editing the 911 call from Zimmerman to make him seem racist. The media wants a circus. A race riot. They want another OJ trial, or Rodney King riot, or Casey Anthony or Amanda Knox level ratings. Who cares if the guy is innocent or guilty or whatever. What's most important is getting ratings and possibly causing a race riot.

And now we have the political pressure. Elections. Press. Appealing to the base. Even Obama had to give his opinion. "If I had a son he'd look like Trayon". Please Mr. President throw more gasoline on the fire. This is before Obama knew of the facts of the case. Just like when Obama blurted out an opinion about the cop who arrested the Harvard professor and then ended up having to have beer at the White House with the both of them. Will Obama have a beer with George Zimmerman?

This event is exposing the worst of this country. A perfect storm of all that is wrong with where we are today. The media being anything but objective. The politics doing nothing but making everything racial and partisan. And the overwhelming majority of citizens ignoring the facts and rushing to judgement.

Re:This is out of control

[jon3k]

Did you actually read that? Where in here does it talk about him being a racist? Because i'm reading the exact opposite. What is this damning evidence that he's a racist?

“He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever,” Robert Zimmerman wrote. “One black neighbor recently interviewed said she knew everything in the media was untrue and that she would trust George with her life. Another black neighbor said that George was the only one, black or white, who came and welcomed her to the community, offering any assistance he could provide. Recently, I met two black children George invited to a social event. I asked where they met George. They responded that he was their mentor.”

Interviews with neighbors reveal a pleasant young man passionate about neighborhood security who took it upon himself to do nightly patrols while he walked his dog.

“He once caught a thief and an arrest was made,” said Cynthia Wibker, secretary of the homeowners association. “He helped solve a lot of crimes.”

Zimmerman told neighbors about stolen laptops and unsavory characters. Ibrahim Rashada, a 25-year-old African American who works at U.S. Airways, once spotted young men cutting through the woods entering the complex on foot, and later learned items were stolen those days. “It’s a gated community, but you can walk in and steal whatever you want,” Rashada’s wife, Quianna, said. They discussed the topic with Zimmerman when the watch captain knocked on their door late last year. Zimmerman seemed friendly, helpful, and a “pretty cool dude,” Ibrahim Rashada said.

Where is this racism? I don't get it? Where is your damning proof that he's a racist? He helped and worked with the black people in his community, who trusted and respected him. Where is he obviously racist?

Re:News for nerds?

[darkmeridian]

Perhaps but I'm very interested, and I'm a law nerd.

Re:News for nerds?

[RyoShin]

Agreed. Someone commented on the post about Santorum dropping out of the race as being offtopic for this site; I was preparing a rebutal about how politics is nerdy, too, but in the same breath I said you can also get nerdy about cars and sports, neither of which should get reported on day-to-day news here (unless they're car analogies). As I typed that, I realized that the Santorum article indeed had no place on /., even if /. has a politics section; it wasn't nerdy, there were no great debates to lead from it or nitpicking/research to do, just people commenting on how he should have dropped sooner or theorizing on "real" reasons he dropped.

This story, while of great national interest, is not about politics; government, sure, but not politics in the sense of wide-reaching leaders doing this or that, and, similarly to the Santorum article, doesn't appear on the face of it to have any "nerdy" qualities. So it doesn't belong on /. Then again, we've had articles regarding tech use in this case previously, so maybe this could be understood as followup/closure to issues raised in those articles.

But then I begin to wonder: /. has changed much over the years, adding sections like that, perhaps we need to seriously re-evaluate the purpose of /. is. Either it's expanded to be a more inclusive big-news discussion site with extra emphasis on tech/science, in which case we should drop the "News for Nerds" moniker; or, it's still a site just for tech/science-related stories, in which case the "politics" section needs to go unless we limit it to just politics story expressly about tech/science being used or abused by the government (which, yes, happens quite often.)

Consider various postings about the TSA. TSA gained relevance on /. due to their use of body scanners and so forth; however, at least a few of the more recent posts is about the gross ineptitude of the TSA, tech being merely one outlet for set ineptitude. Yet no one complains about TSA articles (that I've seen, anyway). How often do we get posts about censorship in general? Not even blocking the web/text messages, but just about laws regarding arresting people for speaking out by any means. These certainly don't deal with tech/science, but, once again, no outcry against them (again, AFAIK). In fact, those are often the most discussed posts on the site (both the tech and non-tech kind). Certainly, there are important matters outside of tech/science that require long, deep debates, and I've yet to find anywhere on the internet that can facilitate that as well as Slashdot does (take that as you will). The moderating system works well, though it has a serious bias from users.

So I think that we, as a collective site, need to ask ourselves what we want Slashdot to be: A place for news--science, tech, or otherwise--that begs, nay, requires deep discussion and insight? Or a site dedicated explicitly to tech/science (which can still have said discussion about just those issues)? And, if the latter, where do we draw a line about what is a relevant news story?

While we have editors (that we often passively rebel against) that ultimately choose what appears on the front page, the site is driven almost entirely by the community, from posts to comments to moderation, and so I believe it's up to the community to decide what the site should strive for.

Re:Good luck with that fair trial thing

[sycodon]

Actually, I've pretty much only have seen the vitriol spewing forth with idiocy from the usual race baiting crowd. Most reasonable, thinking people have remained silent on the issue, waiting for the wheels to turn.

Re:Good luck with that fair trial thing

[xenobyte]

White supremacist?

This implies that we're talking about something premeditated and primarily racially motivated. This is not the case. As far as we know, it's a matter of someone (Zimmerman) feeling threatened on 'his' property, engaging the intruder and ends up using deadly force which he feels authorized by the "Stand Your Ground" legislation.

The case has the following important issues that needs both a public debate and court evaluation:

1) The "Stand Your Ground" law. It was meant to remove any concerns relating to the defense of your home or property. If there's an intruder and you feel threatened you should be able to use any means, including deadly force without fearing the legal consequences. Does the necessary threat need to be more clearly defined?

2) The signals that appearance sends. Many people from non-ghetto environments feels uneasy or threatened by youths wearing 'gangsta-wear', i.e. hoodies, reversed or askew baseball caps and similar. If you dress like that in areas where it might cause concern, are you essentially 'asking for it'?

3) The behaviour and actions of the intruder. Did he act in ways to make him more suspicious or threatening?

4) The race angle. Would Zimmerman have acted differently if the intruder has been hispanic or white? Does a black youth in a hoodie appear more scary than a similary dressed white or hispanic youth?

5) The possible abuse of the racism angle. Closely connected to 4 but still a separate issue. Every single time someone from one ethnic group harms someone from another ethnic group, racism is immediately claimed. If a hispanic man shoots a black youth, it's without doubt racism it seems. This abuse completely destroys any relevant racism angle by flooding the issue. It doesn't mean it wasn't racially motivated or aggravated but playing the race card all the time not only clouds the real motivation and cause, it also invalidates relevant racism claims because if you always hide behind (and possible is protected by) a claim of racism, people stop taking it seriously. Already, a racist white cop can get away with targeting black drivers simply because black drivers immediately claim racism when they are pulled over (even when the cop is black!), no matter how obvious it is that the cop had plenty of reasons to do so without any knowledge of the occupants of the car.

Re:Good luck with that fair trial thing

[xenobyte]

There have been plenty of high-profile cases that went to jury just fine.

The O.J. Simpson case for instance.

There was some doubt as to motive and the excessive violence used which normally calls for a crime of passion or a psychopath, a profile that doesn't fit OJ Simpson.

But the core issue that caused the acquittal was the bumbling efforts of the LAPD in this matter, possibly related to the truly bad actions by self-proclaimed racist Mark Fuhrman that wanted to force a conviction and managed to do the exact opposite. But not only did Mark Fuhrman mess things up, the LAPD failed to follow procedure again and again, both at the crime scene and in the lab, losing and contaminating evidence in the process. There was so much doubt that reasonable doubt was inevitable and he was acquitted, exactly as intended to protect the innocent from being railroaded.

Basically we still don't know if he did it. There was countless stab wounds and blood everywhere (the LAPD managed to both step in it and make bloody footprints all over the house and grounds), yet no blood was ever found on OJ Simpson and only two pinhead-sized drops on the white Bronco which could have been deposited a long time prior to the murders. No blood stained clothes were ever found, nor the murder weapon. OJ had no time to wash and dispose of the bloody clothing as he was at the airport only hours later (and transport time from Brentwood to LAX was at least an hour due to congestion). Everything was searched and rewards offered but still nothing. This makes sense if the murderer was someone else as claimed, as only locations relevant to the possible paths OJ could have taken was searched.

No, I personally don't think he did it. Too much doesn't fit or make sense.