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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."
Not news for nerds.
I gotta agree.. There are other places for this type of news.
Unless people perjure themselves, that is. Which is a dick move with the exception of being a fully informed juror.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
How is this bullshit rated insightful?
You need to read up on what first degree murder is. There's 0 way it applies here. This is the correct charge. I was expecting voluntary manslaughter myself, so yay.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
He was not a neighborhood watch volunteer. He had no affiliation with any organization, no training and this whole tragedy stemmed from his disregard for standard neighborhood watch procedure.
He was an armed vigilante.
I don't know how you can both pursue someone against the advice of a 911 operator and claim self-defense.
Why don't we all calm down, let justice get served legally, and not have any more people wind up dead.
It took time to work out that he could be convicted, this is normal procedure, liek the prosecutor said "we don't prosecute by petition" and that's hwo we want it.
He stayed in touch with authorities and now they are going to prosecute with a 2nd degree murder charge, if convicted he will be in protective custody, which means 23 hours a day in a cell one hour out for the rest of his life.
That's a lot more brutal than you might imagine, and maybe a lot less than his family might want.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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.
There's 43 murders every day. Do you recall reading 43 stories? No. When things go normal, they are not national stories.
So anyway, since you don't seem to have figured it out, the difference in the two cases is the police response. And that is the racial issue! When the situations are reversed, a black will be charged right away. A white will not always be. (Google Brandon Gotwalt. Almost the same situation, no charge. Now google Daniel Adkins. Big difference.)
The black kids who set the white kid on fire were found right away and charged. Things are working as they should be. There are 100s of hate crimes every year, and only the most egregious situations make national news. What was egregious here was the government not applying the law evenly, and not even charging the guy. It's basically the same thing (not charging) that happened with the Danziger cops in New Orleans during Katrina: Kill a minority, no charge. Plus the cops do it all the time too -- but that's so [sadly] normal it doesn't rise to to the same volume as the Zimmerman case.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Too much politics here creeping on this site.
Preach brother.
Perhaps but I'm very interested, and I'm a law nerd.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
There are a lot of angry people on both sides of the issue that's why, should give you insight into how the media effects issues and how stupid people can be.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
He wasn't doing anything wrong when he was harassed by an unknown creep, and his killer had no knowledge of his parent's child rearing skills.
Meanwhile, it was Zimmerman who was rolling around the neighborhood with a gun looking for trouble. Why don't you rant about his parents (his father was a judge, ffs) and his screwed up attitude?
Well, they both had a cell phone. Maybe this was the first casualty in the Android - iPhone war.
Shit just got real.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
TFS isn't tied up well because it's missing a "not". "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."
And but you totally missed the absurd use of "and but", whether there is a "not" missing or.
Holy shit am I reading this right? Anonymous Coward just left /. I was getting tired of that guy.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No. I spend a day coding, I look up at the screen, and I depend on Slashdot to tell me what's going on in the world.
Wow. Can't help but feed the troll here. Where to start? Let's see... your link to a story that 'hardly gets a column in the local news' is a link to the NY Daily Post about an event in Kansas City. A simple google search shows various other coverage of the case. And a big difference in that case: the police were *actually looking to arrest the perpetrators* (whether they've caught them or not is not clear).
The Trayvon Davis story blew up because of how it was mishandled between the police and the DA. If they had arrested Zimmerman from the start, even if he ended getting off on a self-defense claim, it wouldn't have been as big. It would be a footnote in the list of reasons why an overbroad "Stand Your Ground" law is a bad idea.
And, even if the attack in KC was mishandled similarly, what's that have to do with the Davis case? Outrage would be warranted in both cases.
But yeah, your recent photos of Trayvon (including one fake one) convince me. He flipped the bird at a web cam! And he's black! Death for the hoodlum! Wait, you know what? I need to see a photo of the suspect in a suit. If you can produce one of those, then I'll really be convinced.
I'll give you this though: you really have provided clear support for that Einstein quote in your sig.
You have a pointer for "what first degree murder is"? I don't readily see a mismatch.
I'm going to presume this is a serious question...
First degree murder requires that you:
1) Wanted to kill someone
2) Planned to do it
3) Executed the plan
If you didn't mean to kill someone and planned to do it, it isn't first degree murder. Even if Zimmerman followed Martin around for a month, it wouldn't be first degree murder if *something* happens and Martin ends up dead. That planning it bit is pretty damned important.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Recent photos of Trayvon: http://i39.tinypic.com/1yvg5h.jpg
So what's your point? If somebody looks like this, he somehow deserves to get shot?
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.
Skittles and iced tea?
Yip!
Table-ized A.I.
I am really curious to know what evidence they have to justify a second degree murder charge.
He clearly precipitated the confrontation, and there is no question that subsequently he killed somone. Pretty cut and dry. Whether he will be found guilty remains to be seen.
It's not about whether you have "heard of the case". It's whether what you've heard has made you lean one way or the other.
There have been plenty of high-profile cases that went to jury just fine.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Personally I don't care how it ends. I will be amused by the obligatory screaming and outrage either way. Another famous instance of an Al Sharpton lead 'protest' resulted, intentionally, some would say to the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum. And this was precisely the result Sharpton was looking for. Hell, people rioted at the Conrad Murray trial. They're going nuclear over this. It should be interesting to watch the flames.
Happens "frequently"? Please cite five. Actually let's start with one, where the defense worked, and they weren't charged with manslaughter.
If we start accepting news that is for the various sub-nerds then who knows what we will end up with. Slashdot is only for PURE nerds. Do you really want law nerds dating your daughters?
More to the point, too much IRRELEVANT politics which are AMPLY covered ELSEWHERE polluting this site.
If it's MAINSTREAM, non-computer, non-science, non-nerd news it DOESN'T NEED to be here because posting it here is REDUNDANT.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
He's an asshole because he ignored the 911 operator's instructions to wait for the cops, and got out of his car with a gun to confront somebody.
(Didn't he think it out? What did he intend to do after he confronted Martin? It had to turn out bad.)
It seems harsh to send somebody to jail for a big part of his life because he's an asshole. I feel sorry for him.
But somebody is dead because he's an asshole. I feel even more sorry for Martin, and Martin's friends and family.
In America we do give people long prison sentences for killing somebody in a street fight.
A lot of black people in Florida go to jail for less.
What else can you do with Zimmerman?
Yes, you do go to jail for being stupid.
OJ sure as fuck got charged with murder. Wanna try again? Or are you just listing all the black people you can think of?
Also, Zimmerman didn't get charged with a hate crime, so nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about.
Also, don't forget the $10,000 bounty - dead or alive - posted on Zimmerman by the "New Black Panther Party".
Too much politics here creeping on this site.
Preach brother.
Hey! We don't want any religion either!
Well if he's hispanic, then I don't know why it's a news story.
Oh wait, it's because he shot a kid and got away with it.
It became a news story after the 911 recordings were released, and it was revealed the dispatcher told him not to follow the kid; once journalists (presumably liberal) looked into it, they discovered that the police didn't canvass the neighborhood or collect Zimmerman's clothing, or really investigate at all. Zimmerman shot a kid, said "He attacked me first," and the police thought that sounded legit, so they sent him home.
This does not belong on Slashdot. Please take it off.
- Nerd
My impression of you:
Whiny, whiny, whine. Whiny, whine, whine, blubber.
- Whiner
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
DId you forgive the man that shot your son? If so you get a pass on your comment.
If my son got shot because he started beating him and slamming his head into the pavement (a potentially lethal move) then there would be nothing to forgive. I would say the other guy acted reasonably. I would then feel ashamed to have raised a son like that and all the waste it represents.
If you are asking me whether I am committed to my principles even in the face of a great deal of emotion, yes I am. It's called being an adult.
This situation is just another young violent black thug-wannabe who finally picked the wrong guy to fuck with. That's all there is. I don't get shot at. You know why? Because I don't go around attacking people. If I think somebody is creepy or whatever I call the police, I don't walk up to the guy and start beating on him.
You guys really cannot see the connection between attacking a stranger and getting shot? Jesus H Fucking Christ people can be so stupid when they badly want a situation to be different. Nobody really wants a 17 year old to get shot and killed. I get that. But to pretend like the way that 17 year old behaved had nothing to do with it? Madness.
Course the media loves that kind of madness and how weak and stupid and blind and emotional everyone is acting. That's why they show photos of Trey when he was 12 years old, not when he was 17 and 6 foot 3 inches tall. That's why they try so badly to make this into a racial issue because immature fucks eat that shit up. Nevermind that Zimmerman tried to mentor black youth (why just the other day I saw the KKK doing that, no wait they'd never do that). The bullshit way all of this is being presented and all of you are being led around by your childish little heartstrings is so fucking pathetic. I am ashamed to be an American.
Cue the folks who don't want the outside world intruding into their mothers' basements shrieking "This isn't news for nerds!"
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Bread and circuses. Don't discuss anything important, especially if it's complex. Go after something visceral like this case or Kim Kardishiam's bra / toenail / latest sex change operation.
Oh, we just invaded another country? Look! Over there! A breast!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No. I spend a day coding, I look up at the screen, and I depend on Slashdot to tell me what's going on in the world.
Man are you gonna be confused.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I will bet my left testicle that you have never personally raised a child to adulthood. Rebelion is not a parenting mistake, it's a job discription for young adults.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In Canada, the first thing the courts would do would call for a media black out until the judgement is rendered, and then likely another black out until sentencing. The idea is to prevent bias in the potential jury pool.
Unfortunately, due to incompetence and delays in deciding to file charges and make an arrest, they're going to have one hell of a time finding a "jury of peers" that isn't tainted by public opinion and forced to recuse themselves from participating.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"Meant only to protect white people"? What an inflammatory and completely unsupported thing to say. Like so many other people, when you can't actually find evidence for racism, you just fabricate claims of racism.
In the case you cite, the shooter, a black male, was not arrested and was not charged for an entire year. Eventually, under public pressure, the DA did charge the shooter and he was found guilty by a jury.
I don't see how the cases are analogous either. Zimmerman claims to have been attacked by Martin from behind, while walking back to his car, and that's consistent with physical evidence. McNeil seems to have provoked a confrontation. Even if McNeil should have been found innocent, how does one injustice justify another one? Would racially based injustice against black men mean that we need to dismantle our legal system altogether, just to justify the mob?
Not true. If they are actual drug dealers (ie convicted) they can't lawfully have a firearm. If convicted it's up to 15 years.
If possession of fire arm in commission of crime (drug dealing) minimum 10 years.
If fired in commission of crime (drug dealing) minimum 20 years.
If you hit someone in commission of crime (drug dealing) minimum 25 to life.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
At this point, the only way to settle this is for it to go to trial. The facts need to be laid out in court, experts need to testify, and a jury needs to decide.
I think there's a good chance that a jury will find Zimmerman "not guilty". The DA's original assessment was that there wasn't even enough evidence to win a conviction, and that's consistent with the evidence that has come out since.
It's whether what you've heard has made you lean one way or the other.
There goes ever single black person I know and most, if not all, of the white people I know.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I think the jury will have the option to convict on a lesser crime, at least that's how it worked when my friend was shot. This is like asking for $60K/yr because you want to make $50K/yr.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Confusion is the first step on the road to knowledge.
How about http://politics.slashdot.org/
I have zero faith that any jury would deliberate for more than 15 minutes before declaring Zimmerman guilty.
Seriously? Have you not seen the vitriol spewing forth from both sides of this issue? Do you honestly think that Zimmerman's lawyers will be so completely incompetent that the prosecution will be able to completely stack the jury?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
The 911 operator told him that he didn't "need to" follow Martin and Zimmerman said "OK" and was going to wait by his car for police. Zimmerman testified that he was returning to his car and it was Martin who confronted him and then punched him. Witnesses saw Zimmerman on the ground, with Martin on top, and Zimmerman's injuries and dirty clothing support that.
I don't know of any actual evidence that support the idea that Zimmerman ignored the 911 operator's suggestion and followed and attacked Martin. Maybe you can share what evidence you think there is?
There is no evidence that Zimmerman confronted Martin.
I don't know whether that's true or not, but if racism causes the justice system to be unreasonably harsh towards black people, then we need to fix that, instead of destroying our justice system for everybody.
With that fair and balanced recitation of events you won't make it into the jury pool.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If my son got shot because he started beating him and slamming his head into the pavement
Allegedly.
Unfortunately, the 'beater' in this case is dead and we only get to hear one side of the story. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted this exact outcome from these idiotic "stand your ground" laws that absolve killers as long as they felt *really really* scared at the time they did their killing.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
They raised that to $1,000,000 after three days.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
When you have a son and he starts thinking that gangsta thug culture is GREAT, that all the rap and hip-hop about how awesome it is to be a career criminal is something more than entertainment, that's your cue to ACT LIKE A PARENT and straighten his ass out before he gets either jailed or shot in the streets.
You know, "acting like a parent" isn't just some magic thing you do and instantly your kid is wearing polo shirts and khakis and has perfect grammar.
Actually what frequently happens is that you spend maybe a year in jail, facing enormous pressure to plead guilty, until you have a chance at trial to prove the multi-million-dollar police apparatus wrong. You must really hate yourself and freedom in general if you support that state of affairs.
And if he was attacked by Martin first, Martin was only exerting his right to Stand His Ground, no?
The first person to (reasonably) feel threatened with death or serious violence was justified in defending himself. The person who created that (reasonable) fear can not claim self defense, any more than a convenience store robber can shoot a clerk who pulls a revolver out of the cash drawer in "self defense".
He went into hiding, probably depressed. Didn't stay in touch with his lawyers.
Then, worst mistake, he called the DA and talked to them without a lawyer present.
He's screwed.
duke energy has dropped its plans for a new power plant in Atlanta citing the rotational velocity of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Junior has decreased exponentially as of recent.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Stand your ground only protects you from charges due to injuring or killing your attacker. You're still on the hook if you hurt a bystander in any way or if you are the attacker.
The law came into existence due to overzealous prosecutors pressing charges against people who were clearly defending themselves and expecting them, in the heat of the moment with less than 1 second to make the decision, to examine each and every possible avenue of retreat with the same thoroughness that a person hearing the facts afterward (and under no pressure at all) might.
It just means you don't have to give Sir Robin a run for his money.
LOL what exactly do you think "Neighborhood watch" is?
Let's see first you need a neighborhood. Check. Next you need to roll around and look for trouble. Check. The gun was just a bonus.
Of course if he hadn't had it all we would have heard about some teenager asaulting a neighborhood watch captain, and really wouldn't have put much thought to him spending time in jail.
I agree, this is not news for nerds.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't (this nerd finds it interesting), but it could certainly be "stuff that matters".
...in the hopes of influencing the "editors" who select these stories.
Your ~162K userid suggests you've been here for a while, so I, with my ~566K userid shouldn't have to tell you that there's this thing called the Firehose. But, well, here we are.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Stand your Ground laws need to be appended a bit. Here's why. Suppose you get in a random fight at a bar. Most bar fights end pretty quickly when the two realize that getting punched sucks, or when they get ejected. However, with Stand your Ground laws the way they are, you have no duty to retreat and can simply pull out your gun and shoot them as soon as they get the upper hand over you, saying that you fear for your life. Similarly, when you pull your gun, they'll pull their gun, saying they fear for their life. So what you have is both combatants standing their ground and the fight won't end until someone (or both of them) is dead.
It also leads to situations where you could go pick a fight with someone and then shoot them before they even get to you because you feared for your life because you thought they had a weapon.
There's going to be a lot of people using Stand your Ground laws as an excuse to escalate a run of the mill fight into a deadly situation that wouldn't otherwise have turned deadly. Some things might be justified, like if someone is car jacking you or trying to force their way into your home, but other things wouldn't..like someone catching you in bed with their wife and ending up dead because you feared for your life and had no duty to retreat from their home.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
So some people have made reference to Trayvon assaulting Zimmerman, then Zimmerman "stood his ground" justifying the act under Florida law.
Yet I've seen no one say that Trayvon was standing HIS ground under that same law when Zimmerman shot him.
After all, Zimmerman stalked Trayvon. Whether Trayvon took a swing at him first is not relevant if he felt threatened, at least by the above reasoning.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2012/0411/A-tsunami-warning-system-makes-waves
I'd have expected to see something in slashdot about the huge earthquakes near Indonesia and their results. Why do undersea earthquakes sometimes cause catastrophe and sometimes do not?
The Zimmerman arrest poses no such nerdish question.
My brain read "Zimmerman" as "Zuckerberg". How alarming.
Of course if he hadn't had it all we would have heard about some teenager asaulting a neighborhood watch captain, and really wouldn't have put much thought to him spending time in jail.
Assuming, of course, that Martin attacked Zimmerman. We only have Zimmerman's word that that's what happened. That's why arrests are generally made in these situations.
What does an Australian Aboriginal Hispanic look like?
Every cop in america thinks that way, including black cops. I know several and talk to them regularly. One is a detroit police officer and is black. He will tell you to your face that a black kid walking in a neighborhood in the middle of the night is up to no good.
All the cops already feel that way, It is not right, but it is what they see day in and day out.
Why? Because blacks have a higher level of poverty than the whites do. Much higher. Couple that with living in shithole neighborhoods where landlords do not take care of the property and you get a higher proportion of blacks suspected of crime. and guess what, Poverty breeds crime. Your $900 iPad will get them $150 at a pawn shop, and that is a buttload of money to a poor person.
Blacks are also more susceptible to Gangs because it's a form of community that they just dont have. Eeeew poor people! make hem go away! Plus, I dont see police outreach to the poor communities. Cops should be forced to walk their beat, talk to he people in their patrolled neighborhoods. Instead of sitting in the car with the windows up staring and eating doughnuts, or harassing the kids playing in the street.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You can't exclude everyone. Not sure about Florida but generally you only get a limited number of dismissals you can make without giving a reason or having it rejected. Beyond that you need a solid reason to give and opposing counsel can object and the judge has to agree.
zimmermans lawyers have jumped ship actually, and in such a high profile case that is in no way a good sign
idiotic "stand your ground" laws that absolve killers
Bullshit. The problem here is that police assumed that "stand your ground" law applies to someone who precipitated the confrontation. It really doesn't. (whether the law is good or bad is a different discussion)
If anything, "stand your ground" law should have applied if Trayvon killed Zimmerman. Then we could have had the debate on law's merit.
I'm not from the US. A lot of my understanding of current political issues within the US come from this site. I find considerable value in reading the comments of nerds to issues that may not, in themselves, be News _for_ Nerds.
So add my vote to those saying that this _is_ the sort of thing I want to see on Slashdot (within reason, buyer beware, etc.)
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.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I think it's very easy to see that the Slashdot community is very interested in topics like this.
Slashdot is about the only place where nerds convene on a regular basic to discuss politics. The editors simply need to look at the comments to see that the majority of people posting here are very interested in political and, especially, topics regarding society in general.
I don't care if I get modded flamebait, people rarely take this much time to argue against political news on Slashdot these days. People (not me) are simply sick of hearing about the case and don't feel that it warrants the attention it's gotten. So they bitch about the relevence here, and on every other news site.
Personally, I find it very disturbing and absurd that self defense laws can be used to justify deadly force against someone you were chasing at 7pm.
---------- Open Source is capitalism applied to IP.
I suggest you review the way Florida handles other shootings. Specifically, look up the incident involving Trevor Dooley and David James. It has many similarities.
Dooley confronted James. Dooley had a gun, but did not pull it out. James initiated a physical altercation to take the gun away from Dooley. James was shot in the process.
Dooley was 69, with fused discs in his neck. James was 41, six inches taller, seventy pounds heavier, and had been in the Air Force. Dooley claims he feared for his life - a claim I find reasonable, given the disparity between the two (much more reasonable than a 28-year old man armed with a gun fearing for his life at the hands of a teenager armed with skittles and iced tea). Eye witnesses saw James go for Dooley's gun, while acknowledging that Dooley initiated the verbal confrontation.
There are, however, two significant differences. The first is that Trevor Dooley was arrested merely two days after the shooting. The second is that Dooley is black and his victim, James, was white.
So yes...declining to file charges that the lead investigator recommended is unusual. The state attorney driving 50 miles on a Sunday night to discuss the incident is unusual. Taking the shooter's word for it that his record was clean is unusual. Making no attempt to notify the parents of a dead teenager and instead waiting for them to file a missing person's report is unusual.
:(){
Zimmerman's Hispanic. Why would a white supremacist cause a hung jury?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
What made this case national news is NOT because a light-skinned guy killed a black guy, or that he was 17 years old, or that he was only holding candy. What made this story news is that the local police dropped the investigation like a hot potato (possibly because of Zimmerman's parents job titles), held onto the body without informing the parents when they had ID and his phone (which family and friends called BTW), then announced that there wouldn't be charges based on spurious coverage under their stand-your-ground law.
All of the false equivalence citations to coverage of other cases where a black guy killed a white guy, how black kids dress, or how Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are "uppity troublemakers" is totally IRRELEVANT!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of thinking?
And this is relevant how? Zimmerman was on the phone with 911 well BEFORE the confrontation. He was told to stop stalking Martin. He continued to do so anyway.
How do you know he continued stalking Martin? The reports i have heard say he tried to return to his vehicle.
Doesn't matter. He doesnt work for the Sanford police dept. Besides, what kind of idiot would patrol for crime unarmed? He is allowed to walk his own neighborhood and carry a gun. Unless they have evidence that Zimmermans story isn't true he is going to walk.
seriously? KelTec's are butt ugly but they are not unreliable. huge numbers of people carry the P3AT or other small light pistols from KelTec.
The 911 dispatcher told him the back off and let the real professionals handle it.
That is an established fact.
I think you have just established you aren't competent using many of the words in your statements. Lets review what was said,
So, is that a command to "back off" and "let the real professionals handle it" by the civilian dispatcher who has no authority? No
So, is it an "established fact"? No
These "stand your ground" laws work both ways.
Snark masquerading as "established fact." Something that is more interesting:
More on the Irrelevance of 'Stand Your Ground' to the Trayvon Martin Case
Zimmerman saw Trayvon as a perp and Trayvon probably saw Zimmerman as a sexual predator.
Interesting take. If that is so, why didn't Marin call the police for help? Maybe some hints in the bottom half of this?
Trayvon Martin case heading towards the political abyss
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
See the thing is you don't *know* anymore than the rest of us what happened.
Hmmm, I'm not sure that is true, at least in your case. I actually read from the police report, did you? I think you are going pretty far out on a limb to say the police weren't sure that they saw the FD treating Zimmerman on the scene.
Quit making up your own preferred version of the story.
I made a simple, factual statement. You are the one engaging in flights of fancy.
and if you pull a gun on me and start threatening me with it after clearly following me around the neighborhood I *may* attack you and start trying to pummel your head into the ground.
Instead of using the cell phone, which Martin had, to call the police for help? Of course I'm impressed in some way that you think you would be faster than a bullet if the gun was already out and pointed at you.
Tell you what, why don't you get a few more facts under your belt? The call. Some interesting background.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Even as a white supremacist would get this jury hung (probably by way of arguing against an innocent verdict, against any reason, I think), it's just as likely that what I'll term a "non-white supremacist" will do the same thing. In fact, given the current political climate, I think it's much more likely. I'm sure it's utterly socially/politically incorrect to claim that a person of color can be just as racist as a KKK member (perhaps with less leverage in the lynching department, but with more leverage in the getting-hired-without-credentials department), but in my experience, it's extremely common; they just have less sway among traditionalists, and more among non-traditionalists. I really hate that this sounds like I'm agreeing with hate-mongering jerks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, but monkeys speaking into a microphone will eventually say something intelligent--if only by (semi-)random chance.
It's really tempting to post this as Anonymous Coward, but for now, I choose to delude myself into thinking that most people will respect my ticking-off extremists from both "sides of the isle."
Anyway, while I'm certain that Zimmerman does, in fact, need to be tried for murder (of some degree), I see this, like some of you seem to, as the start of the next OJ Simpson trial. Hopefully this'll be shorter and a little less idiotic.
*runs for cover*
do you see the phrase "thug culture" as a distinctively black thing?
It's called "code", and the comment in question is peppered with it: "gangsta thug culture"; "rap and hip-hop about how awesome it is to be a career criminal"; "high-crime area"; "gangsta thug"; "thug"; "THUG LIFE YO!"; "violent teenager". The whole scope of the comment is a dismally stereotypical picture of "black" urban life and culture, and to make matters worse, to the extent any of it is true it's completely irrelevant to the case. You're right, though. It doesn't say "nigger", so it can't possibly be racist.
Attention, liberal America: the fascists figured out how to employ innuendo and abstract thought to much success a long time ago, it's time you catch up.
And let me emphasize, this really, really isn't anything new. That's how Jim fucking Crow worked.
But keep on accusing people of racism for calling out racism*. It's a really convenient ignorance indicator.
* Then again, when you said "maybe that says something about you more than about GP", maybe you meant something else.
This has nothing to do with guns being "the ultimate right in the fucking world." It's all about one thing: Did Martin attack Zimmerman as was described the night of the attack. If he did then Zimmerman was within his rights to shoot him. If not, then Zimmerman will be off to prison. >> I am amazed by the idiots that will defend a murder purely because they think a gun is THE ULTIMATE RIGHT IN THE FUCKING WORLD.
I'm not from the US. A lot of my understanding of current political issues within the US come from this site. I find considerable value in reading the comments of nerds to issues that may not, in themselves, be News _for_ Nerds.
I am from the United States and I would like to second that. Between Fox and Huffington Post, I really don't trust many news sources I can find. Everybody has their bias and their axes to grind. At /., I can look at a wide selection of opinions, and while as a group the readers here certainly have their bias, a well written post that provides informative or insightful information that goes against that bias, still gets modded Informative or Insightful despite that. When there is something I don't know much about, I often look forward to an article about it here as, while not perfect, the modding system here is better than any other one I've seen and the same goes for the people who post. Even our Anonymous Coward trolls are more well spoken and seem more intelligent than honest posters over on the Wall Street Journal. I've learned a lot about various issues from both people who show personal knowledge about something as well as just some decent logic.
The facts of the case as I understand them are that Martin was walking along, Zimmerman thought Martin was up to no good, called 911, pursued Martin against the 911 operator's advice with a gun, and stupidly created a situation where one person attacked the other (conflicting reports on who attacked who), and felt he had to use his gun. Does that match your understanding / what you expect an honest jury to find?
Assuming so, I think the jury will just say he's not guilty of second-degree murder. (Presumably the hypothetical white supremacist would go along with that.) They would have been a lot more likely to find him guilty of voluntary manslaughter due to "imperfect self-defense":
"An honest but unreasonable belief that deadly force was necessary" is as good a description of the situation as any. It seems like the prosecutor was overcorrecting the lack of action until now and overreached in going for second-degree murder instead of voluntary manslaughter.
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.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
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.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
The Casey Anthony case was a perfect example of a proper case with the proper outcome. No direct evidence was provided, only circumstantial hints, and the acquittal was the correct verdict.
Sure, she didn't behave as must people would, but that is completely irrelevant. If she didn't kill her daughter (or pay someone to do it), an acquittal is the only valid verdict. It doesn't matter if she wanted the daughter dead or that she was happy that she was gone. That makes her a horrible mother but not a murderer. And absolutely nothing - except her cold pre- and post-behavior - indicated any connection with the crime.
So not a murderer, only an absolutely horrible person/mother.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Yes, it is an established fact. You're being way too literal and are misinterpreting the intent and meaning behind the dispatcher's sentence.
In standard English there is a kind of understatement which is very common and universally understood. For example, I encountered a friendly but unintelligent young woman earlier today and mentioned to a friend that "she's not the smartest person in the world". This did not mean that she had an IQ of 215 which would place her just shy of the smartest person. It meant she was dumb. It was a kind of understatement which is understood by everyone.
Similarly, the statement "we don't need you to do that" is a friendly way of saying "don't do it." For example, if my boss observes someone at work doing something pointless or a waste of time, he might say "we don't need you to do that" because it's more polite than outright commanding them to stop. The meaning would be understood by everyone because that kind of understatement is part of standard conversational English.
It really doesn't matter at this point whether he's innocent or guilty, or even if he's found innocent or guilty by a jury. Regardless, he's already been tried in the court of media and public opinion, found guilty, and sentenced to a life sentence (or the death penalty if a lynch mob gets to him). All the rest is just for show, really.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I don't know exactly what Dooley's arrest tells us. It might tell us that black people will be arrested more quickly under similar circumstances in Florida. Or, it just may tell us that Trevor Dooley was arrested more quickly under similar circumstances. We don't - well I don't anyway - know how long it typically takes Florida law enforcement to arrest someone under these kinds of circumstances, relative to the race of the killer and killed. As far as I know no one has gone to the trouble of compiling and publishing that information. It may not even be that meaningful if they did. There have been around 40 justified killing each year in Florida for the past 4 years. The number where circumstances match the Zimmerman/Martin case and those that mirror it with race swapped can't be large.
But none of that it to say it wouldn't be informative to do the comparison, or that the comparison can't be done, or that *you* can't do it. Here is a good starting point - the dates, ages, and races for justified civilian homicides in Florida.
http://databases.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/ftlaudjustified/ftlaudjustifiable_list.php
Two final thoughts. When I first started looking at this data I had the expectation that there would be a disproportionate number of blacks killed by whites. That doesn't really seem to be the case, for civilians anyway. And finally, the biggest difference between the two cases you compare is the amount of attention the Zimmerman/Martin case has had from the media and otherwise.
46 & 2
[ Similarly, the statement "we don't need you to do that" is a friendly way of saying "don't do it." ]
911 dispatchers are trained to give orders. They are trained to deal with people in various excited emotional states, and their job is to convey instructions as clearly and loudly as is necessary. "Sir, STOP DOING THAT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? STOP FOLLOWING THE SUSPECT AND WAIT FOR THE ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE".
See how much more effective that is? If you listen to various recordings of 911 calls, you will know that's the language they know how to use and are trained for. This "you don't need to do that" does not convey a directive.
P.S. I'm responding to your comment, not the entire case, by the way.
The story from the side of Zimmerman was that after he lost Trey, he returned to his car to await the police, Trey approached him at his car, tackled him to the ground and slammed his head into the curb, at this point, Zimmerman was in fear for his life and shot Trey.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Verbal threats - no. Verbal threats backed up by 15 other gang members who have surrounded you on the street - Yep, check your targets though. Stop shooting once they flee. Don't want to waste ammo or be accused of being over zealous
Physical threats with a lethal weapon ie baseball bat, knife, a gun, etc - yes. Shoot until the threat is down and not getting back up. Just make sure you didn't start the altercation else you will be in jail.
A drunk taking a swing at you - no. Getting jumped in the middle of the night by an attacker who has you pinned on the ground - yes. Again just make sure you didn't start the altercation or you will see jail time.
All of this will play out on whether or not Zimmerman was truly defending himself from Martin's unprovoked attack or Zimmerman starting a fight with Martin and pulling a gun and shooting Martin after Martin started giving Zimmerman a justified ass whoopin.
If there was no gun, he wouldn't have died.
That's an untested hypothesis. Here in Australia, the highest recorded murder rate was after our gun laws were introduced, although it has since fallen. However, our murder rate was already falling before the gun laws were introduced nationwide and all the mass killings that prompted their introduction happened in states that already had similar laws. Now the most common murder weapon is knives. What makes you so sure that the person who killed your friend would have been unwilling to use a knife? And you didn't originally object to gun laws but to the strength of self defense laws, which operate independently of the weapon used. Did your friend's murderer get let off or not and what self defense laws were in place at the time?
By the time they realized what was going on, six people were dead.
That's a problem of situational awareness, not a failure of gun ownership. If you are armed you ought not walk around oblivious of your surroundings. Well, you shouldn't walk around oblivious of your surroundings even unarmed. This article claims that "everyone hit the ground" after the first shot, which was apparently from a very short distance. Unsurprisingly, if you lie down and make a passive victim of yourself, carrying a weapon won't help you. Even if they were all unarmed if they had rushed him it is unlikely that he could have killed 6 people. It's not that those armed people couldn't have stopped him, they decided not to stop him. In a panic, sure, but a decision nonetheless.
There are a few rare cases in which somebody with a gun did or might have stopped a shooter, but they're far outweighed by cases like this in which two people got into a fight, somebody died because of the presence of a gun, and nobody would have died if there was no gun.
Have violent crime rates gone up or down in American states that have liberalized their gun laws? It is my understanding that violent crime rates have gone down, but if you have evidence to the contrary please let me know.
The other side of the coin is that if you kill somebody with a gun, and the shooting wasn't legally justified, you can go to jail for a long time.
I agree that this is as it should be, but it should be so regardless of what weapon was used. Why should you get of easy for killing with a knife? Murder is murder, no matter how it is done.
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