Zimmerman arrested again

[Gulo Blue]

That last one is total bullcrap; he was tossing her a bottle of Jack Daniels so she could have a swig of it. She was already drunk and she totally wiffed on it; clocked her right in the schnozolla.

It's a plausible explanation, but since we just don't have enough evidence to be sure of anything, I blame Al Gore.

 

[Spartanmack]

Oh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zimmerman#Other_encounters_with_police

so he pushed a cop in 2005 when he was drunk, pretty dumb but not indicative of a pattern of violence. Incidentally, that's about 2 years before the photo of Trayvon Martin that the media chose to run everyday to show what a sweet, innocent little boy he was, was taken. As for the mutual restraining orders, literally every spouse in a contested divorce alleges domestic violence. If it was Martin w/ the mutual restraining order, as a lawyer you'd be telling everyone it's the first thing lawyers tell their clients to do in a divorce case so we shouldn't be reading anything into that.

Everything else is after he went through the relentless media circus and overreaching DOJ guantlet.

 

[Spartanmack]

It's a plausible explanation, but since we just don't have enough evidence to be sure of anything, I blame Al Gore.

From what I understand, nobody who knows Tipper blames Al...

 

[tinselwolverine]

It's a plausible explanation, but since we just don't have enough evidence to be sure of anything, I blame Al Gore.

Yeah, Gore sucks - how could he have lost to a Bozo like George W. Bush coming off the generally perceived success of the Clinton Administration?

My understanding was that law enforcement viewed Zimmerman as a "chronic" - one who would call 911 even if the wind suddenly changed its direction.

 

[Michchamp]

so he pushed a cop in 2005 when he was drunk, pretty dumb but not indicative of a pattern of violence. Incidentally, that's about 2 years before the photo of Trayvon Martin that the media chose to run everyday to show what a sweet, innocent little boy he was, was taken. As for the mutual restraining orders, literally every spouse in a contested divorce alleges domestic violence. If it was Martin w/ the mutual restraining order, as a lawyer you'd be telling everyone it's the first thing lawyers tell their clients to do in a divorce case so we shouldn't be reading anything into that.

Everything else is after he went through the relentless media circus and overreaching DOJ guantlet.

I'm beginning to think you might actually be George Zimmerman.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I'd never heard this part put quite this way (from that Reuter's story). I'd heard there were burglaries in the area, but Zimmerman being asked to head up a neighborhood watch puts a different spin on it than I remembered.

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

Of course, you can't be sure he was really asked, people can steer these HOA things to ask people to do what they want to do.

Also, 2006 was about peak prices before the bubble popped. That drop is massive, but things we're plummeting everywhere. Maybe not that bad though.

 

[Michchamp]

What's missing from the Reuters account is whether the number of actual burglaries in 14 months, thefts, and "reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars" were somehow unique. For example, pretty much every neighborhood I've lived in Chicago has had those same problems over a much shorter time period, yet I don't remember any sense of "growing fear."

...and of course, even if accurate, this "growing fear" doesn't justify the failure to arrest Zimmerman, and charge him with murder until a national outcry and Federal investigation had been commenced.

 

[Gulo Blue]

What's missing from the Reuters account is whether the number of actual burglaries in 14 months, thefts, and "reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars" were somehow unique. For example, pretty much every neighborhood I've lived in Chicago has had those same problems over a much shorter time period, yet I don't remember any sense of "growing fear."

...and of course, even if accurate, this "growing fear" doesn't justify the failure to arrest Zimmerman, and charge him with murder until a national outcry and Federal investigation had been commenced.

It doesn't justify it, but it does play into whether or not they should have thought he was unzipped. Don't forget, this is all in the context of the stand your ground law, not what we generally agree the law should be.

...and I think at least one of the police involved wanted to charge him with manslaughter before they decided they didn't have the evidence. (Which under stand your ground would be evidence that a reasonable person wouldn't have been scared of getting seriously hurt I think.)

 

[Spartanmack]

I'd never heard this part put quite this way (from that Reuter's story). I'd heard there were burglaries in the area, but Zimmerman being asked to head up a neighborhood watch puts a different spin on it than I remembered.



Of course, you can't be sure he was really asked, people can steer these HOA things to ask people to do what they want to do.

Also, 2006 was about peak prices before the bubble popped. That drop is massive, but things we're plummeting everywhere. Maybe not that bad though.

He was a neighborhood watch captain and there had been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood. However, it's not clear if while on "watch" he carried a firearm - the night of the incident, he was not performing NW duties. He left his house to run errands when he spotted a guy wandering the neighborhood on a cold (by Fla standards) rainy night in an area that had experienced a rash of break-ins.

 

[Spartanmack]

What's missing from the Reuters account is whether the number of actual burglaries in 14 months, thefts, and "reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars" were somehow unique. For example, pretty much every neighborhood I've lived in Chicago has had those same problems over a much shorter time period, yet I don't remember any sense of "growing fear."

...and of course, even if accurate, this "growing fear" doesn't justify the failure to arrest Zimmerman, and charge him with murder until a national outcry and Federal investigation had been commenced.

of course not and nobody has put this forward as the reason Zimmerman wasn't charged. the finding of self defense against an assault has always been the argument for why he was not charged.

I also recall reading at the time that in many cases like this arrests aren't made right away and it's not until after the investigation that charges are brought. The argument being that prosecutors don't want police to make any hurried decisions and make mistakes that will allow people to get off on technicalities.

 

[Spartanmack]

I'd never heard this part put quite this way (from that Reuter's story). I'd heard there were burglaries in the area, but Zimmerman being asked to head up a neighborhood watch puts a different spin on it than I remembered.



Of course, you can't be sure he was really asked, people can steer these HOA things to ask people to do what they want to do.

Also, 2006 was about peak prices before the bubble popped. That drop is massive, but things we're plummeting everywhere. Maybe not that bad though.

As I recall reading at the time, his neighborhood changed quite a bit and crime was on the rise. Florida real estate was among the hardest hit, probably top 3 in the country and it looks like Sanford was hit pretty hard. The link below is what comes up when you type Sanford real estate into Zillow. The first house I clicked on in Zillow sold in '04 for $156k and sold for $105k in 2008 - a 67% loss in 4 years. The second one I clicked on sold for $1,068,700 in '05 and $375k in '07 - 65% loss in 2 years.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...9,-81.233425,28.735302,-81.372814_rect/11_zm/

And no, toast, I'm not saying the decline in property values is justification for killing black people.

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm beginning to think you might actually be George Zimmerman.

Never owned a gun in my life and I have no plans to buy one.

 

[Michchamp]

It doesn't justify it, but it does play into whether or not they should have thought he was unzipped. Don't forget, this is all in the context of the stand your ground law, not what we generally agree the law should be.

...and I think at least one of the police involved wanted to charge him with manslaughter before they decided they didn't have the evidence. (Which under stand your ground would be evidence that a reasonable person wouldn't have been scared of getting seriously hurt I think.)

Florida's Stand Your Ground Law, which is retarded, was actually not (directly) at issue in this case. Zimmerman was tried for Murder 2 & put forward a defense of plain old self-defense. I don't remember exactly why; I think SYG was inapplicable since Zimmerman put himself in harm's way.

According to this ThinkProgress article, SYG was the reason the police didn't initially refer Zimmerman to the DA for investigation & a charging decision. There's more about it in this one.

SYG was used as a defense in the later Michael Dunn case in Florida.

 

[Michchamp]

...

And no, toast, I'm not saying the decline in property values is justification for killing black people.

no, of course not. We're just talking about FL real estate values now, not justifying homicide...

hey, is it a good time to buy?

 

[Spartanmack]

no, of course not. We're just talking about FL real estate values now, not justifying homicide...

hey, is it a good time to buy?

In any state where you have an increased probability of getting shot I'd say it's always a good time and place for you to buy.

 

[Gulo Blue]

In any state where you have an increased probability of getting shot I'd say it's always a good time and place for you to buy.

What state is less safe than Chicago? I think just about anywhere he'd be heading in the right direction.

 

[Thumb]

What state is less safe than Chicago? I think just about anywhere he'd be heading in the right direction.

When did Chicago become a state?

 

[Michchamp]

What state is less safe than Chicago? I think just about anywhere he'd be heading in the right direction.

I think you're misunderstanding the point of his post, and also the nature of crime in Chicago.

EDIT: and as thumb points out, you also don't realize that Chicago is not a state.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I think you're misunderstanding the point of his post, and also the nature of crime in Chicago.

EDIT: and as thumb points out, you also don't realize that Chicago is not a state.

I think he meant the state of safety, or the state of the lack thereof.

That's probably why "state" wasn't Capitolized.

 

[Gulo Blue]

When did Chicago become a state?

I'm not implying that it is.

edit: I shouldn't even try to correct this. I admit it. I thought Chicago was state.