FL - 17-yo Teen Shot to Death by Neighborhood Watch Captain #3

[annalia]

This is not relevant to Florida, but in Texas 17 year olds are adults in the eyes of the law. So it's not THAT far fetched for someone to consider 17 an adult.

For the purposes of this discussion, he would have sounded like an adult, and looked like an adult, and might have seemed as threatening as an adult male.

The pictures the media keeps running are disingenuous, especially considering they DO have one that's current. I don't see any reason to keep running childhood pics. It's just inflammatory and confuses the issue.

my bolding

The media often runs pictures of victims that aren't always current. They have run current photos of Tray. The pictures show what he was like as a kid. Everyone already knows he was the victim.

For pete sake, those pictures of Tray aren't that old, he just turned 17. It's not like he's 30.

Are you saying that there wouldn't be the same outrage if they ran more 16 and 17 year old pictures?

 

[MicciStella]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...out-about-trayvon-martin-1995-2012/?mobile=wp

I don't know if this was already posted .... If so I sincerely apologize .... Kind of difficult to keep track of all...

But I found this very interesting....

Micci

 

[JeannaT]

17 Year olds are not adults in TX. They can consent to sex and that's about it. The age of consent is different for every states, I believe it's a low as 15-16 in some states. You cannot equate that to being an adult. In Texas, you still need a parent to sign a marriage license, don't you?

Misinformation just confuses people.

<modsnip>

In Texas, 17 year olds are considered adults in the eyes of the law. A 17 year old who commits a crime goes to adult court, they are no longer considered juveniles. A 17 year old who commits a traffic offense doesn't have to bring their parent to court with them, they are adults.

A 17 year old who commits a misdemeanor doesn't enjoy the privilege of having that crime expunged and kept confidential that juveniles do.

It's not about the age of consent to sex. It's about being considered an adult in criminal court.

This isn't all that relevant, except to say that 17 isn't really far from being an adult. It's not like Trayvon looked like a 12 year old. Like the pictures that are running in the media.

 

[LambChop]

Perhaps Zimmerman did feel his life was in danger, and was screaming "NO, NO, HELP, NO, HELP!" because he kwew he was armed, and was desperately hoping some one else would intervene before he had to resort with deadly force. I know I would want to try all alternatives before I killed some one, even in self defense.

Somehow shooting someone in the chest is the use of deadly force. There was nothing TM had in his hands as a weapon other than his phone. If you carry a handgun and had to take training first to get the gun you know there are places to shoot someone that will not result in their death but stop them in their tracks. TM had no gun. His ice tea and the candy were in his pocket on the front of his shirt. All he had was his cell phone he was still talking on it when GZ walked up behind him. GZ could have asked him who he was from 10 foot away and told him to stand there that LE was coming just to check him out. What was the worst that could have happened??? TM could have run away. From 10 foot away he would have plenty of time to pull his gun and stop TM before TM reached him if TM attacked. GZ did not listen, did not do as he was told and the end result of his misconduct is that a child is dead.

FYI: I think this is what most of us see. There was no reason for this to happen other than GZ negligence. jmo

 

[rossva]

Six calls, four mentioning blacks. 60%. Two calls not mentioning blacks. 40%. Doesn't look like he was fixated on blacks to me.

reports indicate that he was fixated on black males. Th 911 calls I read about all seemed to be about black men. And they were the only people he warned others about.

Quote:
This afternoon six of the calls made by George Zimmerman were released by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

In four of the recordings Zimmerman called police to report "suspicious" persons — all of whom were black — in or near the Retreat at Twin Lakes neighborhood.

 

[Blue_Dolphin308]

Anyone have the petition link please? TIA

 

[jjenny]

Somehow shooting someone in the chest is the use of deadly force. There was nothing TM had in his hands as a weapon other than his phone. If you carry a handgun and had to take training first to get the gun you know there are places to shoot someone that will not result in their death but stop them in their tracks...

What places would that be and which handgun training teaches that? I find this statement hard to believe, considering I can't think of any place at which someone can be shot safely.

 

[HiHater]

Do you live in Texas?

In Texas, 17 year olds are considered adults in the eyes of the law. A 17 year old who commits a crime goes to adult court, they are no longer considered juveniles. A 17 year old who commits a traffic offense doesn't have to bring their parent to court with them, they are adults.

A 17 year old who commits a misdemeanor doesn't enjoy the privilege of having that crime expunged and kept confidential that juveniles do.

It's not about the age of consent to sex. It's about being considered an adult in criminal court.

This isn't all that relevant, except to say that 17 isn't really far from being an adult. It's not like Trayvon looked like a 12 year old. Like the pictures that are running in the media.

I am a native Texas. I was made here, born here, and raised here. I live here and work here. Raise my children here. I am a Texan through and through.

Now, why would criminal court be relevant? TRAYVON IS NOT A CRIMINAL. At 17 in Texas can you:

Get married?
Buy cigarettes?
Sign a contract?
etc etc

If you're honest, you know the answer is NO. The AGE OF MAJORITY in all states is 18. Period. That's when a child becomes an adult.

 

[Horace Finklestein]

So the media should have never shown pictures of Caylee when she was an infant? One-years-old? Only pictures of her at the age of her death?

Good to know!

Well they couldn't very well show pictures of her as an adult. Completely invalid comparson.

 

[JeannaT]

This is not relevant to Florida, but in Texas 17 year olds are adults in the eyes of the law. So it's not THAT far fetched for someone to consider 17 an adult.

For the purposes of this discussion, he would have sounded like an adult, and looked like an adult, and might have seemed as threatening as an adult male.

The pictures the media keeps running are disingenuous, especially considering they DO have one that's current. I don't see any reason to keep running childhood pics. It's just inflammatory and confuses the issue.[/QUOTE]

my bolding

The media often runs pictures of victims that aren't always current. They have run current photos of Tray. The pictures show what he was like as a kid. Everyone already knows he was the victim.

For pete sake, those pictures of Tray aren't that old, he just turned 17. It's not like he's 30.

Are you saying that there wouldn't be the same outrage if they ran more 16 and 17 year old pictures?

I am saying that, actually. There is a public belief that this was a child, that a grown man wouldn't have felt threatened with serious harm in a confrontation with him.

Did you see that ridiculous mock-up of this event on that news site? It looked like something they created on the SIMS or something. This huge muscular blond fellow attacking this little Black boy. Ridiculous. That's NOT what it looked like. That kind of representation, along with the middle school prepubescent pic of Trayvon in the football uniform, skew the public perception of what happened here, and what GZ would have been experiencing in this encounter.

IMHO.

 

[Sensei]

I don't know if he was belligerent when he asked Trayvon what he was doing and it makes no sense for a guy with a gun to go start a fist fight.

It makes no sense for a guy with a gun to be roaming the streets looking for evildoers, at night in the rain when he's not a cop or Batman either but he did it.

It makes no sense to run after someone and confront them if you think there is something wrong with them and they might be high on drugs, or armed with a gun themselves either but he did that too.

All he really needed to do was keep the kid in sight so that he could give LE the location of the suspicious person when they arrived a few minutes later, but he didn't choose to do that, if he had TM would have gotten to his Dad, and gone in the house and then GZ could have directed LE to the house, or gone on his merry way knowing that he was in fact staying or knew someone in the neighborhood.

Nothing about the entire situation makes any sense simply because it was so very easily avoidable, GZ could have made a decision to so something different something less intrusive, something that would not have ended in a young man dead at any number of different points from the beginning of the 911 call to the point just before he shot that young man Dead and at every point along the way he opted for the most volitile and most dangerous, and IMO the most STUPID...IMO jmo and stuff.

 

[HiHater]

Six calls, four mentioning blacks. 60%. Two calls not mentioning blacks. 40%. Doesn't look like he was fixated on blacks to me.

Very flawed statistics, because you have 6 of 46 calls. I'm not good with math, but I think that's about 13% of calls.

ETA: The only reason race wasn't mentioned in the other calls is because garage doors aren't black or white. It's about context.

 

[LambChop]

Do you live in Texas?

In Texas, 17 year olds are considered adults in the eyes of the law. A 17 year old who commits a crime goes to adult court, they are no longer considered juveniles. A 17 year old who commits a traffic offense doesn't have to bring their parent to court with them, they are adults.

A 17 year old who commits a misdemeanor doesn't enjoy the privilege of having that crime expunged and kept confidential that juveniles do.

It's not about the age of consent to sex. It's about being considered an adult in criminal court.

This isn't all that relevant, except to say that 17 isn't really far from being an adult. It's not like Trayvon looked like a 12 year old. Like the pictures that are running in the media.

This was not Texas and if TM were an adult the crime is the same. TM was doing nothing wrong whether he was 13, 17, 21, 45 he was just walking home. jmo

 

[JeannaT]

Well they couldn't very well show pictures of her as an adult. Completely invalid comparson.

I agree that the comparison is invalid. No one is arguing that Casey felt threatened by Caylee, or that Casey shot Caylee in self-defense. Showing cute pics of her throughout her short childhood are valid - they weren't intended to show a much smaller person who couldn't be perceived as a serious threat, which is what seems to be going on here in the Martin/Zimmerman case.

Showing little kid pics to make it appear Zimmerman wouldn't have feared this little child.

 

[Horace Finklestein]

decided that this boy was up to no good, and likely on drugs and has "something" that could be a threat to himand was otherwise some kind of threat to the community. What "peaceful" intention did he show? His concern was that these "a$%holes" always get away and that's what Treyvon was trying to do, get away, get back to his house and eat his skittles in peace. Calling 911 on someone merely because you have decided, without a shred of evidence, that a person is dangerous and "up to no good"and following and confronting them with your gun after LE tells you not to evidences no intent to just have a pleasant conversation. He was determined to use whatever force necessary to make sure this one didn't get away. All those other black guys Zimmerman had called about had "gotten away" in his mind and he was sick of it. His state of mind, to me, shows a willingness and perhaps even a preference to quickly utilize deadly force.

He called the police for one, and he began by speaking with him. He ended up with injuries as well. You'd think he just spotted him and started shooting at him.

 

[rossva]

Wow, I want to live where you live. I read in the news, see on the news, hundreds of cases where armed people physically beating up people.

Wait, were you saying that sarcastically?

But, if not....


Isn't that EXACTLY what you are accusing Zimmerman of doing? Being up to no good, and then, prior to shooting Martin, physically attacking him? Or, in your opinion, did Zimmerman just walk up to Martin, ask him what he was doing, then shoot him?

A person who is armed and up to no good would NEVER physically attack someone. Never have I ever heard of that happening...

 

[Blue_Dolphin308]

Petition Link please?!?!

 

[LolaMoon08]

Well they couldn't very well show pictures of her as an adult. Completely invalid comparson.

How is it invalid? I love Caylee dearly! She brought me to this forum. Why is it not okay to show pictures of Trayvon at younger ages (not that much younger!)? Seeing these pictures over the course of their lives gives us a feel for who they are... or were. To complain about that is insensitive when no one has any problem with seeing pictures of Caylee growing from an infant to a toddler.

ETA" Tray is just as much a victim as Caylee. They were both senselessly killed!

 

[rotterdam]

Really? Not being snarky but really?

I hope the protest is peaceful. This is about justice for a 17 year old kid named Trayvon Martin who was shot dead. I hope and pray this quest for justice is not smeared by violent acts or wild wild west WANTED posters.

moo

wm

Goes perfectly with that wild wild west SYG statute.

 

[Lovejac]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...out-about-trayvon-martin-1995-2012/?mobile=wp

I don't know if this was already posted .... If so I sincerely apologize .... Kind of difficult to keep track of all...

But I found this very interesting....

Micci

I had not seen this before. Very informative, thanks for posting.