quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Dan: Aris is not currently permitted to participate in the thread. I'd rather you PM Aris than respond to his posts.
Sorry about that. My post sat on my computer for a while as I ran an errand, and I didn't realize that all that stuff happened in the interim.
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The Honorable Judge needs to regain control of his emotions. I understand he's pissed because Zimmerman misled the court but to call him a flight risk and only offer some sloppy reasoning to support such speculation is just unprofessional. Maybe the judge thinks that everyone intending to jump bail pays off their American Express and Sam's Club credit cards because, you know, after you flee the country you may wanna come back in a few decades and it would be a shame if your credit score was ruined...
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Talking in code, misleading the court, a second (in itself highly unusual, if Rabbit was correct) and unmentioned passport...
Cmon, Capax, please tell me that does add up to valid concerns about a flight risk for you. Maybe you don't think that with the credit card stuff he wasn't overall a flight risk, that's a pretty bizarre conclusion but I can follow how you would think that, but seriously. The man got in his court and conspired with his wife to lie to them and to the judge. Regain control of his emotions? He followed the law. Seems pretty in control to me.
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The Honorable Judge needs to regain control of his emotions. I understand he's pissed because Zimmerman misled the court but to call him a flight risk and only offer some sloppy reasoning to support such speculation is just unprofessional. Maybe the judge thinks that everyone intending to jump bail pays off their American Express and Sam's Club credit cards because, you know, after you flee the country you may wanna come back in a few decades and it would be a shame if your credit score was ruined...
I'd be happy to hear an explanation for why somebody would take out a second passport after surrendering their first one, that does not involve, you know, leaving.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Talking in code, misleading the court, a second (in itself highly unusual, if Rabbit was correct) and unmentioned passport...
Cmon, Capax, please tell me that does add up to valid concerns about a flight risk for you. Maybe you don't think that with the credit card stuff he wasn't overall a flight risk, that's a pretty bizarre conclusion but I can follow how you would think that, but seriously. The man got in his court and conspired with his wife to lie to them and to the judge. Regain control of his emotions? He followed the law. Seems pretty in control to me.
He can administer the law without presenting - not just as reasonable speculation, but as a likelihood of little doubt - the most criminal and unlikely possible scenario.
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quote:He can administer the law without presenting - not just as reasonable speculation, but as a likelihood of little doubt - the most criminal and unlikely possible scenario.
I just want to be clear as to precisely what you're saying: that the evidence involving this matter doesn't point in very strong terms towards the Zimmermans making ready in secret and against the law to flee at short notice if they decided they wished to?
If this is what you're saying, it seems very much of a reach. How do you explain the code, the passport, the lying about the funds? Was the purpose merely to pay off some credit card bills, effectively pocketing the difference between legal fees and money given? Why then the elaborate (but also foolish) deception, and the passport ?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I'd be happy to hear an explanation for why somebody would take out a second passport after surrendering their first one, that does not involve, you know, leaving.
Did he obtain the second passport after surrendering the first one? According to what I've read, he believed the passport was lost and he obtained a new one, all before the incident with Trayvon.
I don't disagree that there are some peculiarities about this situation but I don't believe the judge is totally reasonable in his interpretation of the details:
quote:“Notably, together with the passport, the money only had to be hidden for a short time for him to leave the country if the defendant made a quick decision to flee,” Lester wrote. “It is entirely reasonable for this court to find that, but for the requirement that he be placed on electronic monitoring, the defendant and his wife would have fled the United States with at least $130,000 of other people’s money.”
No, it's entirely reasonable that Zimmerman (and it's possible that is wasn't Zimmerman himself that collected and surrender the passport) was initially unaware that the court hadn't obtained his valid passport. It's also entirely reasonable that Zimmerman wanted his debts and bills payed so this ordeal wouldn't leave him and his wife bankrupt, destitute, and/or harmed, hence his interest in transferring at least some of the money to pay bills, pay legal fees, and ensure their security. The donated money does no good sitting in a paypal account. The bit about calling it "other people's money" really illustrates what the judge could have left out instead of (further) emotionally charging the issue.
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Did people donate it to him with the intent of paying his credit card bills? I suspect that will come as a surprise to them. When Zimmerman lied about the amount and spent it elsewhere, it was 'other people's money'.
This guy just can't catch a break. He follows the law to an unpleasant conclusion re: the media, and he's a screwup. He points out what is plainly likely to just about anybody-that passport, hidden money, code talk amounts to serious flight risk, and he's unreasonable.
Why are you willing to trust Zimmerman's word on his intentions with that money given that concealed it from the court and spoke about it in code? Was there just a series of deeply inept actions by his counsel, all of which are someone else's doing for which he shouldn't be criticized?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I'd be happy to hear an explanation for why somebody would take out a second passport after surrendering their first one, that does not involve, you know, leaving.
Did he obtain the second passport after surrendering the first one? According to what I've read, he believed the passport was lost and he obtained a new one, all before the incident with Trayvon.
It's Martin. We don't know him, and it bothers me, although perhaps it bothers only me, that people are using this level of familiarity with someone they did not know. I find this disrespectful- and I would feel the same of calling Zimmerman by his given name. -pet peeve ended-
On the note of the passport: it is of course possible that Zimmerman suddenly found a supposedly lost passport and returned it, but it is also possible that he had found it earlier, and in violation of federal law, hung onto it for some reason. A passport is not personal property, so failing to surrender an invalid one is theft, among other things. Ignorance of the law is no defense- if you find out you have two passports, you have to surrender one immediately.
If he did surrender the first one *knowing* that he was in possession of the second, which is not an unreasonable supposition, then this does suggest a serious flight risk. In addition to lying about his finances, this makes flight a credible scenario. The judge does not need irrefutable proof of risk to assume that there is a risk- he has broad latitude, and he is using it appropriately in this case. Zimmerman has a right to due process of law, and he's getting it.
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The Honorable Judge needs to regain control of his emotions. I understand he's pissed because Zimmerman misled the court but to call him a flight risk and only offer some sloppy reasoning to support such speculation is just unprofessional.
There's no sloppy reasoning. You have an extremely weird interpretation about what the judge is allowed to be angry about, considering that Zimmerman did indeed baldly conspire to commit perjury and game the court along with his wife, hid money from the court while trying to move it around in sub-10k reporting denominations, and talk in code about a planned destination while in possession of a second passport. Unless you're completely gullible, there's no misinterpreting what Zimmerman was trying to do to the court. They conspired, acted massively suspicious, lied, snuck money around, and perjured. They got caught. Judge cannot be meek in the face of this. He is doing this by the book and fighting for the integrity of his court. To think his statements are out of line requires casting a straightforwardly blind eye to what Zimmerman got caught doing.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Aside from the straightforward illegality of all of that, I'm still struggling to imagine any intent for that behavior that doesn't amount quite plainly to 'taking steps to be ready to flee the law at a moment's notice in the future, if we decide to'. Is Zimmerman a frequent (and I mean very frequent) international traveler that he might conceivably lose track of how many passports he had? If he did, as unlikely as it seems, totally forget about that passport as something anyone needed to know about because he thought it was void (though according to Rabbit's experience, which I'm inclined to trust because I think she's been to more countries than I have zip codes, it seems strange he would think that), if he mentally took it off the table because it was invalid in his head, why was it in a safety deposit box? And his counsel just forgot to cover that too in talks with him?
The presence of the passport means that there have to be at least two strange and even very strange failures of memory and/or professionalism either on the part of Zimmerman and his counsel or both. Given his carefully though stupidly planned dishonesty elsewhere in this matter, I just can't see how he gets rated as trustworthy here.
If the passport weren't involved, I'd be more likely to view this as still illegal, still stupid but otherwise more ordinary money shenanigans-perhaps even with some decent motives, even though when used that way it was stolen.
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quote:t's Martin. We don't know him, and it bothers me, although perhaps it bothers only me, that people are using this level of familiarity with someone they did not know. I find this disrespectful- and I would feel the same of calling Zimmerman by his given name. -pet peeve ended-
Treyvon Martin was a minor. It's ridiculous enough for you to take offense because Americans don't follow central European cultural norms of respectful address but even in Central Europe, minor children are normally addressed by their first names, even by strangers and the media.
By calling Treyvon Martin "Treyvon" and George Zimmerman "Zimmerman", we emphasize the substantial legal difference between them. Treyvon was legally a child. Zimmerman was 11 years his senior and legally and adult. Perhaps you think that distinction is inappropriate, I do not.
[ July 10, 2012, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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I do. He was a minor, but not a little boy. The legal distinction is one thing, but the term of address is another. I'm not European, I'm from California; that doesn't have anything to do with this.
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Yeah. I'm from the US too, and while I know Martin was a minor, there is a huge difference between a minor and a child, particularly when assigning responsibility for their own actions.
A 17 year old and a 4 year old are both minors, but only one is a child.
I use Martin and Zimmerman for ease, not because of respect or fear of being overly familiar. I think his parents gave up the right to be offended about the use of his first name when they made a media circus out of his death. They may have felt they had no other recourse, because they disagreed with the DA about the outcome, but after posting misleading pictured and lying about what an angel he was, they opened the door for discussions about his character, as well as discussions about their manipulation of facts in the media....so using his first name is fine with me, of course.
Mind you....I'm not saying that he deserved to die, or that we know for sure that he was the aggressor. All I am saying is that if we are allowed to question Zimmerman's past decisions and behaviors (which we HAVE to do) then Martin's lack of judgement, drug involvement, and possible aggressive behaviors are fair game as well.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander...
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quote:Is Zimmerman a frequent (and I mean very frequent) international traveler that he might conceivably lose track of how many passports he had? If he did, as unlikely as it seems, totally forget about that passport as something anyone needed to know about because he thought it was void (though according to Rabbit's experience, which I'm inclined to trust because I think she's been to more countries than I have zip codes, it seems strange he would think that), if he mentally took it off the table because it was invalid in his head, why was it in a safety deposit box? And his counsel just forgot to cover that too in talks with him?
I just thought I'd throw in some facts on the 2nd passport. During the past year I have had to obtain a replacement passport for one that was stolen and I recently obtained a valid second passport so I've become fairly familiar with passport regulations. Here is the direct excerpt from the top of the form you must submit to obtain a report a lost or stolen passport.
quote:A U.S. citizen may not normally bear more than one valid or potentially valid U.S. passport book and one valid passport card at a time. It therefore is necessary to submit a statement with an application for a new U.S. passport when a previously issued valid or potentially valid U.S. passport book/card cannot be presented. Your statement must detail why the previous U.S. passport book/card cannot be presented. The information you provide on the DS-64, Statement Regarding a Lost of Stolen Passport Book and/or Card will be placed into our Consular Lost and Stolen Passport System. This system is designed to prevent the misuse of a your lost or stolen U.S. passport book/card. Anyone using a passport book/card reported on the DS-64, including your self, may be detained upon entry into the United States. Should you locate the passport reported lost or stolen at a later time, you should report it as found and submit it for cancellation. It has been invalidated. You may not use that passport for travel
Then at the end of the form you have to sign a statement under penalty of perjury which includes the follow.
quote:I understand that the passport(s) I report as missing will be invalidated and cannot be used. If I subsequently find and recover it, I will immediately return it to Passport Services at the address on the back of this form or to the nearest U.S. passport agency, U.S. embassy, or U.S. consulate abroad.
As I indicated above, I am now in possession of two valid U.S. passports. I had to get a second passport because I needed to travel while my first passport was being held by the British Embassy for processing my VISA application. This was non-trivial to accomplish as it requires individual approval from the state department and such requests are only considered under a limited set of circumstances. I also had to provide proof that my passport was being held for processing a VISA, proof of my need to travel, and sign several statements under penalty of perjury about misuse of the passport (which include warnings of severe fines and imprisonment). It took several weeks and a lot of phone calls to the embassy and the state department to get it approved. It also cost a bundle.
Some news sources reported that Zimmerman had obtained the second passport after his arrest. This is incorrect. I suppose its not impossible that the U.S. state department might approve a second passport for someone who was under arrest for murder, but I sincerely hope they aren't that incompetent or corrupt.
So how did Zimmerman get 2 passports? In 2004, George Zimmerman reported that his passport had been lost and he obtained a replacement passport. When he later found the original passport, he was legally bound to return it to the passport agency for cancellation but he did not. The passport that Zimmerman originally turned over to the court was not the valid replacement passport, it was the invalid lost passport. This was really a stupid move. When I got my replacement passport, they made it quite clear that once I officially reported my passport as lost or stolen -- it was irrevocably cancelled. Trying to use it for anything after that could mean jail time.
Zimmerman doesn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed so I can believe that he didn't understand that the lost passport was invalid or that he was legally obligated to turn it in when he found it, even though he had to sign a statement saying he understood those things.
It is, however, quite a stretch for me to believe that he didn't understand why the court required him to surrender his passport and why keeping a second valid passport hidden from the court could cause him serious troubles. The fact is that he chose to keep the valid passport and turn in an invalid one. It seems highly improbable that this was just a simple mistake -- particularly since he was recorded discussing the issue with his wife.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I do. He was a minor, but not a little boy. The legal distinction is one thing, but the term of address is another. I'm not European, I'm from California; that doesn't have anything to do with this.
Pfff!! Are you really expecting me to believe that in California teenagers are normally addressed by their last names rather than their first names? Are you really telling me that in California, 17 year olds are commonly addressed as "Mr. Martin" rather than by their first names?
Honestly, did you object when your high school teachers called you by your first name? Did you demand that your University professors in California call you Mr. Orincoro?
If you are expecting me to believe this was a pet-peeve of yours before you moved to Prague, you've got a lot of work to do. Perhaps you could connect me to one of your peers in California to confirm that even as a teenager in the US you considered it disrespectful to be called by your first name.
I don't know how Czechs do it, but in Germany people are addressed by their first names by all adults including teachers, police, courts, and media until their reach legal age and then they are addressed by their surnames unless you are on familiar terms. In Germany the legal age is 14 not 18 like it is in the US. You seem to be asking us to adhere not lonely to an idea of "respect" that is foreign to U.S. culture but to an idea of adulthood that's also alien to U.S. culture.
Get off your high horse. Respectful language is not an absolute. What constitutes disrespectful language varies from culture to culture and in American culture calling people by their first name is not generally understood as disrespectful.
[ July 10, 2012, 02:13 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Wow, relax, please. Your confrontational tone isn't warranted. Nor are your wild assertions about my cultural preferences, of which you know less thn you think, clearly.
I'm talking about referring to people we don't know, in print. I'm not talking about how we do in gain person. I object, for example, to actors being called by their first names online and in print. I just don't find that it projects the appropriate distance that a stranger warrants. It makes relationships clear: first names for people we know and re familiar with, last names for others.
Whether I found it disrespectful of others to call me by my firt name, in person, when they knew me, is immaterial to this. It so happens that I went to a private school where last names *were* used routinely except among friends. So please, back off and take what I said in context. We're talking bout someone we do not know, who was not some little boy when he died. This it. If you can't muster a little bit of civility ith me, I won't respond.
quote: Get off your high horse. Respectful language is not an absolute. What constitutes disrespectful language varies from culture to culture and in American culture calling people by their first name is not generally understood as disrespectful.]
get the hell off of your high horse, and stop assuming you know why my motivations are. Rarely have I seen you be so unaccountably rude as you are being now. We have a difference of opinion, nd you're making it all about me and what a terrible elitist cultural chauvinist I am. What the hell is with you?
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Orincoro, I find your intolerance of American cultural norms of address to be pretentious and rather ridiculous.
I gather that you grew up in some isolated private school conclave with its own sub-culture. That's fine as long as you recognize that culture isn't right or wrong. Being able to adapt to different cultural norms is an important social skill. When you try to enforce the norms of your culture on others you come off as an elitist snob.
Treyvon Martin wasn't a little boy, but he was a minor. In America, people in their teens and early twenties are very rarely called by anything but their first names. This isn't a sign of disrespect -- its our culture.
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it's a little bit ridiculous to care that much about whether or not we call him trayvon or martin or whatever, but it is also a little bit ridiculous to care about that someone cares that much about whether or not we call him trayvon or martin or whatever.
in other words, this is all ridiculous, let's fight about it forever
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quote:get the hell off of your high horse, and stop assuming you know why my motivations are.
I don't think I've said anything about your motivations. On several occasions you have expressed that you find the American cultural norm of calling strangers by their first name offensive. As a general rule, I think being offended by something that is a cultural norm is silly and intolerant. I think that taking offense at something that is a cultural norm among the majority in your home country, is pretty pretentious.
quote:Rarely have I seen you be so unaccountably rude as you are being now. We have a difference of opinion, nd you're making it all about me and what a terrible elitist cultural chauvinist I am. What the hell is with you?
Your memory must be quite short. You find me unconscionably rude a great deal of the time.
You've said that calling strangers by their first name is one of your pet-peeves. Intolerance of different cultural norms is one of mine.
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Rabbit, your gathering skills suck. I've been posting here for 7 years, and my circumstances are no secret. I went to public school until 9th grade, when I switched to a Catholic school that was solidly middle class. The convention was to use last names (no Mr) when speaking to others with whom you were not friends. That's all. At that school, I had an English teacher who had strong opinions about how to refer to others in print- opinions that were echoed in Writers Inc, and which I still follow and find best. That's it.
Clearly you have some issues with me bout my background, because you've projected a lot of crap here. This feeling that I have expressed has nothing to do with my thread last year about Starbucks. Nothing. In fact, I've posted about this pet peeve for years without you apparently noticing- longer then I've been living out of the US.
Don't lecture me on our culture. You have no more domain over it than I do. That is all I will have to say to you about this.
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I wonder if there's a tendency to refer to people by whichever of their names is more unique and recognizable. I can think of several people named Martin, but I've never heard the name Trayvon before. A Google search for Martin has 1,960,000,000 hits, and none of the first page results are related to Trayvon Martin. Searching for Trayvon returns just 27,000,000 hits, and all of the first page results are about this case. I'll grant that the Google results could be skewed by the way he's referred to in the media, but I think the overall point is valid -- "Trayvon" is a much more specific reference than "Martin." I bet if his name was Martin Trayvon, they'd still refer to him as Trayvon.
On the other hand, it's possible that we're more likely to do this sort of thing to children (and women, too -- Clinton and Rice being good examples). "Johnson" isn't unique -- even "President Johnson" refers to more than one person -- and yet I don't think I've ever seen him called "Lyndon." Then again, checking pretty much all the privileged-demographic boxes, we have Newt. So obviously, referring to powerful white men by their first names isn't completely anathema.
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It's a different dynamic at play with ""Ike," "Newt," and "W," etc. or the manning brothers, as another example. Theyre public figures, as opposed to private citizens elevated by their circumstances of death. This does seem connected, at least to me, to the fact that Martin had a typically African-American name. Many black parents choose distinctively black names for children, and the tendency to prefer them over a surname speaks to deeper cultural attitudes and biases. "Treyvon" is distinctively black, and "Martin" is Anglo. Zimmerman is generically central European, but if his first name had been, say, Jesus or something distinctively Latino, I think you'd find people using his full name or given name more often.
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quote:They may have felt they had no other recourse, because they disagreed with the DA about the outcome, but after posting misleading pictured and lying about what an angel he was, they opened the door for discussions about his character, as well as discussions about their manipulation of facts in the media....so using his first name is fine with me, of course.
This seems to me strange reasoning, and I'll explain why. First of all, Martin's family had pretty good reason to think they had to make a media stink about things-their son was shot to death on the way home with candy and tea in his hand! That is certainly how it would've seemed to them. For the sake of argument, let us say Martin *did* abruptly make an extremely violent, even murderous attack on Zimmerman-it's perfectly natural his family wouldn't take to that explanation. Even with truly damning, incontrovertible evidence families don't always accept their dead as a criminal.
So the weeks pass, and the man who shot their son to death with candy and tea in hand still walks free. That is the reality his family was living with, and in a town known to have let's just say irregularities with respect to its law enforcement handling of minorities. I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine they must've felt they *had* to invoke the media. So they release-or was it even from them? I don't know-pictures of their child. Maybe they really did think it was an effort to lend support to their cause. They claim him as a good boy-do you know of no parents who would claim their child as good even with suspensions and pot, even while they were *alive*?
When I said above that your reasoning seemed strange to me, this is why: it appears as though you are suggesting Martin's family had some sort of obligation to present their dead son, warts and all, to the public's eye-and if they don't, then they've invited people to think the worst, or to dig in, as though that wouldn't have happened anyway. I'm trying to imagine a parent, faced with their own dead child's face in their mind, who would go before the public and the media and have in their mind, "Alright, I need to make sure my press releases are fair to the man who shot my child." I'm coming up blank.
There are people to condemn for the (aside from the call editing) somewhat serious media side-taking in the initial coverage. I say *initial* with this qualifier: it wasn't actually initial, there WAS no initial coverage. But these people certainly aren't, I think you will agree, the family themselves. Martin's character was going to be picked apart by skeptical eyes anyway, as is proper. That would happen to many, but a young black male will *certainly* experience that, posthumously. I fail to see why his family ought to be criticized for being firmly on his side.
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I don't....and didn't expect them to bare all his warts. Once they started claiming he was always an innocent, and began mentioning his character in public though, then it becomes a little less clear. They went on TV and said he was never in trouble, never suspended, and that anyone who knew him knew thins......but once we looked at his history, this wasn't true.
As I said, I don't want to demonize him, but I also don't think we should ignore his history of poor decisions either.
Just because a kid messes around with pot, or gets suspended, doesn't mean that he is a bard kid, or violent.....but it does mean he wasn't the perfect little boy on the picture any more.
And since his family made misleading claims about him, I don't blame anyone for digging deeper.
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quote:I don't....and didn't expect them to bare all his warts. Once they started claiming he was always an innocent, and began mentioning his character in public though, then it becomes a little less clear. They went on TV and said he was never in trouble, never suspended, and that anyone who knew him knew thins......but once we looked at his history, this wasn't true.
Did they? I'm not saying they didn't, but what I've found them quoted as saying is that he was a good kid who didn't start fights who hadn't been in trouble *with the law*, which so far as I can tell is true. They even acknowledged the suspension, though I haven't found if that was an unprompted admission or not. Anyway, his father says he grounded his son for it.
I simply don't understand your point, still. You say you don't expect them to expose all of their son's skeletons, but when they don't, it seems they are to be blamed for people thinking he was a violent thug? As if he was ever going to be taken simply at his word (rather like Zimmerman, at first), and things not delved into? We look into the lives of people involved in murders-it's not the parents fault, which is what you've plainly indicated now more than once, whether you meant to or not.
In fact, I haven't been able to find where they said he was an angel, except a possible reference to him being an angel when at home-not entirely clear who said that. Having just reread some of the press they put out, it seems like they were careful to say Martin wasn't ever in trouble *with the law*, which if that's all they said on the subject seems calculated...but Kwea, what on Earth do you want? Why is his family expected to release statements not intended to mourn and stir support for their dead son?
quote:As I said, I don't want to demonize him, but I also don't think we should ignore his history of poor decisions either.
Pointing out how Zimmerman's history of bad judgment is more worrying and likely more related to the events of that night isn't the same thing as ignoring Martin's pretty paltry skeletons. Vandalism (painting WTF on a school locker), a pipe and some pot, tardiness and skipping, and a screw driver and some jewelry. This is the utter limit of Martin's skeletons that are known, and aren't totally laughable (at this point, though may in the end be shown to be true) such as his cousin's Tweet. And of those, one involved our nation's lovely zero tolerance laws on pot (this very minute, how many adolescents do you think would be suspended this week of spot checked for pot under such policies?, and the other, the the jewelry, remains unclear-that is to say the value, how it was discovered, who was involved, etc.
None of that indicates, contrary to what anyone has said, that any skeptical person ought to think it likely Martin would've simply attacked a complete stranger. It would even seem, in some lights, to argue against it-clearly Martin was no criminal mastermind or gifted with above average restraint, so had he been aggressively violent, I think it can be argued we would've seen better evidence for it than a cousin's tweet of an event we don't even know happened.
But, yes, bad judgment. Fine. The thing is, no one has said 'Zimmerman did it because he had bad judgment, case closed'. What people have said is that the *type* of bad judgment Zimmerman showed is quite bad for him in ways Martin's isn't. Actual, on the record links to two kinds of violence well above a cousin's say-so. Getting out of his car, pursuing this 'suspicious character' into the night. Labeling him an 'asshole who always gets away' on the basis of being a pedestrian in a high traffic spot in the rain. Carrying a gun on NW which, despite being legal, is according to police and NW organizations nationwide bad judgment.
The types and degrees of bad judgment are different, and just because there's bad judgment on both sides doesn't mean the truth is right exactly in the middle.
quote:And since his family made misleading claims about him, I don't blame anyone for digging deeper.
Calling some of their statements *misleading* is actually more accurate, but again-what else did you expect and why do you expect it? Martin as a young black dude would need to have been shot repeatedly on video while trying to get Zimmerman to donate blood for his background NOT to be dug into in the media.
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it's interesting how values are so different in different places. In the UK, you have to be not only a cop, but a specially trained and specially authorized cop to even strap on a weapon. And in Florida the likes of Zimmerman can carry one around his neighborhood with zero training. Odd that.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I don't....and didn't expect them to bare all his warts. Once they started claiming he was always an innocent, and began mentioning his character in public though, then it becomes a little less clear. They went on TV and said he was never in trouble, never suspended, and that anyone who knew him knew thins......but once we looked at his history, this wasn't true.
I don't find this very compelling. You are skeptical enough as a consumer of media to know that the parents of a homicide victim aren't going to jump out and say anything negative, or even admit to anything negative, about their kid. Really, what can we expect from these people? They were in shock over his death, and the circumstances of that death. Parents pretty nearly always do this.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Which is why I don't usually listen to them. They aren't impartial, nor were they present when this happened.
But they were very misleading, at best, in their portrayal of their son.
As I said, I don't have a problem talking about his past. I also don't make the mistake of thinking that because he had issues he was at fault here.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:But they were very misleading, at best, in their portrayal of their son.
In what way, specifically, was his family 'very misleading' in their portrayal of their dead son? It's a serious question, because much of what you listed above doesn't seem to make your case-I was unable to find (but may have missed it) where the his family called him an 'angel', or said he had never been suspended or in trouble at school. I've seen reports where they state he wasn't ever in trouble with the law, which is true so far as we know. But...that's really about it.
That and the picture, but you have to ask yourself, Kwea, exactly who made the decision that that would be the picture shown nationwide? The parents? They didn't sit in newsrooms, you know. If the media had wanted to, they could have in the most simple of ways gotten other images to use, more recent ones. Should his family have raised an uproar? "Our son didn't look like that when he was shot to death-we don't want Zimmerman to be viewed too harshly, so here's a less endearing image."
I don't see how you can claim not to be saying you're critical of them, that they don't have some sort of obligation to make fair and balanced statements in the press...and then criticize them for being 'misleading' because they didn't do so. It's not their *job* to do so-that's the territory of the media-and in any event you haven't shown that they, his family themselves, were as 'misleading' as you claim as it is. Why does the family have some sort of duty to help the public get a scary image of their victim?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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They don't, but if they start bringing up his past, how he was wonderful, and then things come out that put that into question I don't think anyone questioning their story are racists, or demonizing their kid.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Zimmerman has no case to get this judge thrown out, IMO. The judge has a right to call bullshit when someone lies in his court, and pointing out an attempt at manipulation isn't misleading or prejudicial.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Zimmerman has no case to get this judge thrown out, IMO. The judge has a right to call bullshit when someone lies in his court, and pointing out an attempt at manipulation isn't misleading or prejudicial.
Best comment on it so far: "The Judge's baseless accusations that George "flouted" and "manipulated" the system damaged his thin skin almost as much as being slammed into concrete."
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Well can we at least say he's no angel, and that if his family didn't release this, they only have themselves to blame if folks begin to disparage his character? Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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This is going to instantaneously never have been about Zimmerman *per se*, but about everyone's right to defend himself. Child-molesting psychopath or no.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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This article makes some interesting arguments about why the accusations of molestation are relevant.
I'm not sure whether or not I agree with all her arguments, but I do think this is one more stroke on a painting that makes Zimmerman look more and more like the classic bully.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Orincoro, I don't know what the technical term would be when an 18 year old molests a 16 year old or an 8 year old molests a 6 year old, but it's not child molestation.
From the online dictionary
quote:Child molestation is a crime involving a range of indecent or sexual activities between an adult and a child, usually under the age of 14.
The acts of which Zimmerman has been accused do not fit this definition since he was not an adult when she was under the age of 14.
[ July 18, 2012, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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OK, I found the proper term, it's "Child on Child sexual abuse."
I have no idea how common sexual abuse and harassment is among the prepubescent bullies but it's extremely common behavior among teenage bullies.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I mean, yes, if one child is actually aggressive, or threatening...
It was just called it "playing doctor"...kids figuring out that there are more differences between boys and girls then dresses/pants and hair length.
Shoot, some activities I was a part of could easily be classified in this category. Now that I think about it, I sure hope that no one was traumatized, or felt taken advantage of. I had always thought of it as rather innocent and normal.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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S_W, having worked many years in child care, I can tell you there's a world of difference between kids undressing each other in the bushes (it happens), and one child abusing another. Age and power differences are key. Also, it is rather more common for the abuser to have themselves been abused by an elder. Hyper sexuality among children is a sign of abuse.
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