Another deadly force thread

[offbeat404]

^ interesting concept.

 

[DaveTheMinion]

Not to get away from the theme of this thread, but here's the skinny on Zimmerman.

What I'm about to say comes from the video of the interview by police, of Zimmerman, a few days after the incident at the scene. According to Zimmerman he saw Trayvon Martin peering into the back windows of apartments, so he called police and fallowed. (maybe not the smartest move, but legal) He got out of his vehicle to look at the street sign in order to inform the police of the location. Again according to Zimmerman, it was at this point that Tayvon attacked Zimmerman for fallowing him. Remember, Trayvon was not the small kid shown in most news reports. He was full grown and over 6'. Zimmerman said that Tayvon took him to the ground, got on top of him, and started bashing his head into the pavement and punching him while Zimmerman screamed for help. This account was given before the 911 tapes were released and you can hear screams for help in the call (I'm just saying). I will say that the physical evidence supports at least this part (the fight). In the video you can see that Zimmeran had wounds to the back of his head and what appears to be a broken nose, but no offensive wounds like swollen hands or scraped knuckles. On the other hand the autopsy showed that Trayvon only had offensive wounds to his hands, besides the obvious gun shot wound. At this point and again according to Zimmerman, Trayvon looked down and noticed Zimmerman's Kel tec PF9. Trayvon then said "you're going to die tonight motherf*$%er" and made a move for Zimmerman's pistol, but Zimmerman was faster, pulled his weapon and fired once. Again I will say this is Zimmerman's account. If this is all true then he was justified because there would be opportunity, capability, and jeopardy. From the physical evidence, I believe him, with one questionable part. I don't know if I fully buy the story leading up the confrontation, it comes down to weather or not Zimmerman was the aggressor in the fight, but then again, with the only offensive wounds being on Trayvon, it would seem that Zimmerman was not.

Yeah, but the police dispatcher informed zimmerman to NOT follow Trayvon martin... That was his biggest mistake. He provoced the confrontation. While I agree with what's been said, here's my thoughts. I don't go into bars, I'm not a hard drinker at parties, I don't go around to guys trying to be big and bad. I don't have to fight to prove my ego. So when an outside threat such as a random street thug (which I tend to avoid areas like that) or guy that's drunk and looking to give an ass whooping is seeing me as prey, I don't immediately jump in and brawl. I've fought a lot, even some competitively. IT's more control to avoid the situation. It's when you're cornered and realze there's no other way out. This person is TRULY intending to harm you for reasons unknown, his fists aren't packed with rainbows, there packed with bones, and he's planning on crushing your face in. Complete stranger, random area, I have no reason to believe that this guy will NOT attempt to kill me. All I can do is move quickly away from the threat, verbally command him to stop/drop the weapon/ quick trying to attack me and begin to act in self defense. A sane person will realize that although he can benchpress 300lbs, or he's beatin 100 other crackheads to the floor that there are 5lbs of pressure that could end him. A person that is NOT intending to cause serious bodily harm will hesitate, realize his life is worth too mcuh, and haul ass. The other guy, the guy I'm shooting, has nothing to lose by causing serious harm and or killing me, taking my wallet etc. It's the guys with nothing to lose that scare me, and they are the reason I will draw down. IF I was the type to go to bars, raise hell at parties and talk **** to provoke people, yeah sure, I'll fist it out. But when I'm running errands, you have no reason to assault me. Their hands aren't up to hug me at that point, there out to do serious harm.

 

[darrenmd]

It is a hard question to answer unless you are in that position..... I have been in too many fights.... I have been stabbed in a few of them..... had a gun pointed at me.... I have never had a gun on me at those times to have to make this type of choice.... I have a friend who was at the door of a party...and some guys wanted in. He explained to them it was a private party...they grabbed him and beat him.... broke his hip in a few places....he has a permanent limp due to this.... you just never know when the other guy/s are going to stop.......

 

[mel22]

Meatwadttm, fallowing does not necessarily constitute a violent reaction. If someone was fallowing me I'd probably ask them "what the f#&* do you want" not attack them.... nor did he have any legal obligation to stop fallowing after the 911 operator told him to stop... I'm not say he shouldn't have stopped, just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea, I'm just saying that didn't justify Trayvon attacking him (if that's what happened). It did however make him a man that made one huge mistake.... like you said.

The other thing is that your right as rain about the rest and maybe more then you know. You made a very clear and articulate explanation about why you would pull down on the hypothetical person, and that's what counts. I'll never forget something I was told during some security training I had in the military. It was repeated to us over and over again that it's what you can articular, not what happened that counts. That's not to say that one should lie about what happened, (obviously) but it's all in how you represent yourself and what you say. If your clean cut with a clean background and tell a cop, "I was running to the store and this guy tried to attack me, he presented himself as a threat to me so I pulled my weapon and told him to stop, but he kept coming at me yelling and attempting to harm me so I shot until the threat stopped" works allot better then looking like a ****bag and saying "that motherf$#%er came at me so I shot his punka$$". You know what I mean...