I know this has been talked about to death but this is just disturbing but also hilarious
i've talked to multiple people who are incredibly confident that he acted in self defense. who say that THEY WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING. geraldo is going on tv placing the blame on the fact that he was "wearing a hoodie", and that isn't even close to how bad some of the other justifications have been
as someone who is wrapping up their masters in criminal justice and has done work for law enforcement, i just feel the need to clarify the whole situation of self defense here. laws are going to vary per jurisdiction, but for the most part they act as follows:
a man breaks into your house. he has a gun. you have a gun. you warn him that you have a loaded gun and will fire on him if he doesnt not leave. he doesnt. he raises his gone to shoot. you shoot and kill him. the police come and take down your story and everything seems to match up. guess what? you are probably going to get charged with at the very least some sort of manslaughter charge. EVEN in places like florida who have made efforts to protect those acting in self defense. you aren't going to get convicted of it, and you and the police know it, but it is just something that they are bureaucratically pressured into doing when someone gets shot and killed. it sucks, but you will 99.9% get the charge dropped before you even get to court.
in this case, a paranoid delusional trigger happy watchman illogically created a situation where he felt threatened. upon confronting the kid, he brings a gun to a skittles fight and uses a completely disproportional level of force to "defend" himself. he doesnt get charged for anything (at least to the extent of my knowledge, have been to busy to fully follow the case.
summary: you can shoot an armed robber in your house after giving clear warning and still get charged. you can shoot a kid outside of your home with no credible warning and not get charged. also people exist who think that this is okay..
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no more mr. nice sess....hello mr. nice watch! somebody call the brinks truck!
The guy probably has an irrational fear of blacks. I have no doubt that he felt threatened by the kid, but he shouldn't have. He should not have confronted the kid if he had that kind of dispostition
From: Leebo86 | #006 he did allegedly use a racial slur to describe the kid before confronting him
racial slur =/= racial hatred
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http://img.imgcake.com/nio/bokbokbokpngur.png Ok everyone this is Bartz so just remember.
charging him with a hate crime doesn't mean he'll be convicted
and I'm not saying the slur alone should be evidence enough, I'm saying that it's worth looking into. He has made lots of 911 calls, and we haven't heard most of those, so it's possible there's a pattern to it
hate crime legislation fails because it doesn't change how people think, it just provides a way to further punish those who criminally act on their feelings (even though a lot of them have nothing to do with the states meaning of hate)
you wont reduce "hate" crime with punishment, you reduce it by helping people not hate others
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no more mr. nice sess....hello mr. nice watch! somebody call the brinks truck!
I don't think they would charge him with a hate crime unless there is some evidence we don't know about. He probably was scared because there was a minority in his gated community and just assumed, but that is not really something you can prove.
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I'm "kind of a big deal". http://img.imgcake.com/cyclo/Cyclopngegpngre.png
It's racism, pure and simple. That's the only thing that can explain why The Blaze would insinuate that Martin was expelled for violent crime, rather than truancy, despite absolutely no evidence at all.
-- oh yeah. i am a dog. i smoke cigarettes and vote democratic because i am classy - the dog http://i.imgur.com/x4Tma.jpg