Freewave wrote:I don't get what you're inferring here. You're wanting to see this as a "good guy" tried to stop a "bad guy". That he's just some punk kid who deserved to die. That's why i don't buy into this character assassination of that video and what the next logical leap is.
It's not a typical good guy/bad guy type of scenario. Trayvon was not breaking any laws that warranted any kind of police response, but from what we can gather he was acting suspicious, based on the fact alone that he had ample time to return to his home, but did not.
Freewave wrote:The cops told Zimmerman not to follow him and he did. He wasn't a cop and being on drugs or going home to do drugs doesn't mean you're going around committing crimes on the way home. Does it? Heroes can interrupt crimes as they HAPPEN or they get involved and accidentally kill people who weren't bothering anyone before they were PROVOKED. If Trayvon has killed Zimmerman it would be him going to jail. Instead Zimmerman forced the issue and ultimately killed someone who didn't need to die and gets off for it.
If you're a neighborhood watch for a gated community, it's part of your job to report suspicious activity. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to approach the person yourself and ask them what they're doing. It may not be a very wise decision to approach somebody you may consider suspicious, but there is nothing unlawful about it, and I think it's very well within the right of a neighborhood watch to question anybody they don't recognize walking around in a gated community after dark.
Once again, there is no evidence that Zimmerman provoked Martin, or did anything to instigate a fight. All we know is Zimmerman chose to pursue Martin, whether to get a better visual ID or simply to ask him directly if he lived in the area, both of which are completely within his rights as the neighborhood watch. The next thing we know is a fight broke out a fair distance from Trayvon's home that doesn't correlate, because Trayvon should have been at (or nearly at) his house by the time Zimmerman even rounded the north corner where he saw Trayvon, which is also where the fight took place, indicating that Trayvon was likely waiting for Zimmerman.
Freewave wrote: but i also don't think that Trayvon HAD to die or that Zimmerman didn't set this whole thing off. If people want to start scourging through facebook posts to justify this kids death they are missing the point, he paid the ultimate price for attacking/defending against a guy with a gun. He's still the victim as ultimately Zimmerman is as well.
That's taking away any form of responsibility on Trayvon's part. He was just shy of 18, and if he killed Zimmerman, he would have been tried for murder as an adult. This isn't like a 13 y/o kid who kills somebody that isn't fully aware or mature enough to understand the potential consequences of their actions. This is (for all intents and purposes) a fully grown adult who made a conscious decision to viciously attack another person with no provocation other than they were following them.
Any loss of life is a tragic situation, but you're making it sound as if Zimmerman forced some kid to instinctively react without having any other choice, effectively eliminating all responsibility from Trayvon and placing it all on Zimmerman.
The real tragedy in this situation, is it illustrates the growing mindset that people don't have to take responsibility for their actions. The obese blame fast food companies or undiagnosed medical disorders for making them fat. People self-diagnose themselves with Aspergers when they fail at establishing social relationships. Drivers blame the driver in front of them when they crash because they followed too closely. Trayvon was just a kid who didn't know what he was doing, etc.
If there's a group of people to blame, it's the parents who fail to raise their children to be adults capable of taking responsibility for their own actions, and to be quite honest, I think Trayvon (like many teenagers/adults that slide down a bad path so early) was raised unfairly, and the situation that led to his death was neither his fault, nor Zimmerman's fault, but rather the fault of a broken, never ending system that plagues the lower-income families and communities. That is where the true blame for this tragedy should fall.
@itroitnyah:
With the exception of your brief argument over copyright law, this topic has remained on-topic. It has not devolved into an open discussion of law in general, much less copyright law. Please stop attempting to derail the topic.