On Zimmerman’s bond being revoked..
I want to first address the latest news about George Zimmerman. While I believe it was wrong of Zimmerman and his wife to lie about the money they had collected in their pay-pal account, I can understand why he might have done so, especially after two months of being lied about in the media – blatant lies that endangered not only him, but his family. Natalie Jackson was telling the press that Zimmerman stalked and shot Trayvon in cold blood, not only once, but twice, while the “boy” was screaming for his life. The black panthers had a $10,000 bounty on him and were standing at the front gates of his community, scaring those around him that he had sought to protect. There was no one on his side save for the contributors to his defense and living expense fund. He’s now charged with second degree murder and may spend the rest of his life in jail, leaving his wife unprotected and probably in hiding.
I’m not sure what I would do, and I have quite a few years on the 28 year old Zimmerman. Would I want the world to know I had that much money, or would I want it in a safe place for my wife to have at her disposal, or to handle a defense with? Zimmerman was afraid to use a bail bondsmen because he didn’t trust anyone at that point, who knows how much his whereabouts would bring in the form of money for a story, a bounty on his head. Even though he lied, he turned the money over days after he was let out of jail on bond.
From the moment Zimmerman stood and told police he had shot Trayvon, to turning himself in, and more recently, following the terms of his bond, Zimmerman has done what he was supposed to do. The lie was not the right thing to do, I agree. The Judge said Zimmerman led him down a primrose lane – Zimmerman had just come off nearly two months of anything but primrose lane. By all accounts Zimmerman was being beaten by Trayvon Martin, by police accounts and witness accounts, it was George screaming for help before finally pulling his gun. Yet, for two months these are the pictures he saw of himself, and the headlines.
IF George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin in self defense, which I believe he did, how can any of us put ourselves in his mind set after a 45 day barrage of media accusations and distortions? No matter what you might think of George Zimmerman, he saw himself as someone who wanted to serve and protect – lots of men and women do, that’s why they become police officers – yet in the time it takes to go to Target on a Sunday night, he became what he loathed and detested, a wanted criminal, a racist monster. I just can’t fault him for wanting to keep the money away from a world full of people who wanted to see him, at the very least, imprisoned, at the worst, dead.
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The Investigation
George Zimmerman was handcuffed and taken to the Sanford Police Department for questioning and to collect evidence from his person. He arrived there at 7:52 PM. His wife, Shelly Zimmerman, was asked to bring George a change of clothes so they could take the ones he was wearing when the shooting took place into evidence.
Sunny Hostin: “…he was allowed to leave the police station with the very clothes that he had on during the shooting. So there is no forensic evidence that can be gathered from his clothing.” LINK
Detectives questioned Zimmerman for approximately five hours. His statement was videotaped. We are not privy to any of Zimmerman’s statements, save what we were told by Chief Lee and what Tracy Martin says he was told by Detective Serrino. The next day, detectives re-enacted the shooting with Zimmerman at the scene and followed up with witnesses. Neither Detective Serrino, nor George Zimmerman has ever spoken publicly about what happened that night. According to Tracy Martin, Serrino told him the following on the day after he found out his son had been shot to death by George Zimmerman:
Tracy Martin: “He (Detective Serrino), told me Zimmerman’s story was that Zimmerman was of course following him and that Trayvon approached his vehicle, walked up to the car and asked Zimmerman, ‘Why are your following me?’ Zimmerman then rolls his car windows down, tells Trayvon ‘I’m not following you.’ He rolls his car windows up.
“Trayvon walks off. Zimmerman said he started running between the buildings. Zimmerman gets out of his car. He comes around the building. Trayvon is hiding behind the building, waiting on him. Trayvon approaches him and says, ‘What’s your problem, homes?’ Zimmerman says ‘I don’t have a problem.’
“Zimmerman starts to reach into his pocket to get his cellphone, and at that point Trayvon attacked him. He says Trayvon hits him. He falls on the ground. Trayvon jumps on top of him, takes his left hand and covers Zimmerman’s mouth and tells him to shut the F up and continues to pound on him.“At that point Zimmerman is able to unholster his weapon and fire a shot, striking Trayvon in the chest. Trayvon falls on his back and says, ‘You got me.’” The Martin family has been telling their story as part of a campaign to have Zimmerman arrested. He himself has kept quiet.” LINK
Tracy Martin states Serrino told him this version of events on Wednesday, the day after he found out what happened. The shooting took place on a Sunday night, so maybe the publication misstated the facts. Crazy, I know. Regardless, he was told within a couple of days after the event which makes this statement by Natalie Jackson confusing:
“3/30 The family has not been given any information into the investigation of the death of their son. Everything that they are learning is coming from the media.” & “Law enforcement has not released any information to them. That’s why they started this campaign!” LINK (5:52)
Here we thought the campaign was started to get an an arrest!
3/26 Jerome Horton, Trayvon’s ex-football coach: Tracy called me and he told me the police never gave him a reason (for shooting). LINK
Jerome Horton has a very interesting facebook page, here’s his cover picture. This man coaches 12-14 yr. old boys. Nice, huh? You will see Jerome’s name on many media pictures of Trayvon.
But I digress – More investigation hyperbole:
Police found a single shell casing at the scene, and when they seized George Zimmerman’s handgun, a Kel Tec 9 mm, its magazine was full, according to a source close to the investigation. The only bullet missing was the one in the chamber, nevertheless, on 3/16/2012, after meeting with police, knowing there was only one shot fired, Natalie Jackson and Benjamin Crump told the press that night:
“You hear a shot, a clear shot then you hear a 17-year-old boy begging for his life then you hear a second shot,” Natalie Jackson said. LINK
During the investigation, it was revealed that Trayvon was shot once through the chest. The above is more spin to create outrage, and it did. This wasn’t the first time, and it would not, by any stretch, be the last. Crump knew exactly what happened, he knew what was in the police reports, as evidenced in a Roland Martin video I will post a little later in the blog.
Trayvon was labeled John Doe for the first eight hours he was in the morgue. Even though investigators went door to door the night of the shooting to interview witnesses, no one knew who Trayvon Martin was. Chad Green, the son of Tracy’s fiancée, was allegedly in a townhome along the same courtyard where Trayvon was shot, yet he neither heard, nor saw, anything.
Who was this young black man? Trayvon had no ID on him and detectives were unable to get into Martin’s phone to try and ID him because the battery was ruined by the rain.
Tracy Martin left Trayvon and his brother at home while he and his girlfriend went out to eat. When Tracy arrived home between 10:15 and 10:45 , Trayvon was not home and he could not reach him by phone. UPDATE: Phone records released in court show Tracy Martin did not call his son until 12:49 am on the 27th, and called him only once.
Tracy Martin: There wasn’t a panic that he wasn’t at home. I figured that they had gone to the movies, because they had said they might. So I laid down, thinking they would show up later.” LINK
Tracy Martin also stated Trayvon had begged him to go to the store, and Tracy finally relented. Chad, the brother to be, did not call Tracy or Brandi Green, Tracy’s fiancée to let them know Trayvon hadn’t made it home from the store. Tracy thought little of his son being gone so long to the store, or not telling his brother he was going to the movies (even though TM had to beg just for the store), and he went to bed.
“The only reason he got a chance to go to the store is because he begged his dad to go,” he said. At the time, his father and his fiancée had gone out to dinner and to watch a basketball game, leaving Martin at the townhouse, according to Martin family spokesman Ryan Julison.” LINK
Tracy said he never saw police tape or any of the commotion that was still going on during the time Tracy states he and Brandi Green returned home. Apparently they missed the media and police presence when they drove in. The media was still there until at least 5:00 a.m. Note the time on the media picture below.
Tracy Martin: “I have never seen a crime scene cleaned up so fast,” Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, told the Miami Herald. He came home that night just before 11 p.m. and saw no trace of a crime. LINK
When Trayvon was still not home the next morning, Tracy made three phone calls, the first two to find out if Trayvon had been picked up by authorities:
Tracy Martin: “I had [his girlfriend] call juvenile justice, just to check and see if anyone by the name of Trayvon Martin had been picked up. No Trayvon Martin,” the father told NNPA publishers. “My next call was to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department to see if any kid had been picked up.
“My third call was to a non-emergency number at the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department and I informed them that I was filing a missing person’s report. I let them know it hadn’t been 24 hours, but it was unusual for Trayvon not to return home. ”LINK
Tracy was visited by SPD immediately and showed Tracy a picture from the crime scene of his son. He said the picture was Trayvon. At 10:30 am on the 28th the SPD faxed this identifying information to the ME. Why it was faxed a little over 24 hours after Tracy identified him is a mystery to me. Despite this account, and no stranger to total fabrication, Natalie Jackson told the story a little differently:
Natalie Jackson: The parents knew where Trayvon was the next day when they filed a missing persons report, however, he was labeled a “John Doe” for three days, even after the parents identified him as their son. LINK 11:25
Global Grind:
For heaven’s sake, for 24 hours he was a deceased John Doe at the hospital because even the police couldn’t believe that maybe he LIVES in the community. - Michael Skolnick, GlobalGrind
3/20 Democracy Now -
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the phone? How is it that the police had it in their possession, but they never figured out who he was for several days, that his body was not claimed, Trayvon’s body, for several days?JASMINE RAND: I mean, I think it just—it shows that the Sanford Police Department—I mean, there was either corruption or just woeful ignorance on their behalf. They were calling the family, after losing their child, harassing the parents over his phone, wanting to get—you know, get to his phone, get in his phone. And they had the phone in their possession the entire time. So, you know, there are a lot of questions that I can’t answer, because they don’t make sense. LINK
First of all, there’s the glaring contradiction – did they hear from SPD or didn’t they?? We know they did, Tracy tells the story in great detail. Secondly, when Police asked for the password to access Trayvon’s phone, Tracy Martin refused to give SPD any information on Trayvon’s phone, and told them he would have to consult with his attorney and get back to them. A relative of the Martin’s called Benjamin Crump on 2/28.
Meanwhile, Police interviewed Zimmerman at least three times and he gave videotaped statements and a walk-through of what happened. ”Zimmerman never asked for an attorney or changed his story”, former Sanford police Chief Bill Lee said.
“Mr. Zimmerman’s claim is that the confrontation was initiated by Trayvon,” Police Chief Bill Lee said in an interview. “I am not going into specifics of what led to the violent physical encounter witnessed by residents. All the physical evidence and testimony we have independent of what Mr. Zimmerman provides corroborates this claim to self-defense.”LINK
Chief Bill Lee Interview:
In an interview two weeks after the incident, Lee said witness statements and physical evidence backed up Zimmerman’s version of events. He suggested that based on the timing of the call, he believed that Trayvon went out of his way to approach the person tailing him and mouth off.
“If Trayvon has made it that far, and Zimmerman is getting out of his truck, why doesn’t Trayvon keep walking?” Lee said. “He’s 70 yards from his house. I think based on the timing of the call and Zimmerman losing sight of him that he had made it to that ‘T’ (at the end of the path) and was starting to walk toward his house.
“My wish is that he would have kept walking.”
“We can’t discount (Zimmerman’s) story, based on — not evidence we put anywhere, not testimony we put in anybody’s mouth — but testimony of witnesses who were there, that called, and the physical evidence that’s there. You can’t refute it,” Lee said in the early interview. “The conclusions that are drawn from the basic information is that George Zimmerman shoots a 17-year-old kid with a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea can. And you know, those are facts: George Zimmerman did shoot Trayvon Martin, and Trayvon Martin did have a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea.
“The fact that he had a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea does not have anything to do with the facts of why George Zimmerman thought he needed to use deadly force.” LINK
In spite of this statement, Chris Serrino had recommended manslaughter charges be brought against George Zimmerman. Before those charges could be filed, State Attorney Angela Corey was assigned the case. In her press conference to announce charges against George Zimmerman, she made the following statement concerning the SPD’s investigation:
ANGELA COREY: We have numerous homicides where immediate arrests are not made. And so, to us, it did not seem unusual. I think judgment has to be made when the final decision is reached, and that’s what we would have hoped the public would have waited for. But some people did not wait. And so, an arrest can only be based upon probable cause. And so, we believe that that’s what the Sanford Police Department was trying to do. LINK
