The George Zimmerman Thing

George Zimmerman was a lot like the Jonah Hill character from The Watch.  An overzealous cop-wannabe ready to take the law into his own hands.  His neighborhood had been victimized by a series of robberies, so he and his neighbors did have reason to be cautious, suspicious, on the lookout.

Trayvon Martin was minding his own business.

Zimmerman saw him and called 911 to report suspicious behavior.  The 911 operator told him not to follow him.  Zimmerman ignored that.  Zimmerman also had his gun with him.  Why?  What is this guy doing?  What did he think would happen?

We only know George's side of the story, and we have pieces of eye-witnesses, ear-witnesses to what happened.  George followed Trayvon, they got into a fight, Trayvon was winning, George feared for his life, and George shot him in the heart.  An unarmed teenager.

Why did he have to kill him?  Wouldn't a leg wound have sufficed?

I get the letter of the law in Florida. At the time he shot, he feared for his life and engaged in self-defense.  It still seems like the prosecutors could have gone for lesser charges, and they would've had a much better chance at getting a conviction.  It was ridiculous to go for second-degree murder.

But this state is also the one that put Marissa Alexander behind bars for 20 years for standing her ground, and no one died in that case.  If there's any justice, her case will be revisited.  I know Zimmerman didn't need to cite "stand your ground" for his case, but it is fascinating that both cases happened in Florida.

The jury made the correct decision, from what I've read about the case.  The jury was just given a skewed choice.  The media has been atrocious through this whole thing, race-baiting and playing up divisions.  MSNBC became the "Zimmerman's a white murderer" channel while FNC became the "Zimmerman's a hard-working Latino protecting himself" channel.  You could just tell them and CNN and HLN were dying for some riots to start.

Martin's parents did everything I would have done.  The whole country knows Trayvon's name.  George, I guess, learned his lesson, and hopefully other would-be vigilantes learned theirs.  And the lesson is not "feel free to kill black teens" because would anyone want to go through what Zimmerman did the past year?  And that's nothing compared to what he put Trayvon's family through by not just aiming a little lower, or not getting out of his car, or not profiling Trayvon in the first place.

Don't be stupid!