The Trayvon Martin Case

[Dan-0]

Originally Posted by Ginger

Well, I'm not exactly a rational liberal, but I'll answer: I do think they are deceptive. But there are many other questions I'd like to see answered as well as why those photos were used....namely. all the ones Mel quoted a few times:

Thanks for the straightforward answer, sorry I left you off!
As to the other questions...

Was Trayvon armed? Had he committed a crime? Did he have a reason to be in the neighborhood? Is 7:30 too late to be walking back to watch sports with stuff you'd purchased from a store? Why do some witnesses insist that it was Martin calling for help, and others say it was Zimmerman? Why did they not administer a drug and alcohol test on both men? Was there a point where both men were running? Where's the record from the dropped call from the girlfriend? Does the bullet point of entry matched Zimmerman's account?

No, not on that night, yes, no....
The other questions will have to be answered by the Special Prosecutor or maybe a Grand Jury. Most of the police report leaks have been sealed off tight by the Prosecutor, who took all the files.

[Lil G]

back to my original quote.....

[Uno]

This seems to be out of hand. Not just here, but on all levels.

A guy follows, and starts a fight, with another guy while packing a pistol. He then uses the pistol to kill the other because he's loosing the fight. He is in the wrong. No?

The layers of gray here make NO sense to me.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by Dan-0

Thanks for the straightforward answer

LOL

I think he likes you better, Ginger: I answered him 2-3 times and he only got upset and asked me the question again.

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by ryberg

LOL

I think he likes you better, Ginger:

Most people do, Steve. We have many of the same views, so I'm not sure what else it might be....

[jeffandbecky]

I don't want to go back through all of the past day's post and single out a good post either pro or con on media bias. While the Hollywood Reporter isn't what I would consider a source of record, the article is revealing.

NBC News Accused of Editing 911 Call in Trayvon Martin Controversy (Video) - The Hollywood Reporter

[Uno]

This works for me.

The Virginian-Pilot
© March 31, 2012 It's wrong to judge George Zimmerman without knowing the facts.
It's wrong to judge Trayvon Martin without knowing the facts.
That's as true for media commentators as it is for the Sanford, Fla., police.
Yet commentators and police have thrown facts aside and commenced with judgment.
When Zimmerman, a community watch captain, told police he had shot 17-year-old Martin in self-defense, officers took Zimmerman at his word, applying Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. The law, passed in 2005, gives people broad ability to use deadly force without first trying to retreat from a confrontation.
As reported in the Orlando Sentinel, law enforcement fought passage of the law. Some in the state call it a license to murder. And since it was enacted, some police departments have ceased investigating killings in which the shooter claims self-defense, referring them directly to state prosecutors to decide.
Police in Sanford neglected to take even that step. They accepted Zimmerman's explanation of self-defense as true, despite the fact that Martin carried nothing more than Skittles and iced tea.
They accepted Zimmerman's statement as true, despite the fact that a police dispatcher told him not to follow Martin.
And they apparently made no attempt to discover who Martin was, what he was doing, where he was going, or if he, in fact, might have been defending himself.
Zimmerman may have had injuries; he may have been in a fight with Martin. Even that, however, is now disputed. The Sentinel cited anonymous sources in reporting that Martin grabbed Zimmerman's head and banged it on the ground. But if Zimmerman provoked the confrontation, as his 911 call seems to indicate, does he retain the right to claim self defense?
Race has occupied much of the conversation, as it often does in an America where race remains a lamentable, lingering division. The actions of the Sanford police stoked that debate. Martin was black; Zimmerman's father is white and his mother is Hispanic. If Zimmerman had been the one dead on the ground, would police have accepted Martin's claims of self-defense?
That hypothetical can never be answered. Just as no one can answer whether the current outcry - and criticism that accompanied it - would have occurred if the races had been reversed. In 2012, the shooting death of a teenager can become just another political football.
President Barack Obama has come under withering criticism from the usual quarters for expressing what amounts to a truism: That the killing made him think of his own daughters. "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Any parent would have a similar thought.
Given the cloudiness of what happened, and the uncertain role of race, furor over Martin's death could more constructively center on the issues raised by the Florida law itself: Did Sanford police abdicate their duties to investigate a killing by invoking the Stand Your Ground Law? Should any state have a law that encourages police to accept without question a shooter's assertion of self-defense when an unarmed man lays dead? The Justice Department and the FBI have opened a civil rights investigation, and the local prosecutor has requested a special grand jury to examine whether Zimmerman should be charged.
Here's what's true and indisputable:
Stand Your Ground lowers the threshold for the use of deadly force. Its deadly stakes raise the threshold for those examining a claim of self defense. The fury over Trayvon Martin's death swirls because only one standard - the one that left him dead - seems to apply.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by Ginger

Most people do, Steve. We have many of the same views, so I'm not sure what else it might be....

[deep six]

Originally Posted by Uno

This seems to be out of hand. Not just here, but on all levels.

A guy follows, and starts a fight, with another guy while packing a pistol. He then uses the pistol to kill the other because he's loosing the fight. He is in the wrong. No?

The layers of gray here make NO sense to me.

That is your gray area.

[deep six]

Originally Posted by Ginger

Most people do, Steve. We have many of the same views, so I'm not sure what else it might be....

I think Dan-O made that clear when he said "Thanks for the straightforward answer"

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by Dan-0

Do you (or gingele, or melliedee, or other rational liberals here) have no problem with the original photos that were used portraying Trayvon and Zimmerman or do you not feel both photos a little deceptive with respect to what both of them looked like at the time of the shooting?

Not a little, a lot. Davev asked this same question and I answered it in detail back on page 37. In short, yes, I do think the media presents a version which is sometimes deliberately prejudicial or biased toward one narrative of events over another. This happens more in the beginning when there is a general lack of information, and tends to even out as the story gathers legs. Interestingly, in this case it occurred across both political divides (not so much on main stream media but in cyberspace; Daily Caller v. Mother Jones, for example).

As to whether I have a problem with it, I do, but it is still a complicated question. Perception is a powerful thing. Martin's family obviously felt that the regular old criminal justice system had failed them the first time around, so I can understand why they would want to control the narrative and appeal to the public. Zimmerman was in a tough place, too; namely, because his life is in danger and with a reopened case he can't exactly call a press conference to give his side. That's when we begin to see his family and friends speaking out on his behalf and a few more photos beyond the 05 mugshot being made available.

The very biggest problem I have when I hear cries of media bias is with the public (I am not excluding myself, btw, we are all susceptible). There is no way with so many unanswered questions and unknowns from that night that we, or Anderson Cooper, or a right/left wing blog site, or one of our moronic buddies on facebook will have the definitive story---the version to which there is just no other possibility. No one has this. Hopefully, with a new investigation, this will come out in trial and a jury of peers (good luck finding one) will weigh the facts.

[equinenut]

Originally Posted by Uno

Given the cloudiness of what happened, and the uncertain role of race, furor over Martin's death could more constructively center on the issues raised by the Florida law itself: Did Sanford police abdicate their duties to investigate a killing by invoking the Stand Your Ground Law? Should any state have a law that encourages police to accept without question a shooter's assertion of self-defense when an unarmed man lays dead? The Justice Department and the FBI have opened a civil rights investigation, and the local prosecutor has requested a special grand jury to examine whether Zimmerman should be charged.
Here's what's true and indisputable:
Stand Your Ground lowers the threshold for the use of deadly force. Its deadly stakes raise the threshold for those examining a claim of self defense. The fury over Trayvon Martin's death swirls because only one standard - the one that left him dead - seems to apply.

Great summary,IMO. I've highlighted the points that I've been concerned about since the beginning. It's a law that needs to change, repeal would be best. It's destroyed 2 lives in this case.

[gingele]

Originally Posted by Dan-0

How do what I quoted from Irby or my comments about accuracy in reporting this story in any way imply a conspiracy or agenda by the media?

Do you (or gingele, or melliedee, or other rational liberals here) have no problem with the original photos that were used portraying Trayvon and Zimmerman or do you not feel both photos a little deceptive with respect to what both of them looked like at the time of the shooting?

Actually, the photos that the media selected to portray the two individuals involved mean very little to me, personally. I'd be happy if the story was run from day one with no photos at all - but the media needs pictures to draw the reader.

I think that at this point in the game, an unnecessary amount of emphasis is being placed on what photos the media used. Maybe it is an example of media manipulation of the general public, something that would make interesting fodder in a journalism class. But from my perspective, it's just not that big in the context of the legal case itself - I simply fail to see the relevance.

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by deep six

I think Dan-O made that clear when he said "Thanks for the straightforward answer"

Yah, I know, I was kidding around with Steve. I obviously don't think that everyone in the world likes me more than Steve.

[Savant]

Originally Posted by Uno

This seems to be out of hand. Not just here, but on all levels.

A guy follows, and starts a fight, with another guy while packing a pistol. He then uses the pistol to kill the other because he's loosing the fight. He is in the wrong. No?

The layers of gray here make NO sense to me.

And therein lies the great stonking bull elephant in the room!