http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425
George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting
1 of 8. Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman leaves the Seminole County Jail after posting bail in Sanford, Florida, April 22, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/David Manning
SANFORD, Florida | Wed Apr 25, 2012 5:20pm EDT
SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.
The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.
"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.
"Get a gun."
That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.
By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.
Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.
On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.
During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.
But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.
Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.
The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.
A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.
Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.
"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."
"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD
George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.
In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.
Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.
Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.
"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.
Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.
Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.
"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said. Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.
"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."
George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.
After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.
YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT
On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.
"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."
In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.
Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.
That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.
In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.
In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.
Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.
On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."
A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR
By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.
At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.
In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.
One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.
But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.
On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.
"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.
Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.
After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.
"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."
In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.
"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"
Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.
"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.
Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.
Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.
The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.
"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."
EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE
On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.
"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.
On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.
Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.
Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations. Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.
Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.
"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.
The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.
This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin. "These assholes," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away." After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.
Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.
Quoting Naturewoman4:It's not about searching a link that would prove Z's innocence. It's about finding out as much as one can, about this case. Why are you so afraid or against doing that? So, you believe a person is "guilty until proven innocent?" How do you know FOR SURE that T was even innocent?? I'm not saying he was or wasn't. Just, how do YOU know?? I keep hearing people say "Innocent boy...child..." yet HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT?? I'm NOT saying that FOR SURE Z or T was innocent or guilty of anything yet...I'm just going by what I've heard/read for now. I think people WANT it to be a white against the blacks. That to me is so sad. Because, it ISN'T!! This case is dividing us once again IMO. But, I personally won't let that happen. Because, I have great black friends, & I won't let anything destroy that. My black friends, just like many other in this Country are NOT like that. Against us whites. There are good & bad in ALL races. It's those that are BAD that we should speak of. Not the color of their skin being automatically the BAD ones.
Quoting Sisteract:
Why the search for any thread to prove Zimmerman not guilty of overstepping his legal bounds?
He killed an innocent teenager, END of story. Let the trial begin.
I'm flummoxed by you.
How do we know Trayvon was innocent?
What is he guilty of?
Walking while black?
Walking while young?
Being unfamiliar with his surroundings?
This is exactly what's wrong with this story. The VICTIM is considered up for discussion as potentially being a VICTIMIZER without their being one shred of evidence that this is the case.
Its a safe assumption due to the fact that he was not in possession of any criminal tools or stolen booty.
So now walking gives the assuption of guilt to the masses, or only if you walk in a hoodie.
Quoting Naturewoman4:It's not about searching a link that would prove Z's innocence. It's about finding out as much as one can, about this case. Why are you so afraid or against doing that? So, you believe a person is "guilty until proven innocent?" How do you know FOR SURE that T was even innocent?? I'm not saying he was or wasn't. Just, how do YOU know?? I keep hearing people say "Innocent boy...child..." yet HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT?? I'm NOT saying that FOR SURE Z or T was innocent or guilty of anything yet...I'm just going by what I've heard/read for now. I think people WANT it to be a white against the blacks. That to me is so sad. Because, it ISN'T!! This case is dividing us once again IMO. But, I personally won't let that happen. Because, I have great black friends, & I won't let anything destroy that. My black friends, just like many other in this Country are NOT like that. Against us whites. There are good & bad in ALL races. It's those that are BAD that we should speak of. Not the color of their skin being automatically the BAD ones.
Quoting Sisteract:
Why the search for any thread to prove Zimmerman not guilty of overstepping his legal bounds?
He killed an innocent teenager, END of story. Let the trial begin.
How far you go in life depends on your being: tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of both the weak and strong. Because someday in life you would have been one or all of these. GeorgeWashingtonCarver
Quoting Radarma:
Quoting FromAtoZ:
The hoodie, by itself, is nothing more than an article of clothing. As with many other articles of clothing, they become associated with crime. However, taking that hoodie alone, in to account and making the assumption that, because of that hoodie, the person wearing it was up to no good........that falls on the person making such an assumption.
Seems to me that putting the hoodie up was not Trayvon's way of telling Zimmerman he was some punk who was up to no good. But more of a way to try to deflect the man who was following him for no reason.
Those who put so much stock in to a piece of clothing versus the actual acts do not help in the areas of stereotyping.
I hope those who blame the hoodie never put another one in, never put that hood up for any reason, at any time.
Just make the damn piece of clothing illegal and be done with it. That way no punks will be able to 'hide'.
I wear hoodies.
I wear hoodies too, and many times with the hood up (cause this old bag of bones) freezes easily. I have a variety of colors, heaven help me when I walk my BIL's dog (when he is on vacation) in his gated community. I often take a can of Country Time with me. Jus' sayin.
lynda
Quoting survivorinohio:Its a safe assumption due to the fact that he was not in possession of any criminal tools or stolen booty.
So now walking gives the assuption of guilt to the masses, or only if you walk in a hoodie.
Quoting Naturewoman4:It's not about searching a link that would prove Z's innocence. It's about finding out as much as one can, about this case. Why are you so afraid or against doing that? So, you believe a person is "guilty until proven innocent?" How do you know FOR SURE that T was even innocent?? I'm not saying he was or wasn't. Just, how do YOU know?? I keep hearing people say "Innocent boy...child..." yet HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT?? I'm NOT saying that FOR SURE Z or T was innocent or guilty of anything yet...I'm just going by what I've heard/read for now. I think people WANT it to be a white against the blacks. That to me is so sad. Because, it ISN'T!! This case is dividing us once again IMO. But, I personally won't let that happen. Because, I have great black friends, & I won't let anything destroy that. My black friends, just like many other in this Country are NOT like that. Against us whites. There are good & bad in ALL races. It's those that are BAD that we should speak of. Not the color of their skin being automatically the BAD ones.
Quoting Sisteract:
Why the search for any thread to prove Zimmerman not guilty of overstepping his legal bounds?
He killed an innocent teenager, END of story. Let the trial begin.
In a gated community with a history of non-violent crimes
Or in SoCal where jewelry stores were robbed by people in hoodies.
It boogles a reasonable mind-
Something is askew (reasoning perhaps?) when one is desperately trying to find a reason for innocence when there is none.
Previous non-violent crimes in the area?
Clothing and hood vs no hood (it was raining).
Skin color of previous perps.
Minor head scrapes vs a fatal GSW to the chest.
I wish people would stop ignoring the fact that Zimmerman followed Trayvon- it's documented in audio witness accts.
Trayvon is protected by SYG as he is being pursued.
2 key phrases:
TM: "Why are you following me?"
GZ: "the a-holes always get away."
It's some CM on here, the public, & people like the Black Panthers, Sharpton & Jackson that has made it about 'race'. Also, on the Media because they wanted to stir things up, to help their ratings. I'm sure you know that. Again, I'll keep saying this, HOW do YOU & OTHERS know what happen? You speak of 44 mins. connect the dots, HOW do you know for sure? That's just what I'm not getting. When people speak out, like they were there. They are assuming. I'm sure they know what happens when you 'assume'....
Quoting Sisteract:
Quoting Naturewoman4:
It's not about searching a link that would prove Z's innocence. It's about finding out as much as one can, about this case. Why are you so afraid or against doing that? So, you believe a person is "guilty until proven innocent?" How do you know FOR SURE that T was even innocent?? I'm not saying he was or wasn't. Just, how do YOU know?? I keep hearing people say "Innocent boy...child..." yet HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT?? I'm NOT saying that FOR SURE Z or T was innocent or guilty of anything yet...I'm just going by what I've heard/read for now. I think people WANT it to be a white against the blacks. That to me is so sad. Because, it ISN'T!! This case is dividing us once again IMO. But, I personally won't let that happen. Because, I have great black friends, & I won't let anything destroy that. My black friends, just like many other in this Country are NOT like that. Against us whites. There are good & bad in ALL races. It's those that are BAD that we should speak of. Not the color of their skin being automatically the BAD ones.
Quoting Sisteract:
Why the search for any thread to prove Zimmerman not guilty of overstepping his legal bounds?
He killed an innocent teenager, END of story. Let the trial begin.
Sorry, I have never focused on the racial aspect (you have though), but rather the Yahoo aspect. Zimmerman was a loose cannon, a man who desperately wanted to be involved in law enforcement, tried, but failed. I am not surprised he was turned away, IF his actions on the night of the crime are any indication of his critical thinking and following instructions skills.
I have heard the released information and facts to date, in addition to the timeline of 44 minutes....connecting the dots it is not hard.
Let the trial begin-
.
Quoting Tricornes:
I'm not giving anyone a lot of power, I'm simply stating what the person said. The article didn't say whether she personally saw anyone breaking into the house, but it didn't say she didn't either.
I believe if she saw something with her own eye(s) she would have said so.
But it is not just one woman, there was a break-in involving three black men which was witnessed by roofers, the perpetrators were apprehended.
One guy was caught and confessed. We don't know if the other two even knew what he was doing.
Nobody said blacks are responsible for all burglaries,
Throughout this post the Op has said blacks were committing all the burglaries and others have agreed that that is why it was "natural" for George to suspect, follow, and kill Trayvon Martin. The people agreeing with the Op have stated this belief many times in other posts ever since the murder.
white people commit more crimes simply because they constitute the majority in this country.
True.
We are talking about this specific area and what was reported and witnessed.
Right. George Zimmerman called the police almost 50 times last year reporting suspicious black people or saying he saw a black person leaving a burgled home. In all the time I've been following this case, no other race has been reported as "suspicious." Apparently no other race commits crime in that neighborhood.
But regardless of all that there is no indication that Martin was even noticed because of his color, that is all in your head.
See where I note that no other race has ever been reported as having committed a crime in that neighborhood. I didn't mention Martin in particular in this string of replies. That's all in YOUR head.
He never even mentioned the person's color until the dispatcher directly asked him.
You and Jeff Dunham; arguing with yourselves.
All this "he was profiling him for his color" is complete conjecture on your part and on any one's part.
LOL! You sound as if you sit down to dinner with Zimmerman every day. If you don't, you, too are conjecturing. I don't believe I have ever said Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin. I have said he targeted Trayvon because he was easy prey; skinny, young, black, unarmed.
But you seem to have nothing but conjecture,
That's all any of us have, other than the tape of Zimmerman's call to the police, Zimmerman's criminal history, the 911 call with Trayvon yelling for help and Trayvon Martin's dead body.
now you impugn the integrity of the witness without knowing anything about her,
I didn't impugn the old lady; I said she probably goes to neighborhood watch meetings to socialize and repeated to the reporter what she's been told. She wasn't a witness to anything; she was a little old lady enjoying 15 seconds of fame. Not so famous, actually, as she didn't want to be identified.
you imagine some weird scenario without any justification.
To which weird scenaro do you refer?
You accuse Zimmerman of faking or partaking in burglaries without any evidence or even any rumour of evidence, you are intent on making out Zimmerman to be a screw-up and a monster.
He IS a screw-up and monster. I offered a possible/probable scenario. I think it's a pretty good chance he is responsible for the lion's share of that community's crime. How I think is how detectives think; supposition and surmisal is a legitimate part of the process of crime-solving. Let's not forget that Trayvon Martin's murder isn't the only crime committed in that neighborhood and someone should be trying to figure out why, all of a sudden, that neighborhood has experienced such a tremendous rise in crime since the Zimmermans moved in.
Is it because he is perceived by you as being white? Are YOU the one who is engaged in profiling based on color?
I don't perceive of George as being white and his race never mattered to me. Trayvon's race matters. I've always believed the reason the cops didn't arrest George on the spot is because Trayvon is just another black male and that too many cops and certain wp believe a dead n...ginger is a good ginger...because we all are criminals or potential criminals. And scary.
And what is this "for all we know" garbage? Seems everything you write is "for all we know", you seem to be living in some fantasyland where all you dream up becomes fact.
Show where I wrote that any of my scenarios are fact. I would love for some good detective in Sanford to do some speculating and surmising to try to figure out who and what George Zimmerman is, other than a girlfriend beater, a scofflaw who resisted arrest and assaulted a law enforcement officer, a bouncer for illegal house parties who lost his temper and threw a female drunk across the room, chronically unemployed because he was unable to hold a legitimate job and a neighborhood watch volunteer who zealously phoned in calls on any movement of a black person in the neighborhood who killed an innocent 17-year-old boy.
George was so intent on targeting black males as criminals that he said something so alarming to a black man who had lived in that neighborhood many years that the man reported he was afraid to go out after dark. Oh...do you know about the black guy Zimmerman scared so much he was afraid to leave his home to take his habitual evening walks through his neighborhood? I'd say that black man IS a witness - to the mindset of George Zimmerman.
So to you all white people think a certain way, and any black person who steps forward to agree with a white person is an Uncle Tom.
Show where I wrote that.
Does that just about cover it?
Not even close.
Quoting JonJon:"One black neighbor." Why do certain people give one person so much power? Oh, yeah; it's because that person supports what the writer believes.
I haven't seen where the whole neighborhood of the 20% blacks have come out to support George Zimmerman. One woman bought into the reports that blacks were on a crime spree. She didn't say she saw anyone breaking into a house, did she?
It's the same ol' same ol'. It's so easy for some wp to believe the few blacks are responsible for all the crime. There's 50% whites compared to 20% blacks. There's no way the blacks are responsible for all the burglaries. I would sure like to see the stats for that neighborhood. For all we know, there's only been a few burglaries in the last year since George started making his bogus 911 calls to direct suspicion from himself.
Was the black woman the only black person in the room, the elephant? She's probably a little old woman who goes to blockwatch to socialize and only knows and easily accepts what she's told. Some people are so gullible.
Quoting Tricornes:"Though civil-rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Trayvon, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.
"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."
"The homeowners association asked him to launch a Neighborhood Watch"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425
So now Zimmerman was burglarizing houses himself to make himself look good? I guess he was taking criminal justice classes so he could learn how to avoid the law, huh.
Apparently you are not aware that there are more crimes in poor neighborhoods than wealthy neighborhoods. It could be that there were more sightings of burglars in the neighborhood because there were more burglaries in the neighborhood, oh but no that can't be it, that's too simple.
Quoting JonJon:That would be treating any black person and all black people as a criminal or a threat because of the acts of other people. In whose mind(s) is that reasonable and normal? The cops who profile? Crazy wannabe cops?
I still say it's a good chance Zimmerman made up his sightings of burglars who always got away and possibly broke into a few houses himself, either for personal gain or to convince people a threat existed and there was cause for him to exist. I mean, there's no need for a neighborhood watch captain if there's no crime spree, is there?
The only way there could be as many sightings of burglars as George called in is if there was a ring of thieves working that neighborhood and that was not a suffiently affluent neighborhood to warrant a concerted effort to rob the neighborhood.
Other than George's sightings, we have seen only two or three other people who saw any burglars so one may reasonably question if George really saw all those bogeymen or if he merely created them so he could be recognized and thanked for his "work." George Zimmerman is a screw-up who finally found a way to seem respectable and who took it to a level he should never have taken his need to be important and revered.
Quoting Tricornes:Zimmerman was following a black person because that apparently was the predominant color of the people who were breaking into houses in the neighborhood as identified by witnesses.
Quoting JonJon:
Quoting Radarma:As most of you know by now, I don't respond to lunatic conspiracy theories and it is a crying shame that some want to believe, and have others believe, that people are just out to get black young men.
But this post and the body of your replies is about justifying stalking and killing black boys. At the very least, it's about painting black males as burglars who terrorized that neighborhood and painting George as a good guy.
Quoting EireLass:
Quoting Radarma:And IF you have nothing to hide, WHY on earth would you put your hood up? Anyone have any answers???
I don't know....suspicious if you ask me. Look at this one with a hood up, AND running from something!!
A thirty-year-old man should be following him in his SUV.
Who would you save?
- Radarma
on Apr. 28, 2012 at 7:43 PM