onosson said:
Yea, rewrite a law because of a case that probably represents .01% of cases it can be applied to.
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Another Shooting
- Thread starter Dr. Cheese
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Yea, rewrite a law because of a case that probably represents .01% of cases it can be applied to.
Dr. Cheese said:
Might be, but its a law that's been on the books for some time now, and in 99.99% of cases, its not an issue, because there are witnesses, or easily assertainable circumstances, I.e. an attacker in a home, or video cameras in a parking lot, or what have you, and a much less potentially racially motivated crime.
This case is a tragedy to be sure, and I'm sorry to hear about it, but the reaction of many people, here and on Facebook and other places I've seen reaction to this story has been to hang zimmerman by his big toes and stone him to death.
One other thing, running from Zimmerman may have been quite rational. So many give Zimmerman the benefit of doubt, why not Martin? We don't know how Zimmerman approached Martin or what he said.
If all it takes is the reasonable perception of imminent violence for a person to use lethal force on someone else, what is to prevent this law from being misused to justify out-and-out murder? (I'm not saying that's what this incident was, by the way). Clearly, that is not the intended purpose of this law, so why not be a little more careful with the wording of this law so that it doesn't set up situations like that?
Why should some one who has not been convicted of a crime be treated like he has been?
Again, doing what? Saying that if you initiate the contact and then you wind up having to use your firearm you're guilty? That is part of the law, you can't pick a fight and then kill some one? I'm pretty sure you can still be prosecuted for that, at least that's what I was told when I was taking my CCW course.
Fact is, it's an unfortunate situation, but at the moment, we know pretty much nothing about the situation that caused Zimmerman to draw his weapon and kill Martin, other than that Zimmerman followed him, and was found with a bloody nose and back of the head, with grass on his shirt. Whether he did that to himself or not is up to the police and their investigations to determine, but the fact of the matter is that no one here knows how the event went down, so calling for this Zimmerman guy's head, or for laws to be re-written is, at best, premature.
I don't have any suggestions as to how this law could/should be altered, I'm just commenting that it would seem to permit some unintended consequences: 1. that two parties in a fight might BOTH reasonably claim self-defence and be justified in using lethal force; 2. that someone could easily kill someone else, simply claim they feared for their safety and avoid even being arrested.
Whether either of these situations ever even happens, I'd think it would be worth it to try and avoid them in some way, if possible. I'm not sure why you think it's not worth doing.
What I'm saying is that this particular case is a terrible case to try and re-write a law about imo, because it's a 1 in 1,000,000 or greater scenario. If the law were bad, or created un-intended circumstances I'd think there'd be a lot more cases either like this, or of people dying in bar fights and what not. The fact is there aren't, and we STILL don't know for sure how the entire event went down.
I'm not suggesting rewriting it for this case - I never knew of this law or laws like it until this thread, to be honest. But in thinking about the law as it was reported here, the scenarios I outlined above came to mind. It seems to be not very well thought out, as far as I can see. Why not fix it?
D
Fine, I'll agree that lots of white people have done lots of bad things to lots of black people.
Now, explain how any of them have anything to do with this case.
The only reason to reference them is to tie them to this case somehow. So go for it, I'm all ears.
Would it make sense if the situation were reversed and Martin had killed Zimmerman and was free and I said "well look at what Willie Horton did"? as some reason to pursue a course of action against Martin? (for those who don't know who Willie Horton was, google him.)
Of course it wouldn't
As for being thin skinned I think your definition of being thin skinned is pointing out when you cross the line from pointing out what could be an injustice and move on to basic racial rabbal rousing. Bringing unrelated violent acts from the past into this case is rabbal rousing. I don't take them as a shot at me.
I believe that this racial rabbal rousing is equally as counterproductive to race relations as a bunch of klansmen chanting hate slogans in the town square. It's two sides of the same coin. And I think you know it. And I think you like it. I don't believe you'd be happy if there were racial harmony, based on what seems to be your preoccupation with pointing out racial disharmony.
I'd say the same thing to a white person who felt the need to point out every injustice committed by a black person against a white person too. I just haven't seen any people doing so here on talkbass. If you see any, please point them out to me.
*Sigh*
You probably wont, partly because instances like this hardly ever happen the other way around. Just like cases where police have shot ppl in the back or "accidentally". Good luck trying to find one. I mean, thats just how its gone down.
As far as the case, I think the longer they withhold info and truth behind it, the more ppl are going to be outraged and upset. If Zimmerman is brought to trial, I dont see him getting off too easy.
You probably wont, partly because instances like this hardly ever happen the other way around. Just like cases where police have shot ppl in the back or "accidentally". Good luck trying to find one. I mean, thats just how its gone down.
As far as the case, I think the longer they withhold info and truth behind it, the more ppl are going to be outraged and upset. If Zimmerman is brought to trial, I dont see him getting off too easy.
D
Please review my post. I said:
I'd say the same thing to a white person who felt the need to point out every injustice committed by a black person against a white person too.
I was speaking of injustices in general.
I'm going to stand down, this is becoming yet another "your race is more racist than my race" thread.
I don't believe that, but clearly some here do.
OIC, I thought you had the impressions that *I* was accusing the PD of racism. I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still not clear on all the details of the story yet.
My whole problem with the incident is that it seems that Zimmerman didn't NEED to confront the youth. It seems that he could have avoided it and waited for law enforcement to arrive. He chose not to. Whether Zimmerman was motivated by racial hatred or not is not completely clear to me yet. It does seem that way to me so far.
I'm personal friends with a police officer on the Anchorage PD (he was an Army buddy of mine) and he told me that here, it doesn't matter if it's a righteous killing or not...if you kill someone you WILL be arrested and detained for questioning while the investigation begins. He said it's a matter of policy; they are required to arrest anyone who causes the death of another person until things can get sorted out.
I am shocked that Florida doesn't handle it that way. You kill someone in Florida and the police on scene have to make an immediate determination about whether they will have enough to convict you before they arrest you? At that point, they haven't even had a chance to investigate anything yet. That seems like a ridiculously unfair burden to put on the officers on-scene. Seems like they should scoop up anyone involved in the killing, question them, start the investigation, and then decides who gets to stay in jail and who gets to go home. I must be misunderstanding this.
Something's fishy about this whole story.
Smokin' Toaster said:
The past makes all the difference in the world because justice is about precedent and consistency. The Martin case fits a pattern "accidental" killings of innocent black people that is far too common to be simply ignored as misfortunes.
My life and the lives of young people who look
like me are far too cheap in this country.
When there is a clear discrepancy between the treatment of black who claim self defense and others, the lack of consistency is simply injustice.
The idea that the past is irrelevant to a legal case goes against the most basic concepts of law. Past practice, precedent, and consistency, are what legal arguments revolve around.
The best way to shut a "rabble rouser" is to be able to show that a given case is being in way that is consistent with similar cases where the victim is not someone who belongs to a historically oppressed group. I doubt if the local police can do this.
totallyfrozen said:
Zimmerman was taken but never formally arrested, even on suspicion charge. This is a big part of what is so upsetting. IME, the police are pretty good at finding reasons when they want to detain someone. If they wanted to hold Zimmerman , they could have found a charge.
The 911 tapes have been released. Apparently, they describe someone being shot and someone crying for help. Martin's family said they feel the tapes show that justice has not been done but until I hear or read more, I cannot judge for myself.
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