Thread: Trayvon Martin (pardon me if this subject is verboten.)

interesting timeline put together by Reuters:

Business Insider put together some chronological bullet points highlighting the article’s most important points:

Zimmerman grew up in a mixed-race household
He was an altar boy at his Caltholic church from age 7-17
He is bilingual
After he finished high school, he studied for and got an insurance license
In 2004, Zimmerman and a black friend opened an Allstate insurance office (which soon failed)
Zimmerman’s 2005 arrest for “resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer” occurred after he shoved an under-cover alcohol control agent at a bar when the agent was trying to arrest an underage friend of his
Zimmerman married his wife, Shellie, in 2007. They rented a house in Twin Lakes. Twin Lakes is about 50% white, 20% Hispanic, and 20% black.
In 2009, Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College
In the fall of 2009, a pit bull broke free twice and once cornered Shellie in the Zimmermans’ yard. George Zimmerman asked a police officer whether he should buy pepper spray. The cop told him pepper spray wasn’t fast enough and recommended that he get a gun.
By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes “was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins.” In several of the cases, witnesses said the robbers were young black men
In July 2011, a black teenager stole a bicycle off the Zimmermans’ porch
In August of 2011, a neighbor of the Zimmermans, Olivia Bertalan, was home during the day when two young black men entered her house. She hid in a room upstairs and called the police. When the police arrived, the two men, who had been trying to take a TV, fled. One of them ran through the Zimmermans’ yard.
After the break-in, George Zimmerman stopped by the Bertalans and gave Olivia a card with his name and number on it. He told her to visit his wife Shellie if she felt unsafe.
The police recommended that Bertalan get a dog. She moved away instead. Zimmerman got a second dog–a Rottweiler.
In September, several concerned residents of the neighborhood, including Zimmerman, asked the neighborhood association to create a neighborhood watch. Zimmerman was asked to run it.
In the next month, two more houses in the neighborhood were robbed.
A community newsletter reminded residents to report any crimes to the police and then call “George Zimmerman, our captain.”
On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman spotted a young black man looking into the windows of a neighbor’s empty house. He called the police and said “I don‘t know what he’s doing. I don’t want to approach him, personally.” The police sent a car, but by the time they arrived, the man was gone.
On February 6th, another house was burglarized. Witnesses said two of the robbers were black teenagers. One, who had prior burglary convictions, was soon caught with a laptop stolen from the house.
Two weeks later, Zimmerman spotted Travyon Martin and called the police. The last time he had done this, the suspect got away. This time, he disregarded police instructions and followed. A few minutes later, Martin was dead.

Other than to point out that Zimmerman was probably not racist or targeting Trayvon for his skin color, is any of that relevant?

Originally Posted by Bruno

Other than to point out that Zimmerman was probably not racist or targeting Trayvon for his skin color, is any of that relevant?

That he was not a racist is an extremely important point. It negates all the hate mongering.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

That he was not a racist is an extremely important point. It negates all the hate mongering.

Ok from the media circus 'racism' perspective you are correct.
I was just wondering if it had any relevance on the legal proceedings.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Ok from the media circus 'racism' perspective you are correct.
I was just wondering if it had any relevance on the legal proceedings.

#1 It would have relevance if they tried to turn it into a "hate" crime. Hate crime is a stupid idea IMO.

#2 They could use it to show that Zimmerman had a valid reason to be suspicious of Travon.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Ok from the media circus 'racism' perspective you are correct.
I was just wondering if it had any relevance on the legal proceedings.

Like Crotalus said, it's about motive. If he can be painted to have racial motivations then it can be argued that race was the cause of the shooting and not in self defense, otherwise the self defense argument is more believable.

This is where the media, sadly, really affected the case. NBC played the emergency call without context which certainly made it seem like he had racial motivations, but in the unedited version you can see that Zimmerman was answering a direct question from the emergency dispatcher.

I'm sorry but this topic is not appropriate for SRP. We are about shaving, etc. NOT this topic.

Originally Posted by LeBois

I'm sorry but this topic is not appropriate for SRP. We are about shaving, etc. NOT this topic.

Dear Member:

Being as you are pretty new, you might not realize that the Conversation Forum (this one) is NOT about shaving only it is here for gentlemen to discuss (almost) whatever we feel we want to..


Nothing says you have to

Thank You
Glen Senior Mod SRP


Now back to the topic

Originally Posted by LeBois

I'm sorry but this topic is not appropriate for SRP. We are about shaving, etc. NOT this topic.

Razorist!......

Originally Posted by LeBois

I'm sorry but this topic is not appropriate for SRP. We are about shaving, etc. NOT this topic.

I'm sorry, but it is not up to you to determine what is appropriate for SRP.

I realize that we are different in this than other forums, but up here we mange to get along and be polite to each other despite differences in political, religious, or other opinions. We are a gentleman's forum after all, and we can talk about pretty much everything without getting overly exited and insulting each other.