Let it go, he walked....y'all can Monday moring QB all you want, it's not going to change anything.....

Pursue and observe are two different things. Martin did the same thing when he noticed Z except he escalated it and got shot.

That's true only if you accept Zimmerman's entire story, including the part where he claimed to not know the names of the streets in the neighborhood where he was a neighborhood watchman. If you give credence to the evidence that Zimmerman stalked Martin, then Zimmerman's gun created a huge risk.

OMFG, the horse's carcass now makes pink slime look like recognizable chunks. :deadhorse:

Yet here I am still reading... :o

Now back to our regularly scheduled slap-fight, already in progress. :P

Agreed, and I do not fault the verdict either.
Just can't understand why some people are so adamant that the Zim had zero culpability for the events of that evening.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PlnPqnfnPf...dead-horse.jpg

:D

To each his own, but the horse doesn't look dead to me. In fact, I've learned a interesting thing or two from this thread over the past 24 hours.

You've pointed out one of the most important points in this trial and future conduct of nearly everyone in a civilized nation: what to do when someone looks or acts like suspicious in your own neighborhood. The general rule which seems to be universal was that GZ "confronted" TM by getting out of his car and following TM. Here's the important question:

Why should people NOT follow otherwise suspicious people?

The answer is the same answer to other situations such as when someone else needs help: will you hurt yourself while attempting to save or help the other person? In other words- is it safe to try and help? Don't make two people drown instead of one; don't get two people electrocuted instead of one. In any suspicious person case, call the police and then what? Don't follow? Why? Because the person you are following may be a violent thug. There are two ways to find out if the person is actual worthy of your suspicion: one is to let them commit the crime, the other is to follow and they get violent- on you. Both methods show the person you followed IS A CRIMINAL. If you get beat up by following someone suspicious then your instinct was correct, period. There is no other conclusion. TM was a criminal. While you as a watch person are recommended to not follow- there is no law which says you cannot follow. If you follow and the person turns on you and assaults you- they are a criminal. TM was guilty of this and GZ defended himself. I applaud GZ and everyone who looks at the risks, knows the police most likely will not come in time to stop any crime and follows a suspicious person from a safe distance. Sometimes the criminal may have cohorts- or they may circle around and surprise you. But future criminals will be less likely to commit crimes, and if the person you follow is guilty then you've stopped crime right there. There is no crime in following a suspicious person.

Monday morning quarterbacking is exactly what's needed here. The knuckleheads who wrote the stand-your-ground playbook should pause and consider whether their game plan is maybe just just a bit idiotic. We may never know whether Zimmerman had a stand-your-ground mindset that night or whether it had anything to do with the outcome, but it is not hard to envision other scenarios where stand-your-ground causes needless deaths. So, if Monday morning quarterbacking of the Zimmerman case causes people to re-think stand-your-ground, then at least there is one silver lining to this tragic case.

Wouldn't the same logic apply to the person in Martin's shoes? He's walking home from the convenience store and there is a creepy *** cracker stalking him. Shouldn't that make Martin suspicious of Zimmerman?How so? Are you assuming that he ambushed Zimmerman? If so, then wasn't he just standing his ground?It might not be a crime, but it shouldn't be done while armed unless the person doing the following knows what he is doing. Zimmerman was in way, way over his head and he should have known that. Never in a million years would I arm myself then follow someone who wasn't threatening me or my family. The idea would never cross my mind.

Who said that? Z was/is an idiot and did stupid stuff, but the case involved events starting at the time he began having his head impact sandwiched between a fist and concrete.

What is there not to understand?

Why you have resigned yourself to the act of embracing him and his stupidity as the price of justifying his killing of a young man.

How was TM a criminal? Is Assault and Battery not a crime where you come from?

If we accept the version of events presented by Zimmerman's attorneys, then Martin might have been guilty of assault and battery. Their version of events is sufficient to create reasonable doubt concerning Zimmerman's guilt, but I wouldn't give it much more credit than that. I'm not saying one way or the other whether Martin was guilty of anything. I was just asking that question in response to MTU's claim that Martin was a criminal.

Being he was committing a felony it was his duty to retreat as he didn't and couldn't qualify for any of the scenarios outlined in 776.013.