Zimmerman’s brother responds: Obama’s statement reinforced ‘mythology surround-
ing the case’
While he disagreed with Obama’s characterization of some of the facts of the
case, he agreed that much work needs to be done to improve the lot of black youth
across the country.
President Obama said in the press conference, “When Trayvon Martin was first
shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is
Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
The President said that the nation must address the problems faced by young
black males.
“We need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce
our African-American boys,” he said, adding that he and First Lady Michelle Obama
often discuss the issue.
Zimmerman Jr. told TheDC that his brother was doing exactly what the president
suggested well before he encountered Trayvon Martin in February 2012.
“George is a Hispanic man who was mentoring two African American children be-
fore the incident,” Zimmerman recalled. He told The DC that the father of those
children is serving a life sentence in prison. “It goes without saying that Afri-
can Americans are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and I think
George was trying to break that cycle.”
“I can’t think of a better way to encourage children than to take the time to
show them that they matter as people and, more importantly to society at large,”
than engaging in mentoring roles, said Zimmerman Jr.
The President acknowledged that Florida’s Stand Your Ground law did not neces-
sarily apply in the Zimmerman case, but he addressed Stand Your Ground laws in
his unscripted remarks.
“And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like
these ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws, I just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin
was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?”
Zimmerman Jr. told TheDC that “the scenario [the President] laid out was am-
biguous.”
Florida governor Rick Scott, a Republican, held a prayer vigil on Thursday with
a group called the Dream Defenders. That group hopes to get Stand Your Ground
repealed, but Scott has said that he has no plans to repeal the law.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/19/zimmermans-brother-responds-obamas-statement-only-reinforced-mythology-surrounding-the-case/
One objection may be Obama implying that the GZ/TM case was one of TM, an Afri-
can American showing good behavior so a non-African-American hassling them sug-
gests implicit racism. We don't have a nice guy and a bad guy with those two--we
have two not so nice guys, with the African American being territorial about hav-
ing a phone call on someone else's property at night in the rain and an off duty
Neighborhood Watch guy who made a nominal look for his whereabouts beyond report-
ing it from a truck. Either of them has said something insensitive about someone
of another ethnicity or shoved someone at the least, TM more recently, and kneel-
ing to pin someone's arms down while beating them in the head is sadistic--not a
good promo photo for Skittles.
The prosecuter wants to get GZ on the stand and find difficulties in GZ's test-
imony, but there are several problems with that:
1. I have to tilt my head and say, "Huh?" about some of the things both GZ and
Jeantel said.
2. The prosecuter said some such things, like forced points, during the trial.
His south to north chase idea would add to them.
If TM was confronted by GZ at TM's father's house, he was home. Why didn't he
just pull out the ID from his wallet or knock on the door to get someone inside
to identify him?
None of the witnesses said they heard TM or GZ south of the shooting scene,
and Jeantel may have misunderstood where TM was during her phone call.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zimmerman#Witness_accounts
Imagining GZ pulling out his gun to scare TM by TM's father's house at the
south end of the block just leaves us with a couple more "I don't know"s we can't
decide with. Did GZ, unprovoked, scare TM with his gun or did TM provoke GZ till
GZ pulled his gun on TM? Did GZ chase with his gun drawn or run after TM tried
to disarm him? The fight up north seems unlikely either way--either TM would
keep running or disarm GZ before making a fistfight of it.
You still end up with TM on GZ, kneeling on GZ's arms and punching his head,
except while leaving the gun in GZ's right hand. But there's a biological reason
to doubt that was the scenario: wrists bend. If it's imagined anyway, GZ's de-
fense claim is still credible except he took a longer beating with his gun drawn
before using it, still not wanting to risk TM would grab it and use it on him.
Prosecution would still need to show that worse happened beyond a reasonable
doubt, and the south to north chase is doubtful as a way to contest it.
