If you really haven't heard of the Martin incident then you must live in a box. Maybe Martin doesn't sound familiar. George Zimmerman ring a bell? Zimmerman was a Florida man that shot and killed a seventeen year old boy last month and claimed it was self defense. The police department responded and came to the conclusion there was no evidence to go against Zimmerman's claim and he walked away a free man. I'm really going on the basis most people have knowledge of the details of this case moving forward so if you don't I recommend Googling it and getting up to speed.
The discussions that are taking place surrounding this sad event are completely mind boggling to me. The first thing I read on Facebook about the incident was a post that was fascinated with the race issue of the story. One person insisted race couldn't be a factor because Zimmerman is Mexican and not white. I'm not trying to sound to cliche-ish but what the fuck? There is absolutely no sound reasoning in that argument at all. I've listened to many of the 911 calls and it seems to me (and many others I might add) that Zimmerman says "fucking coons". I don't care what race Zimmerman happens to be, if he went after another person because of the other person's race that's what makes it racially motivated. The race of the person committing the assault is a non factor. Even if Zimmerman were black it would still be racially motivated if he was motivated because he didn't like "coons". The absurdity of this argument is embarrassing to intelligence.
Secondly, this entire ordeal has spawned an attack against the "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida which seems to be "lighter" on the self defense claim. This perplexes me. The law, in essence, makes it legal for people to claim self defense without first trying to flee from the danger. Over 60% of our States have some form of Stand Your Ground already. The courts, for many decades, have been distancing themselves from the idea that one must retreat prior to defending himself. The precedent of retreating began before the public started carrying guns. Over time most people have gravitated toward the thinking that it seems reasonable to defend your life whenever you feel it is threatened without check offs (running away) being mandated.
Critics of this law label it a "shoot first ask questions later law". That's like calling the insanity defense the "eat twinkies ask questions later law". If I went out and hunted a seventeen year old boy and shot him and then claimed insanity would you be worried I would go unpunished? The insanity defense almost never works, even when the person is actually crazy. Who cares what the defense tactic is called? But that's exactly what we're focused on, the self defense law. Eating a box Twinkies and claiming I went crazy doesn't mean the insanity defense will work for me. Just like if I instigated a confrontation and then shot the other person and claimed self defense. Why would my defense matter? What matters is the facts of the case. What I say I did isn't really evidence. If I say I defended myself that's not a fact. I could say I didn't rob a bank, that doesn't mean it's true. If a bank got robbed and there are things that show I did rob it, me saying I didn't doesn't matter at all. That Zimmerman claims self defense and then we focus on the Stand Your Ground law is absurd.
The most maddening thing of all is what we fail to actually focus on: how we make sure to execute justice. There are many definitions of justice but I think the word "fairness" seems adequate for this essay. We, society, hold the idea of fairness in high regard. We've made it a fundamental right that everyone receives this fairness in many facets of life, and even death. We give authority to government agencies to make sure everyone is playing by the fairness rule. We just assume the agency granted this tremendous power operates using the fairness guidelines as their own standard for carrying out their various procedures and investigations.
I was a deputy for eight years. I patrolled the streets and responded to numerous and various calls for service. I was dispatched to shootings, stabbings, cut them up in pieces and put them in the trash can calls. I'm not knocking Tulare County at all when I talk about our rank among the other state law enforcement agencies. We were one of the poorest counties in California. We struggled to hire quality deputies simply because we were broke and couldn't afford it. We had dead air spots in the county where I would be dispatched to a call and know I couldn't communicate with any of my back up (radio towers are really expensive and Alpaugh isn't that important). Again, I'm not setting this up to rip on my former employer. I'm mentioning this to demonstrate we weren't solving crimes CSI fashion. We were a bunch of hicks that just tried to put all the pieces together and make the best decision based on the law.
I mention my former job so I could tell you from experience I just can't imagine a scenario where I (or any of my partners) respond to the Zimmerman call and he walks away free. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming he is guilty. I'm simply saying I can't comprehend how I could respond to a call where a seventeen year old kid, weaponless, lay dead on the ground and I decide he was the perpetrator and tell the guy that shot him, "have a good evening". I (most likely detectives would take the case over) would listen to the 911 calls. I would interview witnesses. I would take a blood sample from both people. The Sanford Police took a sample from only the kid that was shot. That's just wrong. There is no way this decision to let Zimmerman go free would rest in my hands, it's simply inconceivable that would be the case. It would surely go up the chain of command. I would be derelict in my duties and my commanding officer and his commanding officer would be negligent and liable if they didn't pass this on. They certainly know there are ramifications to follow from letting this man walk away free and they don't want to be the one to "make the call" if they don't have to. That's why they pass it up the line.
A month later Zimmerman is still free and Martin is still dead. The Chief of Police for Sanford "temporarily" and "voluntarily" stepped aside today. After a month of the story gaining traction on the internet the national media (that really liberal group that constantly searches for things to show the evils of conservative thinking and publicly ridicule their positions) finally picked up coverage of Martin's death. It's mind numbing how we aren't outraged at how the system has failed us.
I challenge you to perform one simple task. Truly try to become a blank slate for a brief moment. Imagine you have no position on guns, self defense, political party, you're just blank and all of those ideas are foreign to you. Take a moment, get to that point. Now just take what we know in this case and examine it at its most basic of levels. A boy was approached by a man with a gun and was shot and killed. That happened. That's not disputed. Now imagine what it would take to convince you that man shouldn't be in jail. Did you answer "if the man said he feared for his life so he shot the kid"? Truly, would that be enough for you? Would you demand the man's background be looked into? Would you demand the man's blood be taken to be tested for drugs or alcohol? Would you want to know if the man was diagnosed as mentally unstable in the past? Would you want to know what everyone in the neighborhood had to say about it? Wouldn't it take an amazing amount of evidence for you to let that man go free? Seriously, an adult man that confronts one of our youth and shoots him. Wouldn't you have to have an incredibly bizarre circumstance to excuse this man's conduct?
When the people that have the duty to perform these tasks fail to do so then we're all in trouble. Trayvon Martin getting killed is terribly sad, I mean that sincerely. I absolutely feel for his parents whenever I see them. I grieve for them and couldn't imagine what a hell they are living through. But people get shot and killed all of the time and it's not a national story. So when this actually becomes a national story and then we squander away the chance to examine our system, our beliefs, our ideas about how we should coexist, only to gravitate toward our side, our camp, our right all of the time company, then I can't help but wonder why I see things so differently.
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