If these guys looked like this, I wonder if it would be an open and shut case?...

[HipChick]

[img][/img]

[msongs]

1. maybe, maybe not nt

[uponit7771]

27. bulllll shit!!!

[ecstatic]

30. x1000 nt

[Zoeisright]

40. + 1 billion

[brush]

65. Ya don't really know the country you live in do ya?

[Tarheel_Dem]

78. That's not the reason.

[brush]

81. Huh?

[Tarheel_Dem]

83. I won't go into detail, but I get where you're coming from, and your question was a good one. nt

[samsingh]

34. yes it would - who are kidding by denial

[rhett o rick]

43. Is this post a hit and run? A drive by fruiting? Drop you little nugget and keep on going? nm

[noiretextatique]

57. absolutely no doubt about it at all

and all those currently supporting zimmerman would be clamoring for his head. positively absolutely.

[hfojvt]

63. how dare you question

the absolute certainty of an imaginary scenario.

Everybody knows what would happen because of all the real life examples that really have happened

like

uhm

er

ah

I was gonna mention Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker, but I guess they were both black.

There's Christopher Jones http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7779003

There must have been a hundred threads of outrage on DU when his killer Javal George was released from juvie.

Oh, wait, was there even one? Well maybe if his parents had made some noise about it http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-06-15/news/bs-md-ar-george-hearing-20110615_1_juvenile-facility-javel-m-george-crofton-youth

[npk]

68. That case was a gang related violence

The two suspects were 14 and 16 years of age respectfully, and there was never any evidence that the case had anything at all to do with race. ALL THREE OF THESE KIDS went to school and an altercation at school led to a beating. The suspects in the case testified that they were only trying to beat up Christopher, and never meant to kill him, hence the charge of manslaughter. There was no gun involved or any other weapon. Yes it is tragic what happened to this boy, but his killers were arrested and charged. Also, when I was young I was involved in many fights where a violent blow to the head could have seriously hurt somebody or even killed them. The point here is is that kids don't understand that a blow to the back of the head on a child could kill them. And adult would know that or certainly should know that.

Either way Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin was a deliberate stalking and then attack by a grown man on a helpless kid. The grown man targeted this kid based on his race, and then proceeded to shoot the kid after he was "allegedly" hit in the face by Martin. Even if you believe that Martin punched Zimmerman, the blow never came close to rendering Zimmerman unconscious and that means his life was never in danger and he had no right to fire a gun onto Martin. And what finally makes the Zimmerman case different from the Javal George case, was that Zimmerman was not arrested until months after the community demanded that an actual, real investigation take place. Zimmerman wasn't even initially charged with manslaughter.

So you apples to oranges comparison hold no water.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

85. Stop being dishonest. You know it would've been a whole different story.

We really need to get honest about race in this country. Sweeping it under the rug is doing no one any good.

Please stop being dishonest about race!!!

[JI7]

2. he would have been arrested that day

it probably wouldn't have even gotten much media attention since the original attention came out of the parents and others making an issue out of how there was no arrest.

we would have heard about it but there would have been no debate about what happened. just like you aren't seeing people defending Ariel Castro on TV.

[HipChick]

8. Most definitely

[npk]

69. Bingo. 100% right on.

The media attention was what got this case rolling, that after the parents and their lawyers had to force the police in Sanford to even actually investigate the case. At the very least what should have happened on the night Trayvon was murdered is that Zimmerman should have been arrested for second degree murder, which was and is the right charge. If that had happened the case never would have reached the same level of world wide outrage that it reached in the months following Martin's death.

[fascisthunter]

3. most definitely

[CakeGrrl]

4. Sanford Police? A black shooter would have been killed "resisting arrest".

[russspeakeasy]

38. Yup and then run over, trying to escape.

[ctsnowman]

46. Nailed it.

[RVN VET]

90. You go, Grrl

Absolutely on the money. No open and shut case because no case. Dead men don't go to trial. Instead, as i recall, Zim was taken in by the police and treated like their little brother.

If the races had been reversed, Black Zim would have, according to the official report, "resisted arrest, threatened the arresting officers, pointed something at them that looked like a gun" and . . .end story.

And the Nation would not have heard about it, nor cared very much if it did.

[rdharma]

5. Gee! I don't know. Would they have asked THIS guy for his LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE?

I think we know the answer to that, eh?

[Nye Bevan]

11. White Obama reminds me of someone but I can't put my finger on it.

Help me out here?

[siligut]

17. Maybe James Franco?

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Iggo]

77. Nailed it.

The hair, anyway.

[rdharma]

19. He looks a lot like you..... and an awful lot like me..... nt

[Lugal Zaggesi]

39. Hard to say

Eric Bana?


Matthew Fox?


A young Kevin Bacon?


A young Mitt Romney ?


Half-white Obama ?

[KurtNYC]

44. Kevin Bacon ?

[Voice for Peace]

66. he looks like christopher walken ...

[rateyes]

70. Alfred E. Neuman?

[kestrel91316]

76. He's got St. Ronnie of Raygun's hair in that particular photoshop.

[grok]

24. he always reminded me of lou reed

of the velvet underground,,



the "heroin" days...

[eggplant]

25. Craig Ferguson? n/t

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1034988032/nm0272401

[freshwest]

32. Now wait a minute! Just as AJ saw Israelis in Boston, he may be one of those 'white Muslims'!

But no, they wouldn't have asked for a long form birth certificate, though. It's sad.

[JustAnotherGen]

51. ha ha ha!

[Tarheel_Dem]

79. Fresh, I love that graphic.

[treestar]

50. lol

That is weirdly compelling to look at! Where did they get the hair? Mittens?

[Whisp]

75. +++ and be so disrespectful at every turn? n/t

[CakeGrrl]

113. Looks like Alec Baldwin hair!

[cascadiance]

6. And the killer would have been tested for drug and alcohol instead of the victim...

[HipChick]

7. Agree..n/t

[R B Garr]

18. Seriously, that was about the most absurd thing I'd ever heard

I almost forgot about this. A man shoots someone to death and is not tested for drugs or alcohol when in custody, but the victim is tested...? That's beyond ignorance or negligence. It's a very maddening detail when you think about it.

[freshwest]

33. I did not know that and it's outrageous. They gave Z *every* break possible.

[grok]

9. this would have worked out better

Too bad nobody tried.

[Nye Bevan]

10. Yes. I mean, when a black guy like OJ Simpson is prosecuted for murdering two white people,

it is obvious that he won't stand a chance in the courtroom.

[leftstreet]

12. OJ was a rich celebrity n/t

[jeff47]

26. And the DA's prosecuting him were idiots.

First, they moved the case to downtown LA. West LA was full of rich white folk, who were absolutely sure they were not racist, but who'd have convicted 'one of those people' in a minute. In LA, the DA's actually had to present a case.

Second, they kept that poor jury sequestered for a very, very, very long time in an attempt to teach them biochemistry.

Third, the DA's ego was so enormous, the defense goaded him into the 'bloody glove incident'. Literally, "You aren't man enough to make him try on the glove" worked.

But we're talking about a DA crew that couldn't convict the Menendez brothers after they confessed.

[B Stieg]

41. You're right about the DA's office, but I'm not sure about the venue.

I had to get my boss (headmaster of the the private school where I was teaching in the Valley) to write a notarized letter excusing me from the pool (at the downtown courthouse) from which the OJ jury was eventually picked. And I was living in Westwood at the time.

I would have voted to acquit; the prosecution simply did not prove its case.

[uponit7771]

28. ...you forgot about the overtly racist lead detective who tampered with evidence and became a FOX...

...News commentator.

[WinkyDink]

89. There is ZERO evidence, THEN or NOW, about your charge of a CAPITAL crime.

[morningfog]

37. Massive fail there, budro.

[noiretextatique]

59. one case i like to bring up when you play the OJ card

medgar evers. his killer was brought to justice during the OJ period. 40 years after the crime because of the routine practice of all-white juries routinely acquitting white defenders accused of killing black people. it happened ONCE in the reverse

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

86. Yeah, because Trayvon Martin is JUST LIKE O.J. Simpson, right? Blacks are the same...

Please stop being dishonest about race in this country!

[Apophis]

13. Yep.

[quinnox]

14. Is water wet?

The dude would be on death row by now. (That is, if the police hadn't shot him on sight after the initial emergency call when they arrived to the scene)

[Honeycombe8]

15. I don't think it'd matter. Some are trying to make this a race case just because

the kid was black and the shooter was non-black (he identifies as hispanic).

There is still plenty of racism around, but just this simple fact of the victim's race doesn't mean racism was involved. One notable thing....throughout the whole incident, GZ doesn't once use a racial derogatory term or even refer to TM's race until the cop asks him specifically what race TM is.

TM, OTOH, DID use a racial derogatory term more than once, when referring to GZ. Do you think TM approached GZ to get him because GZ looked white to TM?

[zentrum]

23. You're missing the point of the post

It's not that we know for a fact that GZ was racist--it's that there would be no doubt in the eyes of the cops, the media and probably the jury if he was a black man who shot a white child under similar circumstances--that he was a bully and a thug.

It's about the racism of Florida, the country and the media--not GZ.

As a black adult who killed a white child, he'd have been immediately arrested. We wouldn't be having this kind of trial, where it will probably be a hung jury. And for sure he'd already be convicted in the court of public opinion.

The media coverage would be telling an entirely different story.

That's the point. Catch up.

[uponit7771]

29. REALLY?! You think if a black man chased a white high school kid through a dark nieborhood with a...

...loaded gun after calling the white teen curse words the outcome would be the same?!

We'd be at the SAME PLACE we are today?!

[Honeycombe8]

93. What you describe is not what happened. That may be what's in your mind...

your impression. But while GZ was way out of line, what you describe is not exactly what went down.

While we don't know if it would've been the same or not. I think it's likely...if you've got a neighborhood watch guy, on the one hand, and a teen in a hoodie in an area where there have been burglaries, on the other, that the result would've been the same. Which is to say, people would have screamed "racist" and wanted the guy to go to trial asap, and would've declared him guilty before the trial. Which is what is happening, right?

[uponit7771]

100. Please tell me which part is NOT true? regards

[HappyMe]

47. What a load of hooey.

Do you seriously think for a minute that a black man with a gun chasing a white kid would get any sympathy like poor, put-upon mall cop Zimmy is?

Do you really think that the black man would have been coddled by the cops like Zimmy was? Or if the black man claimed that the evil white kid "attacked" him first people would tsk! and shake their heads at the poorly behaved, aggressive white boy?

Would people be falling all over themselves to justify the black man killing the white kid?

[Honeycombe8]

94. Well, there's a witness saying that the teen had GZ down and beating him in a martial arts

posture. So it's not just GZ who says that.

But look at the way things are NOW: The public screams "racist," insists the guy be put to trial for murder asap (he is), and declare him guilty of murder before the trial.

So, you think that's not what would have happened, if GZ were black, and TM hispanic?

[treestar]

49. It is about race, the main issue with the example

it's shallow in that we could estimate black Zimmerman would not be treated with such kid gloves and be right, but black Zimmerman wouldn't have found white Trayvon to be a suspicious threat in the neighborhood. If he did and called police, he'd let them sort it out. He wouldn't pull a gun and shoot a white kid because he'd know the consequences. White Zimmerman knew that the consequences could include believing his story.

Racists I speak with think Trayvon was threatening precisely for being a black teen - that's who the "punks" are in Zimmerman's mind. "Punk" may not be specifically racial, but in Zimmerman's mind it would have been included.

[Honeycombe8]

97. There's no evidence to indicate GZ knew TM's race when he started following him.

That's one thing that is wrong with your theory. TM was wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up.

If I remember the phone call with the cops correctly, GZ didn't even sound positive at that time that he was Af. American. He only became more sure as TM walked closer to him, as TM approached him. But I might be misremembering that phone call a bit.

[nyquil_man]

111. Is there any evidence that TM approached GZ

other than Zimmerman's testimony?

[Honeycombe8]

114. Yes. The recording of the phone call between GZ and the cop.

It's real time. I think it implies, or it sounds like, GZ is only sure of the race because TM is approaching him and is getting closer. GZ says that TM is holding something, but he can't tell what it is.

[nyquil_man]

118. He says "He looks black" prior to saying that TM is coming towards him. nt

[Honeycombe8]

119. Obviously TM is approaching at that time. (BTW, he states the race 'cause cop asked.)

Before then, GZ had never mentioned race. He either didn't know it or didn't care.

[nyquil_man]

120. Why didn't he say "I don't know" when he was asked, then? nt

[nyquil_man]

121. PS: 30 seconds pass between when GZ says "he looks black"

and when he says "now he's coming towards me."

[noiretextatique]

58. wrong

zimmerman had a history of animosity towards black people, black men in particular.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

64. To me, this case has ALWAYS been about the cops letting the shooter go.

[Honeycombe8]

98. Me, too. But there's no evidence it had anything to do with race. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

101. How do YOU suppose the cops figured Travon had it coming?

[Honeycombe8]

102. Is that what the cops said? As a matter of record? nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

103. They dismissed the parents objections and let the shooter go.

[Honeycombe8]

105. So, that's not what they said. Just trying to get the facts.

We know they let him go. And didn't handle the crime scene properly, which is causing problems.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

106. The parents had to fight with the cops to arrest the guy who shot their son.

[Honeycombe8]

115. Well, many in the community insisted he be arrested. But you said they thought TM deserved

to get killed, so I just wanted to know if they said that. If there's evidence that they thought that. But the cops are not on trial. GZ was arrested and is on trial. So that's not part of the case.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

117. You don't get it. This is stage one. A civil case against the cops is next.

[burnodo]

116. You don't think it would matter? Seriously!?

Wow.

[Scurrilous]

20. K & R

[limpyhobbler]

21. death row for that dude. that's what it would be. nt

[baldguy]

22. This is a question?

[nevergiveup]

31. It is difficult to believe that any grown adult

living in America today would not know deep inside that this would be the way it would have played. If Trayvon Martin had been white and George Zimmerman had been black it would never have made the national news and today we would not even know their names.

[freshwest]

35. There would have been no 'Stand Your Ground' farce, since these fools think blacks have no ground.

It's sad, but that's what it boils down to in my opinion. It's destructive not only to blacks; but to the entire nation. We all need to be seen as equals, or none of us will be.

[Iliyah]

36. People of color stay on their side

come over here, you might not make it and the courts support that.

[SwampG8r]

42. does it still happen in sanford?

I live an hour from Sanford
he would have died at the scene in Sanford and that would have been that

[ctsnowman]

45. K & R

[treestar]

48. He would have been arrested on the spot

That 911 operator said they did not need him to chase the white boy would have been used against him.

[Jamaal510]

52. Murder is murder, any way you slice it.

This should most definitely be an open-and-shut case. The fact that there is any doubt regarding whether Zimmerman is guilty is troubling.

[heaven05]

53. without

a doubt. Excellent.

[Ter]

54. Actually, he may never have been shot to begin with

I don't think a black man would think that little white boy was a threat, and he also likely wouldn't harbor any pre-determined racism toward the boy.

[dusty trails]

55. So very true

It's worrisome that Florida contains so many rednecks quick to give a pass to a white guy murding a black kid.

[nadinbrzezinski]

56. Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?

Is water...well..wet?

[B2G]

60. Is anyone on this thread actually listening to the EVIDENCE

that's being presented?

Just curious.

[noiretextatique]

61. he would have been charged with murder...and Faux and all the other zimmerman apologists

would be frothing at the mouth for his head. there would be no attempts to smear the victim's character either.

[gollygee]

62. I'd made ill by reactions to this trial

The answer is obviously that yes, it would be.

[Boom Sound 416]

67. Do you think it at all relevant

The picture of TM is at 11 years old?

[Enthusiast]

71. Stand Your Ground obviously only applies to white people.

And that is a fact.

[Enthusiast]

72. Kicked and Recommended!

Exactly.

[LanternWaste]

73. As African Americans make up less than 13% of the population as a whole,

As African Americans make up less than 13% of the population as a whole, but 40% of the prison population as a whole, it's easy to imagine that were Zimmerman African American he would not have had the close support and friendship of the Sanford PD, and that he'd most likely have received a quick indictment, a drawn out trial as he languishes in the system, and then slapped with the longest sentence the crime allows.

[bvar22]

74. More likely than not.

[rwsanders]

80. IF ANYONE HAS ANY DOUBTS...

Compare to this case...
Black woman received 20 year sentence for firing WARNING shots in her home to frighten her abusive husband against who she had a protective order.
http://www.the360experiment.com/2012/05/uncategorized/florida-woman-gets-20-years-for-firing-warning-shots-in-her-home-against-abusive-husband/

[AZ Progressive]

84. Blacks have their own separate justice system in this country

The justice system for black people is clearly meant as a tool for oppression and terror, and this hasn't changed much since the 60's (and heck, the war on drugs itself was the Republican's answer to the Civil Rights movement, to oppress and destroy black people's lives and "keep them in their place". The double standard with crack cocaine (popular with black people) and powdered cocaine (popular with wealthy people) is one example.)

[rwsanders]

92. Sadly I agree with you and it has taken me until very recently to realize this. It horrifies me...

but I look at blacks with a certain admiration now. I don't know how they can tolerate it and still be friendly to a white man.
I'm also sickened by republican domestic policy that sends jobs overseas, promotes urban sprawl to give whites a way "out", cuts healthcare (including prenatal care), closes schools, cuts funding for higher education, head start and after school programs, and then floods the urban areas with cheap guns.
At times I think they are hoping that there will be wide spread violence so they'll have an excuse to further oppress or kill them.

[Nevernose]

112. The evidence says she shot at him and missed

And that particular case is a bad example, because it is much more complicated than that. It's not the poster-case for disparities in racial sentencing.

Better evidence can be found here: http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=122

[BrainMann1]

82. In Florida, YES!!!!!!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

87. Not just in Florida. ANYWHERE!!!

[blkmusclmachine]

88. .

[adric mutelovic]

91. Is Trayvon Half Hispanic in that picture?

Has the star witness for the defense for the African American Zimmerman lied?

[RedCappedBandit]

95. Black dude kills a white kid walkin home from store with candy?

Yeah. Open and shut.

No fucking doubt.

[malaise]

96. 100% correct

Rec

[Vattel]

99. I would hope for an acquittal either way

if the prosecution couldn't come up with a lot more evidence than we have seen so far.

[Jenoch]

104. The photo of Martin you are using

is when he was 12 years old and is misleading.

[egduj]

107. So he's less dead at 17?

[Jenoch]

108. Nope. He's still dead. He was not dead at 12.

[nyquil_man]

109. And if they were both black, we wouldn't have heard a damned thing about it. nt

[Recursion]

110. Well, I'm pretty sure all of DU *wouldn't* be certain that he set out to kill in that scenario

So that would be a difference.