Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:26 PM) Interesting because that is what Martin did: So lets look at the real facts. Martin ran away when the suspicious Zimmerman was following him. Zimmerman then began to pursue him.... Once again, Zimmerman had no right to be pursuing Martin and it was expressly against the order of the 911 dispatcher. If someone started chasing me in my neighborhood as a kid and I didnt think I could get away, Id have no choice but to try and confront them to hopefully save my life... Remember, Martin lived there too, he was younger than Zimmerman, we generally do not like adults chasing minors with guns for no reason. The call ended at 7:15, by 7:17 Martin was dead. Zimmerman while armed, aggressively chased an unarmed child. I guarantee if instead of Martin, it was 17 year old me, we wouldnt be having these conversations, because there is no way that these same people would let Zimmerman an armed adult shoot an unarmed white kid who he chased with a gun. Its nonsense. Or from Zimmerman's perspective, you have someone matching the general description of prior robbers wearing a hoodie and after he spots you tailing him he bolts. How do cops respond to a situation like that? "Oh, I guess he was just fearful we were going to kidnap him! That's why they run like that." And Zimmerman had every right to pursue him. As the homeowners assoc. guy testified, they cops told them that was ok. Even if he ran after him, maybe he just ran to catch up to him to keep him in his line of sight. I have no idea how or why they got so close, but if all Zimmerman was doing was keeping close to Martin until the cops came, he's did nothing wrong. And stop with that Martin as a kid nonsense. He was 17. Zimmerman is 29. This isn't an old man taking advantage of a grade school kid.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:20 PM) And what drives me nuts is...if Martin felt that the guy tailing him was threatening him, doesn't he have every right to defend himself as well? Both of them have the right to do what they did and the end result is that a kid is dead who should never have been. That's why I keep coming back to the gun. If a guy is following me, it's not unreasonable to assume he's a threat to me and try to defend myself. If I get attacked physically by a guy I was following, it's not unreasonable to try and defend myself. The way you make this situation not happen is to get rid of the gun. That should be the message of this case...dead kids are the end result of armed, untrained, vigilante-wannabees. I don't think being tailed by someone leads to a fear of imminent deadly harm/death.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:19 PM) He wasnt told to stop. He was told something along the lines that you dont need to do that. The dispatcher even said on the stand that he isnt allowed to tell people what they can and cant do for liability reasons. And the head of the homeowners association testified that the cops advised them that it was ok to tail people at a safe distance. http://www.freep.com/article/20130625/NEWS...rial-statements I'm not sure that I've heard a reason why Zimmerman was so close to Martin. Is his story that Martin came after him?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:07 PM) How the law exists right now, maybe not. I'm not a lawyer and I don't know enough to say for sure. How it should be? It should at least be manslaughter to do what he did. If not for numerous poor decisions and errors in judgement on his part, Martin walks home with his candy or, at worst, gets questioned by the police because of a dumb neighbor. See, I don't agree with this because there could be a legitimate reason for you to follow someone and then something happens. You should have the right to protect yourself if you believe your life is in danger. Period. Just up here this last week (or maybe two weeks ago) there was a guy on the train who got mugged by a group of teens and they took his phone. He and a friend chased one of the teens down and held him as they called police. The rest of the teen's group came back and basically beat the s*** out of the guy whose phone was stolen. I think the victim there had every right to follow the teens in an attempt to get his property back and I think if he were carrying a gun and felt as if his life was in danger he had the right to shoot whoever was beating the s*** out of him. That's obviously different from the Martin case, but also similar in that someone made a bad choice (going after criminals to get a phone) but should still be afforded the right to defend themselves from an attack. If the facts show that Martin attacked Zimmerman just because Zimmerman was tailing him, and Zimmerman felt his life was in danger, then he has every right to defend himself, even if he made poor choices that led to the confrontation.

And Martin could have hung up the phone with his friend and called 911 and reported Zimmerman. Or he could have told Zimmerman to f*** off and continued home. But he didn't.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:50 PM) I couldnt stand Simmons on tv and wondered if he even understood what being a professional was, as opposed to an unabashed homer. I guess some people might find it interesting if we put 4 super fans up there, but not I. His Boston crap is annoying, but he's an NBA/basketball fan first and foremost. That comes across very clearly. IMO, he's at the point now where he's getting backlash for being too popular.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:44 PM) When you die you don't go to heaven, you go to Champaign, Illinois. Ugh. Heaven is going to be pretty damn boring.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:35 PM) Zimmerman made his mistake being too aggressive. I think his actions (being suspicious not pursuing TM) were justified considering the circumstances. I just think he lost his composure due to the criminal activities and took things into his own hands. He probably thought TM was going to just lay down. He was wrong, there was a scuffle, and the kid got shot dead. GZ could have used context clues and tact to diffuse the situation but I imagine they both went into meathead mode. 2nd degree murder is just the wrong charge. Maybe negligent homicide or manslaughter (they might be the same, I'm no lawyer). I'm a black man myself and I am even suspicious of black folks. I know what some are capable of. If white people were like that, I'd be suspcious of them to. The fact is, it isn't a case for racism as much being concerned. Racist is like the KKK who just hate to hate. Having concerns doesn't make you a racist. Yep, that's why I think happened as well. And the scuffle quickly went in Martin's favor.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) And young, and very new to the neighborhood, and there had been burglaries committed by people matching that description. Any halfway decent cop would have plenty of reason right there to stop him and talk (which Zimmerman isn't, obviously). It's not that he's black, it's that he matches a general description. Sorry, man. That's how it is. Descriptions are what get people caught. That's only because the cops in this country are raycess.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:18 AM) Holy s***! We went and met with our first photographer yesterday. I chose this guy. His work is amazing. He wants like $5-6k, and that doesn't even include the digital rights for the photos, which are an additional $1200 or $50 per shot. The photos are the ONE thing I really, really would splurge for, but yeezus, $5-6k? That's insane. I think we paid $6-700 for engagement photos, wedding photos and all the rights. Granted, that's in Champaign, Illinois, but still.

For those that didn't see Crawford: http://deadspin.com/corey-crawfords-speech...as-sh-610667553

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:58 AM) If this pic is real, holy f*** http://t.co/tmHdhNYlq3 It looks fake, but I think that's accurate. Check out the videos from WGN: http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/layer...1747/index.html

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 12:12 PM) Bill Simmons on that broadcast last night was awful. The idiot was tearing up when talking about the KG and Pierce deal. How he can be that old and in that business so long and still be such an idiot fan is beyond me. He probably thinks Doc betrayed him personally. The draft coverage was so awkward. Legler clearly has disdain for Simmons and the two couldn't agree on anything last night. If I want BS I'll download his report. He was so annoying and trying to be so hilarious last night. Eh, I think he's fine. He and Jalen have good banter. He's 10000 times better than Digger Phelps, Stephen A. Smith, etc. He kept the show somewhat light as he did with the NBA game time stuff. 3 hours of Bilas talking about guys being super athletic gets old real quick.

I dunno, the Sox parade went about 2 mph and stopped a lot. My wife and I were watching the buses go by for at least a half hour. In 2010 it was a little faster than that, but I was still out there for 10-15 minutes. I didn't go this year, but people were saying they just motored on by. Looked like they were going faster than normal on the WGN live feed.

People in my office were pretty pissed that they waited an hour or so on the parade route and the buses went by in about 2 seconds.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:32 AM) Assuming all black people are criminals because some black people broke into a few homes is racist as f***, not to mention paranoid, and leads to really s***ty reasoning and results. Like shooting an innocent person to death. He didn't assume all black people were criminals. He assumed a black teenager who was similar to other black teenagers that were committing crimes in his small, gated community, might be a criminal. And yeah, he might have been paranoid. But if you live through a couple of break-ins in and around your home, and the cops have done little to nothing about it, maybe the paranoia becomes more justified.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:16 AM) If you can't see how assuming that an unknown black male is probably up to no good, even though they're just walking down the sidewalk and talking on the phone, simply because they're a black male is racist as f***, one step short of donning the hoods for a good ol' fashioned lynching, I'm not really interested in a conversation. And if you can't see the importance of the context here, with Zimmerman being personally exposed to crimes committed by black teenagers in his neighborhood, then i'm not really interested in a conversation with you about this either. It is simply not as simple as "Zimmerman saw a black kid and called the cops on him." The context absolutely matters.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:05 AM) You prefer being racist and making really, really s***ty decisions based on your racism that lead to innocent people being harassed by the police or, in this case, shot dead. Zimmerman's enthusiastic racism, which you happily embrace, did not catch the "f***ing punks," as he put it, who had committed a few break-ins in previous months. But, see, based on how things actually happen in reality, people are much, much quicker to jump to broad racist assumptions about a random black person probably being a criminal than they are about a random white or asian person. They're much, much quicker to jump to a conclusion that a random hispanic person is probably an illegal than a random white immigrant. It's racist. And this is where my conversation with you ends, where you explicitly say that, even if this is racist, it's not wrong. In a case where Zimmerman's racism winds up in an innocent kid being shot to death, you still think his racism was a good thing, something you would hope that your whole community would embrace. Clearly I don't think it's racist. If YOU want to label it as racist, that's what I don't care about nor do I agree with you that it's wrong. And the end result had nothing to do with Zimmerman calling the cops and tailing Martin. It could have ended a thousand different ways after that "racist" move. Edit: your argument would make more sense to me if no crime was being committed in that neighborhood and Zimmerman saw a black kid and assumed he was up to no good simply because he's a black kid and he thought black kids always commit crime. But that's not the context here, which you continue to ignore. The context absolutely matters. If you live in a community where you have to fear criminals and have to take the extra step of protecting yourself then you're going to naturally seek out and be suspicious of those people that fit the description of those criminals. Especially if you're the type to become a neighborhood watch leader and have spoken to (and been rebuffed by) the cops on several occasions. You can continue to pretend like everyone has to be Mr. Perfect about how they view people no matter the context, but that's not the real world. The real world is if you get sick and tired of criminals taking over your community you're going to do all you can to fix that problem. If you end up offending a white guy who lives in Illinois who talks on the internet all day, so be it. I don't think it was racist, nor do I think Zimmerman THINKING that way is wrong. Taking the extra step of calling the cops? Yeah, I could maybe see that as being wrong. Simply tailing the guy to see what he's doing? No, definitely not. Starting an altercation? Obviously, yes.

I prefer being prejudicial over having crime continue in my neighborhood, so whatever. Get off my lawn. Clearly the community wasn't happy with the police or their efforts to curb the problem. Zimmerman went overboard, I've already admitted that many times throughout this thread, but I don't think him looking at Martin and thinking "hey, I wonder what he's up to, he's probably up to no good" is automatically racist and if it is racist then whatever, I don't think that's wrong. He could have been hispanic, he could have been asian, he could have been white - if he fits the description of whoever was committing the crimes it's smart to be suspicious given his neighborhood. Calling the cops was probably excessive, as was tailing him. I wouldn't have done that, but I don't want to be involved as much as Zimmerman wanted to be involved. Maybe if enough crime was happening in my neighborhood I would.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:36 AM) The description being "black male," you're embracing and encouraging viewing any unknown black male as a criminal simply because they are a black male. This is racist as f***. Like, short of shouting "WHITE POWER!," you can't get more racist. Well, I'm an equal opportunity racist because that person doesn't have to be black, they can be any color and i'm going to be suspicious of them. Am I going to follow them and try to be a cop about it? Nope. But if Zimmerman wants to be that proactive more power to him. This isn't downtown Chicago. There aren't 10,000 people a minute walking down the street. It's a gated community that had a year long problem with black teenagers committing crime.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:20 AM) He was eating skittles and drinking iced tea. He was walking home from the store. Because he happened to be black while doing so, someone else assumed that he was probably a criminal and called the police. That same person decided to get out of his car with a gun and follow him. He ended up dead because of this. And yet you're "happily a racist" in this scenario. Yep. Happily. And I would hope all of my neighbors would be equally racist towards anyone that fits the description of teenagers committing crime in my neighborhood that they don't know.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:07 AM) Yea, this guy wasn't the saintly grade school lad as being portrayed in the media. But he was eating skittles! Only saintly kids eat skittles...

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:00 AM) There's no context that justifies assuming any unknown black male walking down the sidewalk is probably a criminal because they're an unknown black male. ...in the same age group as other black teens that have been committing crimes in a GATED neighborhood.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:00 AM) I think Zimmerman knew this. Zimmerman must have been following Martin very closely at one point, as Zimmerman's own account of the events state that Martin punched him before he knew what was going on. So Zimmerman was likely at arms length following him, even refusing to stop his pursuit after requests/demands from Martin to stop doing so. I think Zimmerman fully knew that his actions that night could very well start a physical altercation, that's why he brought a gun with him. I think there was evidence that he carried a gun all the time, but I might be wrong about that.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 09:55 AM) I can't speak for anyone else, but when I see *ANYONE* I don't recognize roaming around where I live, I'm suspicious of them. But when I see someone that's COMPLETELY out of the ordinary for the area, if being extra suspicious makes me a racist, then fine, I'm a racist. I think this is a weak argument, however, and has nothing to do with racism so much as it has to do with observation. I'd feel the same as people observing me if I was roaming around Englewood for some reason. Would they be racists for saying, "WTF is there a crazy ass white guy walking around here for?!" IMO, no. They'd simply be observing a crazy ass white guy was roaming in a place totally out of the ordinary for him. Exactly. If my block was having issues with white teenagers stealing s***, guess what, if I see a white teenager I don't know, i'm going to think "hey, he might be one of those kids stealing s***."