I totally disagree with your premise but the question to me is really what will be the basis of any hate crime charge against GZ?
I think it will be more based on how GZ targeted Trayvon as suspicious and 'up to no good', 'on drugs', etc., simply because he did not know him from the neighborhood and he was black. Then he took the steps he did to follow and interfere with Trayvon's very innocent walk to his temporary home, making no attempt to identify himself or explain why he was following, and to ask in a civil and non-threatening way, who TM was and where he was going. These steps GZ took based on his incorrect profiling of TM led to the confrontation and unnecessary death.
We will find out more with the discovery files and the 7-11 and clubhouse video will be particularly helpful but this what I've read so far.
1)TM left 7-11 at 6:30 at the latest and it was 0.8 miles away. If he had just walked straight home he would have made it back before GZ even saw him.
2)It's not till 58 seconds into GZ's 911 call that he says TM is coming towards him. Looking at a map of the area and where GZ was parked and the clubhouse distance TM should have already been passing GZ at that point if he had been walking at a regular speed. Maybe TM wasn't walking home at that point and had taken shelter under the awning by the clubhouse (as Crump seemed to suggest) and there is certainly nothing at all criminal about that but what happens next is very important.
3)TM focuses on GZ and approaches his vehicle. Keep in mind that GZ's call starts off with TM being (likely) more then 200 feet away and GZ didn't anticipate TM walking up on his vehicle. Now maybe GZ is really so dumb that he didn't realize he parked directly in the path of the person he was watching but it's also possible that what he described was accurate and that TM had come to check him out.
4)According to GZ TM not only approaches his vehicle he even circles it. That's some pretty weird behavior and IMO you can hear GZ getting nervous in his call. Basically, at that moment GZ's suspicions were validated. Something was kind of "wrong" with TM. If I thought someone was watching me like GZ was doing I might give them a hard look as I walked past their vehicle but I sure as he'll would never circle it.
5)It's only after that happens that GZ starts swearing (******* and ****ing punks) and he was understandably upset.
6)When TM then later runs he has a head start in both distance and time. Realistically GZ had no chance of catching a fleeing TM in an equal start foot race. Unless GZ had delusions of being a track star he likely just wanted to get to location where he could see where TM went and was just trying keep his eyes on TM to report where TM was running to exactly.
7)The location of the fight is impossible to reconcile with TM wanting to get away from GZ. (That would require GZ getting in front of TM and chasing him back up towards where he parked but how would GZ get in front of TM in the first place?)
8)There is considerable evidence that it was GZ screaming for help and he has injuries consistent with the screams that sound like a person being injured. An eyewitness supports that it was GZ screaming for help as well. We know the screams for help went on 44 seconds plus however long the first caller took to hear screams and then call 911 about it so I think it is fair to say the screaming went on for well over a minute. Police at the scene reported GZ said, "I kept yelling for help, but nobody would help me."
I don't see how anyone can get a hate crime out of this at all.
When the FBI/DOJ first got involved congresswoman Corrine Brown sent a letter to AG holder stating that TM was "half the size" of GZ at a time when there was a media firestorm with people insisting that GZ had no injuries, that GZ used a racial slur, and that TM had been begging/whining for life for an extended period of time before GZ shot him. ALL of those points except the last one have already been proven wrong and the last one is very close to being proven already too since those screams indicate injury and there is eyewitness that says it was GZ screaming. So there is a really interesting civil rights angle to this case, it may be that GZ's rights were violated and he is the victim of a malicious prosecution. Maybe I'm wrong but I would bet when this is all resolved it looks closer to the Duke Lacrosse scandal then any sort of hate crime.
