George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin General discussion #4

[ktgirl]

Grass noises?

I honestly wonder if Rachel would have been able to describe "wet grass noise" better (other than "wet") in Haitian Creole or even Spanish. I know when I run through wet grass or even walk through it it sounds kind of "sploshy" (I know that isn't a word)...I can't even think of a way to describe it in English and it's my first language.

ETA: I have no idea what wet grass noises on the phone sound like. Did she hear running through wet grass? The sound of the phone's speaker sliding on something wet like blades of grass? I have no idea.

 

[Suzanna in Arizona]

Rachel Jeantel learned how to present herself in court overnight - I am not saying she was coached - good for her! MOO

Yet she still had a few "flare ups" today. I thought she was coached last night as well, yet she denied it when asked by Don West. So, who knows? JMO

 

[shelley921]

Just in case it wasn't discussed here (ref: Rachel's "I don't read cursive"):

"In the United States, somewhere around the third grade, cursive handwriting instruction has long been a sort of milestone, or rite of passage. But in recent years, the nation's Common Core State Standards — which at least 45 states and the District of Columbia, have voluntarily adopted — took out the requirement for cursive instruction in K through 12 schools."
from http://www.theroot.com/buzz/cursive-still-necessary

I am a college instructor and very few of my students who are under 25 write in cursive.

That is interesting..but what about signatures? We still have to sign various things throughout life. I just bough a new car and had to sign like 11 pieces of paper for the dealership & the DMV. we should still teach kids cursive because, even though we have computers, we still sign documents and use paper.

 

[Sweetiemom]

It sounds like GZ or TM depending on the side you are on. And I don't think there is anyone that is ever going to know who it really is.

Zimmerman knows.

 

[Nymeria]

Hard to say.

She seemed pleased with herself for saying them. Not sure if it was sarcasm. Anger - or at least a lack of self-confidence in her English/public speaking ability in standard English & fear about testifying in a controversial/high-profile case that comes across as anger - was present throughout her testimony.

Even if they were sarcastic and angry they sounded better to me today than the "yeahs" dripping with attitude yesterday.

Personally I am a tad jealous of Rachel/DeeDee, I always wished I could speak more than english!
I know I can still learn, but I have heard it is easier to learn languages when younger, and I regret not having the ambition to when I was (younger).

BTW- It is not lost on me that your avitar IS DeeDee Ktgirl!:seeya:

 

[corundogs]

I will provide you with this same litmus test.

Do you believe that if you were in Martin's shoes, and Zimmerman was following you, you would have every right to kill Zimmerman based solely on his behavior of following you?

NO! And I have said this to you already. I have asked you where anyone else has stated that they think Zimmerman deserved to die for following Trayvon!!!

Because that line of thinking doesn't make any sense what so ever.

Where has anyone said that someone following someone means they get to turn around and shoot them dead??

George clearly had the opportunity to not follow Trayvon. And then once he did, he had the opportunity to tell him why he was doing so. He didn't do that.

George's actions that night lead to the death of another person. Why is that not something he should be responsible for?

 

[ktgirl]

That is interesting..but what about signatures? We still have to sign various things throughout life. I just bough a new car and had to sign like 11 pieces of paper for the dealership & the DMV. we should still teach kids cursive because, even though we have computers, we still sign documents and use paper.

Agreed that we definitely should still teach cursive. I love beautiful cursive writing.

Just posted the link for reference for anyone who didn't realize that we don't really teach it anymore in the US public school system and that may be why Rachel could not read it aside from her name.

 

[Suzanna in Arizona]

If you live for your entire 19.5 years in U.S., I would feel that your main/most often used language would be English.
And I cannot believe most of the "talking heads" on all TV channels keep referring to her as this young teenager, when I am pretty sure she is closer to age 20 than to being a young teen. To me, a young teen means from 13 to 15 or so, not almost 20. But what do I know anyway? Sorry to be so negative.

 

[carnnell]

I guess that's what happens when you don't have much to go on in terms of actual evidence. All we really have is Zimmerman's testimony, the testimony of witnesses, and the 911 call. All of these can be made to mean things to different people depending on how it's explained.

Oh I think the state has very compiling evidence in my eyes. The evidence was presented by the Forensic Criminalist Tech. She said they found the bullet casing under TM. That is huge!!!

Nine MM eject to the right. How did the casing end up TM then? Something isn't right. I am still attempting to play it out in my mind how that 9 mm casing ended up under TM body facing down when semi-automatics eject bullets to the right.

Another big evidence, in my opinion, if TM was on top of GZ, according to his story, and GZ shot him on the right side. He would fall on top of GZ. I did not see blood spatter on his coat when the criminalist tech took pictures at the police station.

Another physic evidence, in my opinion, if TM fell on top of GZ when he was shot, he would not be able to clutch his chest, then fall on top of GZ before GZ rolls from out from under him allowing TM to follow as the police et al found him; that is, face down with his hands clutching his lower chest.

So there is evidence, subtle maybe, to me this is just the beginning that is huge to discredit GZ's story.

JMHO

 

[Mendara]

You would if you lived in a neighborhood that had been the subject of numerous burgularies and didn't recognize the person. Especially if it was dark and in the rain.

...and he was black.

I live in a white neighborhood. I myself am Hispanic. I had a sedan pick me up one morning to drive me to the airport, the driver stepped out of the car and was talking on his blue tooth while waiting for me, within minutes two cop cars drove up. One of my neighbors actually two different neighbors called and reported "A strange black man" in the neighborhood.

I have never been so angry in my life. In my opinion GZ had this mentality I don't care about the break ins - he saw a black teen and was convinced this was a criminal so much so that he was upset "he was getting away".

TM may have reacted with his teen brain to a man following him and getting in his face with violence not knowing that GZ was ready with a gun.

GZ racially profiled TM, followed him, walked up to him began questioning him, TM probably sent him to hell and COULD HAVE thrown the first punch that then gave GZ permission to shoot and take a life that he had no business taking. END OF STORY. MO

 

[ktgirl]

Personally I am a tad jealous of Rachel/DeeDee, I always wished I could speak more than english!
I know I can still learn, but I have heard it is easier to learn languages when younger, and I regret not having the ambition to when I was (younger).

BTW- It is not lost on me that your avitar IS DeeDee Ktgirl!:seeya:

Haha! That was totally not done on purpose- I used to babysit a girl that loved Dexter's Lab years ago and fell in love with the DeeDee character. I even dressed as her one Halloween (as an adult, yeah) when the show was still culturally relevant (I feel old). I changed it before I even knew Trayvon's girlfriend's nickname was DeeDee. Funny coincidence, though.

 

[m00c0w]

NO! And I have said this to you already. I have asked you where anyone else has stated that they think Zimmerman deserved to die for following Trayvon!!!

Because that line of thinking doesn't make any sense what so ever.

Where has anyone said that someone following someone means they get to turn around and shoot them dead??

George clearly had the opportunity to not follow Trayvon. And then once he did, he had the opportunity to tell him why he was doing so. He didn't do that.

George's actions that night lead to the death of another person. Why is that not something he should be responsible for?

I posted it, and apparently whoever is officiating the thread considered it too personal because it wound up being deleted.

I will get to the rest of your questions in a second. This is the second question I have:

If someone kicked in your front door, had a gun, and said they were going to kill you, would you feel like you were entirely justified in killing them?

 

[Bernina]

There is such a thing is burglary prime time?

Yes, both by the burglar and the Law. The legal assumption is that when a burglary is committed during daylight, when people are most likely to be at work and/or school, it is a lesser felony than if the burglary happened during the normal hours residents would be home (after work, school, at sleep) where the possibility of harm could come to the resident and/or burglar.
Most burglaries happen during the daytime when the dwelling is unoccupied.
Most burglars would rather chance the possibility of a 2nd or 3rd degree felony charge, committing the crime during daytime, than risk an automatic 1st degree felony committing the crime at night.

 

[Landonsmom02]

Then he didn't think his gun was any protection ? He couldn't have just pulled his gun and held TM in place until LE arrived ? No offense, but his Woe Is Me tale has no rhyme or reason. His " injuries" were extremely minimal. They didn't even bother to do X-Rays.

BBM

I know I late and I am reading about 10 pages behind but I just had to comment on this. By saying his injuries were extremely minimal, are you saying that just because he wasn't beaten to death(or close to it), he had no right to protect himself? I'm sorry but any human, who fears their life or safety is in danger, has the right to protect themselves.

BTW, I'm a nurse and I work with an ortho surgeon and have had my nose broken just a few months ago. I was dx the next morning at work. No xrays needed. It depends on the severity of the injury. Sometimes the fractures are so small, it's still hard to determine them on an xray. So yes, IMO, the PA could have looked at him and dx his fracture w/o xray.

 

[m00c0w]

Oh I think the state has very compiling evidence in my eyes. The evidence was presented by the Forensic Criminalist Tech. She said they found the bullet casing under TM. That is huge!!!

Nine MM eject to the right. How did the casing end up TM then? Something isn't right. I am still attempting to play it out in my mind how that 9 mm casing ended up under TM body facing down when semi-automatics eject bullets to the right.

Another big evidence, in my opinion, if TM was on top of GZ, according to his story, and GZ shot him on the right side. He would fall on top of GZ. I did not see blood spatter on his coat when the criminalist tech took pictures at the police station.

Another physic evidence, in my opinion, if TM fell on top of GZ when he was shot, he would not be able to clutch his chest, then fall on top of GZ before GZ rolls from out from under him allowing TM to follow as the police et al found him; that is, face down with his hands clutching his lower chest.

So there is evidence, subtle maybe, to me this is just the beginning that is huge to discredit GZ's story.

JMHO

Semi-automatics eject erratically, and some even eject upwards. It depends on the weapon and other factors.

In any case, the ME's report puts the shot going from left to right in the body. This means the gun was slightly canted to one side. If this is the case, the shell may have ejected and hit Martin, and bounced back down onto Zimmerman. As Zimmerman was sliding out from under the body, the shell was left underneath Martin. Not all that hard to explain, IMO.

 

[ktgirl]

If you live for your entire 19.5 years in U.S., I would feel that your main/most often used language would be English.
And I cannot believe most of the "talking heads" on all TV channels keep referring to her as this young teenager, when I am pretty sure she is closer to age 20 than to being a young teen. To me, a young teen means from 13 to 15 or so, not almost 20. But what do I know anyway? Sorry to be so negative.

Not necessarily if you live in a community (like Miami, immigrant enclaves of many cities, inner cities) where Creole, Spanish, or non-standard English are the norm.

I know that's shocking. But there are plenty of American kids who only come into contact with standard English at their schools (usually through teachers and books; the other kids often speak non-standard English or another language amongst each other and sometimes teachers have to resort to doing the same to make clear what they are saying) and perhaps in the media. The rest of their lives are lived in non-standard English or another language.

I came across this quite often when I taught in an urban community college and was shocked & saddened by it. Some kids who were high school graduates were what I would even call "borderline functionally illiterate." They could ace multiple choice tests but give them an essay or short answer and they could not produce enough standard English on their own to complete it (probably a result of how we measure K-12 achievement through standardized tests and that's what teachers are forced to push/focus on). Some didn't even try to answer them at all. When I asked them why they didn't, they could tell me the answers verbally but they'd say things like "I just can't write in sentences." It was terribly sad. Most of these students were minorites and came from poor residential areas of the city. Somehow they had gotten through high school like that and ended up in college completely unprepared but truly wanted to do better. They just had no idea they weren't even prepared enough to be in college (they had graduated high school after all). I do not teach English, so even though I tried to help, it wasn't my job & I didn't have time to provide all of the help that was needed plus teach the subject matter for my class. When I brought it up in faculty meetings that some of our students were nearly functionally illiterate, the answer I got from the administration was "yes, we know."

 

[lauraoh]

I have two questions.

1. Was the neighborhood actually a gated community/ Which, to me, is a neighborhood or townhome complex where you need a passcode to drive into it?

2. Did Tracy Martin's fiancée (no disrespect intended, I don't know her name) live in that community?

 

[nnglas]

Florida is kinda weird, no? I lived in NC when I was in my late teens early 20s. (Not that long ago) anyway I remember that a young lady was calling me threatening to come over and get in a fight, I called police, they came out, and I remember the police telling me that I right to defend myself if she attacked me. But specifically remember him saying so something like "if she punches you, you can defend yourself, however it's not like you can shoot her".

I know stand your ground is in Florida, but it my understanding that GZ is just using a standard self defense claim. Am I wrong about that?

 

[mom23gr8kids]

Oh I think the state has very compiling evidence in my eyes. The evidence was presented by the Forensic Criminalist Tech. She said they found the bullet casing under TM. That is huge!!!

Nine MM eject to the right. How did the casing end up TM then? Something isn't right. I am still attempting to play it out in my mind how that 9 mm casing ended up under TM body facing down when semi-automatics eject bullets to the right.

Another big evidence, in my opinion, if TM was on top of GZ, according to his story, and GZ shot him on the right side. He would fall on top of GZ. I did not see blood spatter on his coat when the criminalist tech took pictures at the police station.

Another physic evidence, in my opinion, if TM fell on top of GZ when he was shot, he would not be able to clutch his chest, then fall on top of GZ before GZ rolls from out from under him allowing TM to follow as the police et al found him; that is, face down with his hands clutching his lower chest.

So there is evidence, subtle maybe, to me this is just the beginning that is huge to discredit GZ's story.

JMHO

MY take on this is:

GZ is left handed ( I've watched him writing in court) so if he were to pull the gun and fire left handed the shell casing would have been maybe near his right shoulder. And being left dominant he would have likely pushed TM to the right to crawl out to the left. JMO but that is how I see it happening.

 

[m00c0w]

I have two questions.

1. Was the neighborhood actually a gated community/ Which, to me, is a neighborhood or townhome complex where you need a passcode to drive into it?

2. Did Tracy Martin's fiancée (no disrespect intended, I don't know her name) live in that community?

1. It was not gated.

2. Yes.