Talking on Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin is a late teen, young man who was shot during the course of events on a pre Spring night in the early evening by a late 20's man.

The colors shouldn't matter.

Trayvon was a 6'3 150 pound football player, the shooter a stocky man looking in decent shape and weighing 200 or more pounds.

The scene, a misty night, street lights, a townhome/cluster home community with recent crime at dusk/evening.

Trayvon, walking home from a 7/11 type store back to his father's girlfriends home, is wearing a hoodie and jeans, drinking tea and eating skittles.

George, the shooter is patrolling the neighborhood, as I mentioned earlier the neighborhood was the victim on ongoing crime.

George spots Trayvon and calls 911, noting the stranger appears to be on drugs and is looking around.  Officers are dispatched and George is told "you don't need to that" in regards to following Trayvon.

Trayvon is talking to a young lady friend who tells Trayvon to run when he tells her that someone is following him.  He tells her he will walk quickly.  Before the phone goes dead she says Trayvon says "why are you following me", George replies "why are you here"?

This is where we only seem to have one witness after this point, a man sees Trayvon on top George striking him, when the man goes upstairs, Trayvon is now shot and lying in the grass.

Many neighbors heard yells of "Help" and struggling and then a shot.  I believe 6 called 911.

It is argued by both families that the person yelling help is their son.  Quite frankly from a 911 call it is hard to tell which is yelling help.

Police arrive, George states he is on his way back to his vehicle to wait for police when Trayvon confronts him, they struggle and George shoots him in self defense.

Trayvon is dead.

Police upon review and based on injuries they see believe George and do not charge him.

Based upon what we know now and the information may change, the Prosecutor is likely to make a decision on this case and charges in the next 72 hours.

Now my take:

I don't have any issue with neighborhood watch.  It's a good thing.  That said, if I saw a young man in my neighborhood at 8 in the evening, walking down the street, I have serious doubts I do anything at all.  11 or 12 on Sunday night and a kid is walking down the street on a school night, I probably do watch him and may well call authorities as that would be strange.

I have no issue if George asked him why he was there and identified himself as neighborhood watch and frankly I would expect Trayvon to answer repectfully that he was walking home to meet his father.  That is how this should have ended, a short, polite conversation.

I do take issue with George doing anything after calling 911 and no, although he had all the proper paper work he should not have been carrying a gun in his waistband.  That to me is asking for trouble.

Will George be charged?  Likely yes, when a special prosecutor is appointed, charges of some kind usually follow.  I would suspect George will be charged with some type of manslaughter because unless there is new evidence, I don't see any way 12 people on a jury agree on murder.

If I was on that jury and had only the evidence I know now and at a trial we will know far more, how close to Trayvon was George when he shot him, was Trayvon on drugs, those questions will be answered.  But knowing only what I know now, personally, I could not convict Geoege Zimmeran with the witness saying Trayvon was on top of him, I have to give George the benefit of the doubt that he feared for his life.

All of that said, my mind is not made up as new evidence will be made public if he is charged.

I will save my contempt for Trayvon's father for another blog.

I do not believe George should be tried just for the sake of trying of him, if after police, prosecutors and special prosecutors, the FBI, the State of FL investigators have eyeballed this and decide not to charge him, society should be satisfied, that is a lot of eyes that will have looked at this situation.

No one should have made up their mind on this based on the conflicting stories and evidence, if you have, you need to look within.

This situation to me is an ugly mess of a teen(teens by very nature have attitude and can not properly evaluate risk), a man with good intentions but clouded by fear, anger and adrenaline coming together and ending in tradgedy. One thing that does not resonate is the color of eithers skin.