Travon Martin

It's amazing that I actually somewhat agree with this statement.(though not entirely) The media shouldn't focus so much on race.

It was night time. Nobody has school at night. He was in the neighborhood because he went to the convenient store to get a snack or whatever he had.

What the hell is the amazing atheist doing talking about a murder?

I hate that guy so much, I'm not even going to watch that.

The black panthers are the worst reverse racists, there disgusting, I feel bad that a party that only wishes to advance there own race have such a media pull, it has to stop.

We should round them all up and put them in camps!

I'm sorry I ruined your black pantie partay..

And this, kids, is why American gun laws are stupid.

I know the gun law is fucked up. It's a shame that it was so easy to kill Trayon. If only the law had allowed Trayon to carry a gun too. I think they should change the age down to 10 years of age. Nobody would mess with the kiddies then. I Mean if Trayon had a gun he could have turned the whole situation around by pulling out a pistol and turning it on his attacker so he could "bust a cap in his ass".

Yeah the stand your ground law is ridiculous.

Now recently the media has been clearing up its own bias during the initial coverage of the incident. Here are some updates:
-Zimmerman is hispanic (not sure specifically couldnt find.)
-From video and photos there are no visible wounds on Zimmerman.
-Media apologizes for the mugshot photo of Zimmerman.
-The photo of Trayvon shirtless giving the finger was not him.
The racial aspect of this incident is WAY overblown. You've got political and social groups trying to squeeze out what they can used from this for their own agenda. To me this is about a human being killing another human being based on assumptions and uses the law to justify his acts, not about some race war.

My point was about the American media's biased portrayal of the whole thing. Shining a bit of light on some falsehoods, insinuations, bias etc. they've been making.

To me, this is 100% a case of whether Zimmerman had enough grounds to shoot Martin. Whether the threat posed by Martin was enough for Zimmerman to be in danger of serious injury. What I've seen leads me to tentatively conclude that there is a low likelihood that there was, but I haven't seen everything. No one alive has except Zimmerman, and he says there was. He will only be convicted of murder if there is evidence that proves otherwise beyond doubt, so there is a big chance he will get off scot-free.

Bravo. Bravo.

indeed

Well then I didn't mean to smear Martin. Why would I want to do that? What have I got against him or his suppourters? I just thought that the media was displaying the case unfairly. I've seen them show pictures of him from four years ago, and another one that was digitally altered to make him look more appealing. I don't like that. It dramatically skews public opinion.

Trayvon did what he did. Is telling people that he wasn't the angel the news makes him out to be smearing? If the news says negative but accurate things about him, is that smearing? I'm not trawling through his Facebook/Twitter to find dirt on him. I just want to let people know that the media's portrayal of Trayvon may not be accurate, and used examples to illustrate that. At no point did I say that it means Trayvon is in the wrong. But it does change things a little bit. Not from a legal standpoint, but public opinion on the issue. What I said about Trayvon isn't an accurate portrayal of him either. But as I just said, I wasn't trying to. I'm not the news. I want the news to report on this accurately. I wasn't trying to do that myself. Unrelated facts and pictures obviously aren't evidence when determining what his or her actions might be in an extreme situation. But it’s plain naïve to suggest that such facts or pictures don’t influence our feelings about a person’s ability to commit a crime.

Frankly I'm surprised that you would liken what I did to that. Not only are they very different, I never said that it meant that Trayvon deserved to be killed or anything of the sort. I didn't say that originally because I thought it was both beyond the point and didn't need to be said.

Just want to say that this is very normal. Zimmerman had more information than the operator, and would have a much better idea of if it was worth pursuing Trayvon. Policemen regularly have to make decisions like this.

There are two photos allegedly of Trayvon shirtless and giving the camera the finger. This one is not him.

This one is. It's his twitter display picture, the one I was referring to.

If you chased me down the street, then of course not. But let me tell you something. Policemen chase/confront people. And when those people attack, the policeman is allowed, under certain circumstances, to shoot that person. Again, it happens regularly, especially in the US. Of course Zimmerman instigated the incident. He had a reason to approach Martin, and Martin allegedly resisted. Was the reason sufficient? Was Martin a sufficient threat? As I said earlier, these two questions are the key to whether Zimmerman is guilty, and while I believe that there wasn't a sufficient reason to pursue Martin and that he didn't pose a significant threat, proof to the contrary is within reasonable doubt.

I think Zimmerman is guilty, but there isn't enough proof to convict him. I acknowledge that there is a real but unlikely possibility that Zimmerman is innocent and was just doing his job.

You do know that Zimmerman was not a policeman, but a self-appointed leader of the neighborhood watch, right?
Furthermore, the 911 responder told Zimmerman not to confront or follow Martin.