The case of Trayvon Martin has been a deeply troubling and terribly sad event. My condolences go out to his family, friends and loved ones. The loss of this young man has understandably caused a tremendous amount of pain for the people who loved and knew him. The interesting thing is that it has also caused a tremendous amount of pain for people who never knew him or heard of him until his unfortunate killing. Why is that? I can only speculate for the public at large, but I know why I felt a tremendous amount of sadness and pain over this young man's killing. It once again showed us people of color how unimportant our lives are to some members of our society. God saw fit to create us, put us here and allows all of us to continue to be here. There has always been a faction of our society that felt they had the right to end our lives as they saw fit. It apparently is an attitude that has not been totally eradicated to date. Here we are in 2012 and someone really believed they had the right to end his God given life!!! To decide that someone doesn't belong here, is to decide that God made a mistake allowing that life to exist.
No one can say with exact certaintly what happened between the two that night that lead to Trayvon's death. However, based on what we do know, it seems, Mr. Zimmerman decided Trayvon was out of place, didn't belong and had to be confronted. The problem with each of those things is that a lot of prejudging took place. He was not out of place and he did belong. He was with one of his parents which he had every right to be. He was confronted. We've all heard the 911 tape of the operator informing Mr. Zimmerman not to follow this child any longer. Yes Trayvon was a child!!! Mr. Zimmerman made a grown up decision to disregard what he was told and continued to follow him anyway. He claims that Trayvon doubled back and confronted him. The only people stupid enough to believe this bull were the local police. Trayvon was on the phone with his girlfriend and expressed his fear that he was being followed. People who are being followed, especially at night don't double back and confront the person (unless you're Rambo or something). Most of us hightail it out of there and are desperately trying to get away from the person. So I don't believe that a scared teenage boy doubled back and confronted a man he was obviously afraid of. Apparently the special prosecutor didn't believe it either.
The second most disturbing part of this story besides the tragic loss of life is the lack of any real police work done to find out what really happened. It appears that Mr. Zimmerman declared that he was defending himself and his word was just accepted on face value. What kind of police department does not thoroughly investigate the shooting of an unarmed teenager who was only carrying Skittles and an iced tea? A person tells you there were attacked and had to shoot in fear of their life and that's it? No investigation? You don't bother to take statements from neighbors who heard the screams of a child asking for help! You don't talk to the witness who was on the phone with the victim at the time he was shot! You don't test for drugs and alcohol of the shooter! You don't do forensics tests on the perpertrator! I mean this sounds like an episode of Keystone Cops. It appears to those of us on the outside looking in that the Sanford Police Department at the least did a poor job of investigating this crime and at worst actively engaged in covering it up. Either way, they were not up to the task of operating with impunity and practicing law enforcement without prejudice!! When all is said and done and the smoke clears, Mr. Zimmerman should be tried, convicted and given a lengthy sentence for deciding to execute a child. The Police Chief should be fired and never allowed to practice law enforcement again anywhere in the world. The County Executive should be fired and sent packing as well for allowing this situation to fester even after the truth started to come out. He still didn't want to admit his police chief wasn't up to the job. The citizens of this town should remember that these laws were created and serve no purpose but to harm them. Maybe it's time to flex their political clout and get these laws changed. I bet if the people these laws were made to target all armed themselves and started shooting people down in the street based on "Stand Your Ground" , that damn law would be repelled so fast, your head would spin!!!!! REST IN PEACE TRAYVON!!! GOD'S GOT YOU KNOW!!!!!
