Zimmerman’s best friend pens book, goes on Dr. Phil

The federal air marshal who took George Zimmerman in after he shot Trayvon Martin has written a book about his controversial friend, and appeared on a national TV show Tuesday to say Zimmerman was a peaceful, loving — and innocent — man.

Mark Osterman, 44, is the friend who Zimmerman’s wife Shellie first called for help on Feb. 26, when her husband, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, shot an unarmed teenager. Osterman, a former Seminole County sheriff’s deputy, went to the scene, accompanied Zimmerman to his police interrogations and took the couple in for more than a month while they were vilified in the national media.

Osterman and his wife, Sondra, appeared Tuesday on the Dr. Phil TV show to plug their new book, Defending our Friend: The Most Hated Man in America. The show’s host, psychologist Phillip McGraw, hammered Osterman with questions, repeatedly suggesting Zimmerman was a “Rambo” who was to blame because he violated the basic premise of neighborhood watch programs by carrying a gun and getting out of his vehicle to track a suspect.

To hades with my despicable neighbors...most of whom are dumb yinzers in a union who vote Democrat anyway. let them hget robbed, I could care less.

Like I said, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help one of the dumb yinzers that live around me.

Please do us all a favor and post your home address here so we can be sure to never be your neighbor, or if any of us happen to be your neighbor, to be sure NOT to call 9-11 if we happen to see your house on fire with you trapped inside.

people need to mind their own damn business. Its you authoritarian statists control “watch everyone” folks who are the antithesis of American individualism.

About 10 years ago I was living in a neighborhood just inside the Baltimore City line – a nice older neighborhood BTW, great neighbors and with an active neighbor watch (of which I was not a member) but a surrounding neighborhood that that was “changing” and not for the better. I made a habit before going to bed for the night of double checking my door locks and looking out the front window, check that my porch light was on, check to make sure my car was still parked in front and give a quick glance up and down the street. One night I had been up very late working and as I was getting ready for bed (around 2:00 AM) and going through my routine, I saw some “urban yutes” skulking around the house across the street, peering in the windows and such. It was pretty obvious to me that they were up to no good and being that the house belonged to an elderly woman (90 years old) who lived alone, I knew they didn’t belong there.

In hindsight it may have been a rather stupid thing to do (especially since I am a woman, lived alone myself and wasn’t armed), but I grabbed a flash light and my cell phone and dialed 9-11 but as I did, I walked out on my porch, turned on my flashlight and yelled at the top of my lungs “Hey! What the Hell are you doing!” The two guys froze and stared at me and then I started walking off my porch toward them yelling even louder, “I asked you what the Hell are you doing? That’s not your house!” They then ran up the street and got into a waiting car that was stopped halfway up the street and the three of them tore off in a big hurry. By now the 9-11 operator had “finally” answered and I was able to give a general description of the “yutes” and the car and a partial plate, not that that probably did much good except to let the “urban yutes” know that people in my neighborhood look out and look out for each other. The police showed up…10 minutes later. After the police came and left, I also called my neighbor who was on the neighborhood watch – a great guy BTW. He told me there had been several reports of these same “yutes” looking for homes to break into and there had been one home invasion, robbery and sexual assault of an elderly woman several blocks away a few weeks earlier.

But I guess according to you I should have “minded my own damned business” and practiced my “American individualism” and just gone to bed (or poured myself a few stiff drinks). I could have gotten up the next morning while nursing my hangover, had a quite cup of coffee on my front porch while seeing the police string crime scene tape around my elderly neighbor’s house and watching the ME wheel the dead body of a 90 year old away, no doubt a dumb yinzer so what would it have mattered.

Call me a “vigilante”, a “busy body”, “an authoritarian statists”. I prefer “good responsible citizen” and “decent human being”. YMMV.

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