Reexamining the Trayvon Martin Shooting

The shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has seen the media at its sensationalist worst. Press reports have cast Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman, as a trigger-happy vigilante looking to make trouble where there was none. Attached to this storyline has been the charged subtext that Zimmerman acted out of racial prejudice, confronting Martin simply because the latter was black. Not surprisingly, this media-made version of the shooting has roiled racial passions across the country, turning a tragedy into a referendum on American race relations and setting up one of the most polarizing legal cases in recent history. But there is in fact far more to the story, as a recent Reuters’ investigation illuminates.

Reuters‘ report provides a complexity to the story that has been so sorely missing until now. Among other things, it calls into question the notion that white racism was the motivating factor in Martin’s shooting. That narrative was never entirely convincing, and not just because the mixed-race Zimmerman never fit into the media’s neat white-gunman-black-victim allegory. The New York Times‘ designation of Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” was only the most strained attempt to impose a racial framework on the shooting.

Reuters‘ report muddles the racial element even further. It points out that Zimmerman was not only half-Hispanic but he also had black roots, tracing back to his Afro-Peruvian great grandfather on his mother’s side. So far from harboring anti-black racial resentments, he appears to have sought out the company of black friends and colleagues. In 2004, for instance, Zimmerman, an insurance agent, teamed up with a black friend to start up an insurance office.

Even more significant, perhaps, Reuters’ report makes clear that much of the media has simply failed to present the context in which the shooting took place. Yet that context is critical to understanding, if not justifying, why the shooting happened as it did. One would never suspect if from most media accounts, but Zimmerman had good reason to be suspicious of an unknown young black man walking through his neighborhood – and racism had nothing to do with it.

In the months before their fatal meeting, Zimmerman’s Twin Lakes community was hit by a crime wave that saw young black men commit a number of break-ins and burglaries. As the collapse of Florida’s housing market took its toll on the community, depressing home values and driving up crime, Zimmerman and his neighbors increasingly began to fear for their safety and for the security of their homes. Reuters reports that in the 14 months before Martin was killed, there were at least eight burglaries reported in Twin Lakes. Residents also reported dozens of attempted break-ins and incidents of burglars casing homes. Zimmerman’s city of Sanford was especially hard hit. According to Neighborhood Scout, a website that aggregates crime in American cities, on a 100-point scale where 100 is most safe and zero is least safe, Sanford had a dismal rating of 3.

Zimmerman was well aware of the breadth of the crime problem in Sanford. Indeed, he was one of the victims. The Reuters report notes that in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman’s front porch and stole a bicycle. Zimmerman also saw his neighbors victimized by burglars. On August 3, just a few months after his bicycle had been stolen, two black men broke into the home of Zimmerman’s neighbor Olivie Bertalan and attempted to steal her television. Bertalan, then home alone with her infant son, called the police, who arrived just as the burglars fled. Police reports show that Bertalan subsequently reported a digital camera and a laptop computer as stolen. Among those who had seen the robbery was Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie, who witnessed a black male teenager running through her backyard and reported it to the police.

Such incidents suggest that Zimmerman was justified in worrying about crime in Sanford. If he was suspicious of unfamiliar black men in his neighborhood, he was not the only one. “People were freaked out,” Bertalan told Reuters. “It wasn’t just George calling police … we were calling police at least once a week.” Significantly, those worried about crime committed by young black men included Zimmerman’s black neighbors. One black neighbor interviewed by Reuters said:

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m black, OK? There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood. That’s why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.”

Tellingly, the woman refused to be identified. One can hardly blame her. By investing Martin’s shooting with racial connotations, the popular media and race demagogues like Al Sharpton have already incited a violent backlash, with black militants attacking whites under the banner of “justice for Trayvon.” That she wouldn’t wish to join the list of casualties of this racial revenge is understandable.

Still, it is clear that to understand what happened in Sanford, crime and not race is the relevant factor. Worried by the surge in crime, Zimmerman and a group of neighbors formed a neighborhood watch. While that fact has been cited to suggest that Zimmerman was “paranoid,” the fact is that he had already been forced to watch as a man he believed to be a burglar got away scot free. On February 2, 2012, according to Reuters, Zimmerman called the Sanford police after spotting a young black man peering into the windows of his neighbor’s empty home. Zimmerman said that he did not want to approach the man, and the police dispatcher told Zimmerman that a police car was on its way. When the police arrived, however, the young man had already fled the scene.

In light of this history, it is not entirely surprising that when Zimmerman noticed another young black man in his neighborhood on February 26, he became suspicious. He placed another call to the police, but this time, in circumstances that remain unclear, an alteration took place between him and the young man. That young man, of course, was Trayvon Martin.

It goes without saying that Sanford’s history of crime and Zimmerman’s previous experiences with black criminals in his neighborhood do not by themselves justify his shooting of Trayvon Martin, which is now the subject of a murder trial. But viewed in context these facts do suggest that the popular perception of the shooting, in which a self-styled community enforcer provoked a deadly confrontation with a young man just because he happened to be black, is woefully incomplete.

Only the legal system can exonerate George Zimmerman. In the meantime, Reuters’ report goes a small way to providing some perspective on the case. In the process, it restores some hope that a tragedy won’t be compounded by a false narrative that sows racial strife and public division even as it has little do with reality.

Justa few moments mapquesting Sanford FL Twin Lakes Nearest gas station makes me VERY sceptical.

The American Thinker first broke the story about a 7-11 vice president disclosing that a hard drive containing video of a young black male buying Skittles and iced tea had been turned over to law enforcement. Purchase time was between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. (yeah, I know, that happened to all of the extra time between the purchase and the shooting).

The article said the 7-11 was 0.8 miles away, for what it's worth. I'm looking through my bookmarks for the original article (and I can still find it if you need it), but AT has referred back to it several times:

American Thinker link

Thanks, Scoutmaster. I don't have time this morning to wade through all the threads looking for the references to the shopping trip. Even if Trayvon was just wandering through the complex, he had a right to be there, so whether he went to the store, or was just wandering around doesn't seem to me to be very important. That is, unless the “skittles” and “iced tea” were just code words for drugs. If, and when, the drug tests are released, it should give us a better idea of what went on.

I just wish that those who came late to the story would read through the old threads before they start demanding for others to rehash material that has been picked over ad nauseum before.

MileHi, please try to keep up.

Would you believe the investigator at the bond hearing? Here’s a transcript posted on CNN’s website here:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1204/20/cnr.02.html

DE LA RIONDA: And isn’t it a fact to prove that and you have verified that he actually went to that 7-Eleven store and bought some Skittles and a can of tea? Did he not?

GILBREATH: Yes.

DE LA RIONDA: And there’s a video of that?

GILBREATH: Correct.

DE LA RIONDA: And he paid for it. He didn’t steal or anything. Is that correct?

GILBREATH: Yes.

DE LA RIONDA: Ok and then he ended up walking back to the community? Is that correct?

GILBREATH: Yes.

MileHi, please try to keep up.

Would you believe the investigator at the bond hearing?

Don't get your bloomers in a wad!

DE LA RIONDA: And there’s a video of that?

GILBREATH: Correct.

I have not seen that before, so friggin shoot me.

Thanks, I guess.

My father-in-law relocated a black single mother employee and her two sons from the ghetto. They did fine until the eldest sons went ghetto Black in COLLEGE! He ended up doing time.

The demand of liberals that all blacks “act black” and their defining of authentic Black as perpetual raging racist thugs, is a terrible trap for young black men and to a lessor degree, Black women.

Whites who care about Blacks should not support the Black thug entertainment and re-education industry and surely not support the race baitors and haters in power. They are using Black children as fodder for money and power. They don’t care that they suffer and die in the post-segregation racial power game just like they did not care when their segregation racist thugs ruined the Black race.

The marxists are just itching for a race-war regardless of where they make it happen.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Those who would invoke potential violence to alter due process rights, without an act of Congress or of a state Legislature, are actually practicing fascism.They are exercisiningthe fascist way of doing business.

Patriots will act to protect the constitution. Its just a matter of time, and a question of whether Obama will escape their retribution, after the violence now planned comes to an end.

While the Zimmerman/Martin ‘white’ on black killing is covered 24/7 on the MSM with an outpouring of rage and charges of a racial hate crime, where is the concern- where is the rage about the home invasion, torture, beating, rape and murder of the elderly white couple by a gang of feral blacks in Oklahoma just a few weeks ago?

The 90 year old war veteran husband was beaten and his jaw broken. He was shot in the face numerous times with a BB gun and sent to the hospital in critical condition.

The 85 year old partially blind wife was RAPED and then BEATEN TO DEATH.

Can you just imagine the pain, the humiliation, the horror that dear old lady experienced being gang raped by that pack of feral animals?

(the autopsy states she was raped. Don’t think all of these animals didn’t all participate)

And can you imagine the pain, the horror of that dear old husband having to witness this?

There’s a lot more involved here than a home invasion and robbery.

WHERE ARE THE CHARGES OF A RACIAL HATE CRIME??

90 year old husband’s jaw broken and shot in face with a BB gun numerous times?

85 wife year old semi blind wife RAPED and BEATEN to death??

Why does it take a foreign press to enlighten America as to this henious crime?

WHERE IS THE NATIONAL OUTRAGE?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117695/Brutal-home-invasion-Oklahoma-couple-ends-65-year-romance-meeting-blind-date.html

__________________________

Have they caught the rest of the gang of feral blacks who raped, tortured and murdered this elderly woman? Are they even looking? Not a word about it in the media.

“I have not seen that before, so friggin shoot me.”

Hi, MileHi,

Don't feel out on a limb. I haven't followed the Zimmerman/Martin threads lately and I'm far from up to date.

Mainly, I've been following the Breitbart threads and Obama’s abuse of the Constitution. And, of course I had to check the Lindsey Lohan thread!

You're not alone; I really have some backreading this weekend on Z/M - unless the weather is really good and the allergies abate!

hummingbird

George Zimmerman must be the incredible shrinking man, when I first started reading about this he was supposed to be 250 pounds, that is my size. When I finally saw the video of him in court he looked like someone I could easily pick up and carry and I am about to turn 68. “Trayvonn”, on the other hand, has miraculously changed from an innocent looking 13 year old to a 6 foot 2 inch seventeen year old football player whose weight varies from 165 to 195 or even more and who was anything BUT innocent. At first it was a huge “white” man who chased down a black child and murdered him, now it appears that an average or smaller size “white Hispanic” who actually has black ancestors was knocked down by a 6 foot 2 inch black seventeen year old and was having his head pounded against concrete and this is supported by a cell phone picture taken three or four minutes after the shooting. It now seems obvious why Zimmerman was not charged with a crime at the scene, there was ABSOLUTELY no evidence that he had done anything other than defend his own life which he probably would have lost had he not had a weapon on him. What is going on now is the result of race pimps like Sharpton and Jackson trying to start civil war two in this country.

I really don’t think it’s as simple as all that, seems to me this situation was to be a primer for chaos and emergency legistlation to allow the entry of blue helmets into US cities - the ultimate victim was to be your Constitution. This little fiasco, if it doesn’t work, will simply be replaced by another. Think of how the ‘palestinians’ stage victimhood. If nothing comes along that fits the bill, a page out of their playbook should do it.
They kill their own and make martyrs of them.

Agreed, not so simple.The case in Florida against Zimmer reminds me of the Dreyfus case in pre WW II France. Its a sign of administrative justice’s rot, and how weak men and women have become when the issues of genuine freedom are presented to them. The facts are ignored or skewed to fit a twisted political end, and then there will be little to do but fight for freedom all over again.

The little psychopomp strutting about the country , rebuilding his false imagery, hardly should be taken seriously. Twenty years ago he would have been laughed out of office.

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