Neighbourhood Watch Kills Unarmed Black Kid

[DrFaroohk]

As I said, regardless of color...some kids act that way.

Seems to me that if someone reads a statement like "Cap yo ass" and immediately thinks of a black person, they've got the problem.

[bara]

Need to hear that 911 call.

If this guy was following the kid he may have become aggressive. I can say that I wouldnt take to kindly to someone driving up to me following me around. If the police told him to leave the kid alone and he did something that started the 'fight', then as far as Im concerned he was looking for a reason to shoot the kid which is exactly what it sounds like right now.

If this guy did indeed instigate the incident, which is exactly what Im thinking, he needs to go before a jury and face the music.

[Hyena Dandy]

What we do know is that the guy wasn't doing anything wrong. So this really shouldn't have happened. And the neighborhood watch should not be tailing random teenagers.

[Greenday]

What we do know is that the guy wasn't doing anything wrong. So this really shouldn't have happened. And the neighborhood watch should not be tailing random teenagers.

How do we know this? Was anyone on this forum there? Quite frankly, I have no idea whether or not the kid was doing anything wrong. We have no evidence one way or the other since there's no videos or pictures or anything.

And why shouldn't they tail random teenagers? Younger people commit more crimes. And when it's someone who isn't from that neighborhood, it's reasonably suspicious. Not enough to shoot someone but suspicious none the less.

[bara]

How do we know this?

And why shouldn't they tail random teenagers? Younger people commit more crimes. And when it's someone who isn't from that neighborhood, it's reasonably suspicious. Not enough to shoot someone but suspicious none the less.

1. Probably would have been told by now had he been doing anything wrong.

2. Please tell me you're joking?

[Hyena Dandy]

And why shouldn't they tail random teenagers? Younger people commit more crimes. And when it's someone who isn't from that neighborhood, it's reasonably suspicious. Not enough to shoot someone but suspicious none the less.

You have got to be kidding me, right? O_O

[Greenday]

1. Probably would have been told by now had he been doing anything wrong.

2. Please tell me you're joking?

Well, since the police aren't pressing the issue, that would suggest he did do something wrong to get himself in that situation. We just don't have proof kinda like there's no proof this was a racially motivated crime.

No, I'm not joking. Why would you think that? I get suspicious when I see kids walking on my street that I don't recognize.

[Andara Bledin]

As an aside, there are no charges yet. The police have yet to conclude their investigation and have not said they are not filing charges.

Oddly, almost none of the reports are giving the time of the shooting. However, one does mention that it was during halftime of the NBA All Star game, which was reported to start at 7:30 that evening. The one report that does give a time lists the half time as being at 7:30, which is likely a sloppy mistake.

As for releasing the tapes, it's premature at this point to do so: they're still conducting the investigation, and if it turns out they will be prosecuting Zimmerman, then they need this to not go completely viral or they won't be able to get a jury pool together.

Honestly, unless the boy's shirt has powder burns on it from the gun, Zimmerman is likely guilty of manslaughter at the least. I can't imagine how much threat a 140lb teenager could be to a grown man with a car and a gun.

^-.-^

[BlaqueKatt]

No, I'm not joking. Why would you think that? I get suspicious when I see kids walking on my street that I don't recognize.

um boy scouts, girl scouts, halloween, just moved getting lost, taking a shortcut-all 100% valid reasons for being in a area where you are unknown-and none of them suspicious.

Younger people commit more crimes

um no, just no.
unless in your world the 84% of crimes that are committed by those over the age of 18, is somehow more than the 16% committed by those under 18.....

arrests in 2010*

under 18 1,040,453
Over 18 7,181,015

*source- the FBI crime statistics
table 32
though table 38 breaks the ages down further-and the higherst percent of arrests come from the 25-29 with 14.8% and the 30-35 with 10.9%(combined 25.7% of crimes are committed by the 25-35 age)

Juveniles account for a whopping 16-17% of crimes.

[crashhelmet]

um boy scouts, girl scouts, halloween, just moved getting lost, taking a shortcut-all 100% valid reasons for being in a area where you are unknown-and none of them suspicious.

This is something that's been bothering me too.

I would imagine that if someone within a neighborhood watch program was "patrolling" the streets, he'd see the kid, ask him if he lived in the area, and then let him go when he said he was visiting his father. Sure, maybe follow him around, offer a ride home, do a quick lap and make sure he's not causing trouble, etc.

I really hate bringing this in this direction, and as I do so I feel I must remind everyone that I have a CCW and that I do carry if my client requests it. I'm not some anti-gun zealot that always brings up these arguments.

Why is this guy carrying his 9mm sidearm while patrolling the neighborhood? Has the area been burglarized recently or people attacked? What could this kid possibly have done to make him draw his weapon and shoot him? The article's quote of "They always get away" further plants questions if this guy was a wannabe hero and yet another that carries for ALL of the WRONG reasons.

[Andara Bledin]

At least one of the news reports mentions a recent upswing in property violence, but only one, and it doesn't go into what, exactly, that means.

It doesn't matter, however, as both standard neighborhood watch protocols and the 9-1-1 dispatcher both called for Zimmerman to keep himself out of the situation, which he failed at in about the most spectacular method conceivable.

Neighborhood Watch manual (pdf)
At the bottom of page 22, it says

Remember
Community members only serve as the extra “eyes and ears” of law enforcement. They should report their observations of suspicious activities to law enforcement; however, citizens should never try to take action on those observations. Trained law enforcement should be the only ones ever to take action based on observations of suspicious activities.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

Unless people are using articles not mentioned in this thread, we don't know what happened at all other than that. We don't know who confronted who. We don't have proof of racism. We don't know if the adult followed the kid around. There's just really no story to go along with what happened.

We can get a better picture than you're implying, though, because of the source. There were only two people there, and one is dead. Therefore, the guy who did the shooting must be the source of the narrative at least from the end of the 911 call to the moment he pulled the trigger. And it's hardly reasonable to think he would tell it so as to make himself look as bad as possible.

[Greenday]

um boy scouts, girl scouts, halloween, just moved getting lost, taking a shortcut-all 100% valid reasons for being in a area where you are unknown-and none of them suspicious.

Girl scouts and boy scouts? Ok, that's one excuse but why would girl scouts and boy scouts be walking around that late at night? They shouldn't be. It was Halloween so that's not an excuse. No one just walks around for the S's and G's in my town, especially at night. Short cut? Yea, but not at night.

None of those are valid reasons for walking around at night.

[powerboy]

If he'd said that kids, when confronted get aggressive, I might have agreed. But no, he want off in ebonics slang. "I'll cap yo ass?" Really?

Nice! As if this whole thing wasn't racist enough, you had to go and add another layer to the hatred cake.

It is just not black kids that says that. Other races does also. Trust me, my cousins and I had a white kids say that once.

As I said, regardless of color...some kids act that way.

Seems to me that if someone reads a statement like "Cap yo ass" and immediately thinks of a black person, they've got the problem.

Yeah they do.

[Andara Bledin]

No one just walks around for the S's and G's in my town, especially at night.

Well, in my town, people walk around at all hours, including teenagers, and it still doesn't matter in the slightest, since he wasn't in either of our towns.

Also, he wasn't "just walking around," he was going from point B back to point A. He had a destination; he wasn't loitering. It's fairly obvious to even a casual observer the difference between the two.

^-.-^