Black teen shot and killed by neighborhood watch in Orlando gated community

[driveway]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Zimmerman said in the call to the Police non emergency line when asked about the race of the suspicious person, "I believe his black" this suggests he wasn't sure the race of the suspicious person and puts racial profiling or even offender profiling into doubt.

Not true at all. He said both of the following: "He looks black." "... he's a black male."

http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...zimmerman.html

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by driveway

Not true at all. He said both of the following: "He looks black." "... he's a black male."

http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...zimmerman.html

What is not true at all? He said he's a black male after he said that Martin was approaching him - chances are he got a better look - but his initial response was that he "thought" - this was after reporting it - so in order to have racial profiling we must focus on his initial response and not what he said a few minutes later.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by driveway

Not true at all. He said both of the following: "He looks black." "... he's a black male."

http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...zimmerman.html

According to the document you linked, the first time race is brought up is here:

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy is he white, black, or Hispanic?
Zimmerman: He looks black.

When directly asked, Zimmerman responded with his thought on the race, not before. On the tape, Zimmerman sounded unsure about the race of Martin. Next, after Martin starts to approach him, Zimmerman now confirms Martin is black by saying:

Zimmerman: Yeah, now he's coming towards me.
Dispatcher: OK.
Zimmerman: He's got his hand in his waistband. And he's a black male.

So the only two times in that call that Zimmerman makes reference to race is once when directly asked, he gave what he thought the race was, and then once he was certain of the race, he confirmed it to the dispatcher. Context is important.

I have taken hundreds of calls where people aren't sure of the race, or change it later in the call. Here in Calgary, an easy mixup of race is Native/Asian. Police will always ask race as one of the first person descriptors as well, so the dispatcher wasn't out of line asking.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

What is not true at all? He said he's a black male after he said that Martin was approaching him - chances are he got a better look - but his initial response was that he "thought" - this was after reporting it - so in order to have racial profiling we must focus on his initial response and not what he said a few minutes later.

What on earth transcript are you reading? Here is the conversation:

Dispatcher: Okay, and this guy is he white, black, or hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by driveway

What on earth transcript are you reading? Here is the conversation:

Dispatcher: Okay, and this guy is he white, black, or hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphrase

He looks black = "thinks", "not sure"
compared too
He's black - an absolute

you are now nitpicking -

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

You're trolling would be much less annoying if you'd use the multi-quote feature.

What the hell are you even talking about. Your post makes no sense.

[DuffMan]

mur·der noun \ˈmər-dər\


1
: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Pretty much fits my description of what happened.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

mur·der noun \ˈmər-dər\


1
: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Pretty much fits my description of what happened.

Except possibly the bolded.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

mur·der noun \ˈmər-dər\


1
: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Pretty much fits my description of what happened.

You were there?

[terminator]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

You were there?

You don't need to be there.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by terminator

You don't need to be there.

To say what happened? I suppose not. But to be credible? Absolutely.

Anyone can say what happened that night. The simple fact is two people know, one is dead and the other didn't have enough inconsistency to be found guilty of a crime. Anyone who argues differently at this point either knows something everyone else doesn't or are biased and basing their assumptions off their personal beliefs, not the facts.

[gargamel]

Originally Posted by driveway

The reason so many people feel so passionately about this case is that where you keep using the word "suspicious" to describe Trayvon Martin, most people recognize that the word you should use is "black."

Zimmerman saw a black person and his mind immediately decided that black=suspicious. This is not really racism, it's just the nature of things in the United States.

It's what Obama addressed in his comments the other day, it's why Martin turned around to confront Zimmerman. It's the reason LeVar Burton has to hang his hands outside his car if he gets stopped by the police so he doesn't get shot.

If Martin was white, Zimmerman sees a teenager. Because he's black he sees a suspicious person. That is a huge, huge problem and is the reason why so many people are upset about this case.

Zimmerman is not racist, he's just American, and that's what's wrong.

I agree with everything that you said, but thinking about profiling always reminds me of the this quote by Jesse Jackson: "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

Of course, Jesse Jackson has never looked around, seen somebody black, and then shot them to death.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by terminator

You don't need to be there.

Nope, so if you are not there than you have the evidence presented in court. But most people want to take the emotional angle, not interpret the facts to the most logical conclusion and give their opinion.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by driveway

Zimmerman saw a black person and his mind immediately decided that black=suspicious.

What you described is the problem - that so many people out there are stating as fact what they think Zimmerman should have thought based on their own personal beliefs on other people.

What you claim could be true or false, but since there has been no evidence at all to support your belief it is simply rubbish.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

What you described is the problem - that so many people out there are stating as fact what they think Zimmerman should have thought based on their own personal beliefs on other people.

What you claim could be true or false, but since there has been no evidence at all to support your belief it is simply rubbish.

driveway is using racial profiling to prove racial profiling

[CaptainCrunch]

nm

[getbak]

I'm sure this is old news to people who have been following this since the beginning, but I just came across it today. Over the seven and a half years prior to the shooting, Zimmerman made 46 separate calls to the local police 911 and non-emergency lines. In those calls, he reported a wide variety of things, from loud parties and dangerous drivers, to open garage doors, and children playing in the street.

Every call is documented, and those documents were made public by the local police: http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...l-history.html

It seems like he's hyper-vigilant nearly to the point of paranoia.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by getbak

I'm sure this is old news to people who have been following this since the beginning, but I just came across it today. Over the seven and a half years prior to the shooting, Zimmerman made 46 separate calls to the local police 911 and non-emergency lines. In those calls, he reported a wide variety of things, from loud parties and dangerous drivers, to open garage doors, and children playing in the street.

Every call is documented, and those documents were made public by the local police: http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...l-history.html

It seems like he's hyper-vigilant nearly to the point of paranoia.

Not really. That's 6 calls to the police a year, or one every other month. It may seem to most folks like that's a lot, but it's not. Especially for a neighborhood with a community watch program of any sort. There are folks in Calgary who call much more frequently than that.

Of the 4 things you listed, 2 are calls police get multiple times a day (parties and driving), one is something we get on a fairly frequent basis (open garage doors/house doors/unsecure doors on a building) and one is something we see occasionally (kids playing in the street).

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by getbak

I'm sure this is old news to people who have been following this since the beginning, but I just came across it today. Over the seven and a half years prior to the shooting, Zimmerman made 46 separate calls to the local police 911 and non-emergency lines. In those calls, he reported a wide variety of things, from loud parties and dangerous drivers, to open garage doors, and children playing in the street.

Every call is documented, and those documents were made public by the local police: http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...l-history.html

It seems like he's hyper-vigilant nearly to the point of paranoia.

Or some type of neighbourhood watch member.

47 calls, seems excessive at first glance, but several of them are from alarms going off, a couple of them are back-to-back calls (so it's not 47 separate incicents) and many are simply 311 calls here. Trash blocking the road, potholes causing damage, even noise complaints? Not exactly screaming anything of importance here. The loose dogs and pitbulls in his garage we already knew about, that's why he got the gun in the first place.

So you filter out that and you got about 10 incidents of him calling due to "suspicious people", including Trayvon. One of which would have been the phone call were he reported a thief who was later caught, another involved some men with a slim jim so he gets a free pass on that one. So maybe 8 phone calls, not all 911, of "suspicious behaviour" over 8 years, for someone who joined neighbourhood watch I don't know if that's a crazy number.

I would say the most important fact to take away from that is that not everyone he reported was of a certain race. He had reported suspicious behavior of Hispanic and white males as well.

[driveway]

You know what, you're right, there is no way to prove Zimmerman's state of mind.

However, this does not mean that racial profiling doesn't happen on a regular basis. A regular enough basis that the President of the United States can call to mind instances where it happened to him. That is the broader context within which the Martin/Zimmerman incident happened.

Nage Waza's original comment was "I don't understand why this got so much attention," and it was to that which I was trying to respond. Mel, you're right, it's impossible to prove Zimmerman's specific state of mind at the time of the incident regarding the race of the person he was following.

However, being regarded as suspicious or dangerous is a commonplace event in the lives of black men in America, and here is an incident in which this very common public perception - of black men as dangerous - appears to have led to the death of a teenager.

The ultimate details of this specific case are largely irrelevant in the broader context: black men in America are unreasonably viewed as dangerous, and are largely unfairly treated by the justice system.

Those things are undeniable and don't have anything to do with Zimmerman's state of mind; but they are why the case is important and has garnered so much attention.

Zimmerman may or may not have responded to Martin as he did because of his race, but that obviously doesn't mean that every neighbourhood watch captain around America will discount race in their assessment of a situation, and I would be utterly shocked if you thought that anything but a tiny fragment of America wouldn't react with more suspicion to a black male than to a white male - even black Americans - it's the unfortunate nature of reality in America today.

Whether or not Zimmerman reacted differently to Martin because of his race will remain known only to Zimmerman - and even he may not know, or may be unable to metacognitate to the necessary degree - but in terms of focusing attention on the public perception of black males in America there is something important to be gained from analyzing whether and why people react to race the way they do.

That is why the case is important and why it's worth talking about.