alabama24 wrote:Purple Haize wrote:The whole thing is a recipe for disaster. An over anxious Neighborhood Watch guy and an ill tempered kid. What Zimmerman did at first, following and asking what he was doing was a little too nosy but not criminal.
How is it "too nosy" for a Neighborhood Watch guy to ask a suspicious character (wearing a hoodie) what he is doing? I don't know if Zimmerman went to far in his pursuit of Trayvon, but a community certainly has the right to form a neighborhood watch and to keep track of strangers in the area.
I think this is a good question to ask and I don't know the right answer. In my opinion, a lot rests on how Zimmerman identified himself when he approached Martin. If someone who didn't appear to be a police officer approached me aggressively with a gun, hard to say which direction I would go in. Either run or fight are really the only two reasonable options. Sit around and talk nicely about it probably doesn't sound to appetizing.
Reminds me of what happened to those girls who were buying sparkling water but plainclothes ABC officers drew guns and asked them to exit their vehicle and then they drove off scared and almost ran them over and then they were charged with assaulting an officer and running from the police or something silly (charges were later dropped).
Something similar happened to me years ago when I was sitting quietly in a parking lot in my car and someone came up to my car, knocked on my window really loud and said "Get out" and had a gun drawn. From my perspective, I was being carjacked or something. I started to drive off and then I saw sirens and realized that it must have been an officer of the law. They thought I was someone else but needless to say, it scared the crap out of me.
I think it is perfectly okay to use lethal force in self defense. "Fear for your life" is such a relative term and really no way to prove or disprove since it has less to do with actions and more to do with feelings. I think the big question is, who started the altercation and, if you start an altercation, are you able to end it, lethally, when you're losing the fight. Maybe we just look at society like the old west and say, "Hey when you choose to engage someone else, be warned, your life could be at stake." I'm not necessarily against that save for the fact that a lot of youngins make stupid mistakes and get in fights when they should just move along. I think that may have been Martin's mistake. Engaging Zimmerman when he should have just kept moving.
- By aredd33
- By flamehunter
- By LUOrange