I am not making judgements on whether Zimmerman is guilty of a crime. I am, however, quite content to make the judgement that the police should have treated him as a suspect and at least detained him while initial enquiries were made.

Hence the frequent use of the word 'if'.

There are conflicting witness statements, but if those are true, and there was a 'crowd', then surely he needed only to cry for help.

Sassenach wrote:I guess that's going to depend on your interpretation of 'forcible'.

No it depends on what is the legal definition of forcible. According to Black's Law dictionary force is defined as "Power, violence or pressure directed against a person or thing."

Sassenach wrote:I picked a somewhat silly example of course, but nevertheless I suspect that the police would find it very difficult to prosecute given the way this law has been drafted. In theory a forcible entry doesn't even need to have been made, the owner merely has to have 'reason to believe' that it's about to happen. So a drunk man staggers across the street and tries to pull your rear door open, is that reason to believe he's about to forcibly enter your car ? It would be difficult for the police to prove otherwise, so it amounts to the same thing.

No. because Reason to Believe will have a legal definition as well. It would usually be some kind of ordinary reasonable person standard. If a reasonable person wouldn't think power, violence or pressure was going to be used, then they would have no reason to believe.

danivon wrote:I I am, however, quite content to make the judgement that the police should have treated him as a suspect and at least detained him while initial enquiries were made.

I am pretty sure the police did make enquires and decided to not to press charges.

danivon wrote:There are conflicting witness statements, but if those are true, and there was a 'crowd', then surely he needed only to cry for help.

Z did cry for help. This is confirmed by witnesses and 911 calls. However, no one responded to his cries for assistance.

So again, the question is what should he have done.

As for you previous question of why this one has me so perplexed. It isn't the only one that confuses me. Pretty much every story that is national confuses me. For example, there was a front page link on AOL this morning about a woman in Conneticut that was missing with her 2 year old daughter. Why was that national news? Or the Casey Anthony case. Why was that such a national story.

Honestly, it just goes to my increasing disrepect towards the media and how it is more interested in entertaining over informing anymore.

However, for this case specifically, I notice most of those that railing against Zimmerman tend to be Liberals and it makes me wonder.

No it depends on what is the legal definition of forcible. According to Black's Law dictionary force is defined as "Power, violence or pressure directed against a person or thing."

Pressure exerted against a doorhandle ?

I'll say it again, if an intruder were to enter a property through an unlocked door they'd still be regarded as an intruder and the homeowner would not be prosecuted for standing their ground. That tells me that the legal definition is a lot more loosely applied than you're making it out to be.

Archduke Russell John wrote:

danivon wrote:I I am, however, quite content to make the judgement that the police should have treated him as a suspect and at least detained him while initial enquiries were made.

I am pretty sure the police did make enquires and decided to not to press charges.

Well, they certainly decided on the latter part. How much of the former they did remains to be seen.

Z did cry for help. This is confirmed by witnesses and 911 calls. However, no one responded to his cries for assistance.

So again, the question is what should he have done.

To be frank, I don't know. But then again, you are asking me the question on the assumption that his claims and (those of the many witnesses who saw but apparently did not act) are to be believed. My problem is that I don't know what happened, and I suspect that you don't know much more than what's been revealed through rumours and claims of one side of the story or another.

But you seem to be asking what the 'right' decision is that he should have taken after what seems to have been a string of 'wrong' decisions. As if his previous actions and ignorance of direct advice had nothing to do with it.

As for you previous question of why this one has me so perplexed. It isn't the only one that confuses me. Pretty much every story that is national confuses me. For example, there was a front page link on AOL this morning about a woman in Conneticut that was missing with her 2 year old daughter. Why was that national news? Or the Casey Anthony case. Why was that such a national story.

Honestly, it just goes to my increasing disrepect towards the media and how it is more interested in entertaining over informing anymore.

The beauty of a free press is that you and I don't getto dictate what they run as stories. The problem with a free press is that it tends to be freedom for just the owner of the press. But there we are.

Why would a missing mother and two kids be national news? I don't know (I did google but all I can find is a 53-year old woman from CT who went missing and appears to have been found dead last week - are you allergic to links or something?)

Perhaps because the police want people to look out for them? Perhaps if it's believed they could have left the State? Because while a single missing person is quite alarming, it's more unsual for there to be two people go missing together?

However, for this case specifically, I notice most of those that railing against Zimmerman tend to be Liberals and it makes me wonder.

What does it make you wonder, ARJ? I do hope you aren't getting close to our international LIBRUL conspiracy to destroy the USA by means of publicising unusual and heinous crimes. Oh, darn! I've said too much. Ignore me, nothing to see here...

Seriously, dude, who is 'railing' against Zimmerman here? It's the police that I am critical of. Why? because if they had been seen to take allegations that this was not just self defence / stand your ground more seriously then the case might have been in much less contentious state right now, regardless of whether Zimmerman is guilty or not. Because at the moment, if he's innocent, the police really have let him down.

Links on ARJ's first anecdata:

Victim Identified in Old City beating death from 16 Jan, the incident took place in the early hours of the 14 Jan

Police charge 3 in fatal Philadelphia beating They were arrested on the 20 Jan and charged on the 21 Jan.

Links on ARJ's second anecdata:

Wrong man attacked in vigilante injusticefrom June 2009. It appears that he did ID two of his assailants and intended to press charges, but I've not seen whether the police did so. If they did nothing more, then that would be pretty serious, and perhaps newsworthy enough for national exposure, but still the fact is that contrary to ARJ's recollection, the victim survived.

As far as I've seen, they didn't even really condemn the attack on the man who was later found guilty, so seems the Commissioner and the Mayor are relatively blasé about vigilantism, which is pretty newsworthy, even if the victim is hardly sympathetic (and didn't die).

Zenquis sues police from last year, with more information about what happened with the actual guy and allegations about the involvement of the police.

danivon wrote:But you seem to be asking what the 'right' decision is that he should have taken after what seems to have been a string of 'wrong' decisions. As if his previous actions and ignorance of direct advice had nothing to do with it.

Because that is the way the law works. He had retreated, i.e. headed back to his car. It was Martin that extended the confrontation. So at the point, even under the old law, Zimmerman is now within his rights to defend himself. The question is whether the escalation was reasonable or not.

danivon wrote:Seriously, dude, who is 'railing' against Zimmerman here?

I am not talking just about here. I am talking all over the place. There are marches in cities to have Z arrested, there are websites and facebook groups that are out wanting to see Z strung up by his thumbs. That's what I am trying to talk about.

danivon wrote: It's the police that I am critical of. Why? because if they had been seen to take allegations that this was not just self defence / stand your ground more seriously then the case might have been in much less contentious state right now, regardless of whether Zimmerman is guilty or not. Because at the moment, if he's innocent, the police really have let him down.

Again, I disagree with your characterization of the police conduct. Z admitted he shot the M. Claimed he did it after M had him on the ground and slammed his head on the ground a couple of times and nobody would help him. They confiscated his weapon. They interviewed witnesses. Some corroborated Z's story and some did not. What percentage supported Z and which didn't we don't know. They then turned all this evidence over to Prosecutors.

What else should the police have done in this situation for you to think they handled the case more seriously?

Sassenach wrote:Pressure exerted against a doorhandle ?

get @#$! real. Are you being serious? Pressure as in making one do something against their will not pressure as in exerting strength on an object.

Sassenach wrote:I'll say it again, if an intruder were to enter a property through an unlocked door they'd still be regarded as an intruder and the homeowner would not be prosecuted for standing their ground. That tells me that the legal definition is a lot more loosely applied than you're making it out to be.

And I'll say it again. You are wrong. Some fact would have to exist for that homeowner to reasonably believe they were in danger of death of serious bodily injury. This means your hypothetical intruder would have to have a gun or knife or have made some kind of action/comment that indicates they intend to harm me.

Let me give you an example. I live in a townhouse. My former neighbor had some older family members who could never keep his house number straight. More then once, they would just walk into my house. I would be upstairs and would hear a noise. I would come downstairs and find strangers standing in my living room. I would not be able to use the stand your ground law as justification if I shot them.

Why because while their entry into my house could be considered unlawful, i.e. they were not invited and my unlocked door was closed, there was no forcible entry, i.e. they did not threat me with violence, pressure me or use some kind of power over me to enter the house. Therefore, no reasonable person would have reason to believe there was a threat of death or serious bodily injury.

We're talking about a situation where by definition there would be no witnesses except the two people involved. As such we're talking one person's word against another's, and if the other is dead...

I think you're being remarkably naive to assume that this law would not allow people to get away with murder. The law explicitly says that there's a presumption in favour of the homeowner in cases where they have reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry was about to take place. How the hell can the police ever prove otherwise if somebody is found unlawfully on their property ?

But anyway, we're focussing far too narrowly on one specific hypothetical here. The problems with this law are far broader. It doesn't apply a test of reasonableness to the use of force. Rather, it legitimises homicide across a whole range of scenarios that really shouldn't require that level of force to be applied. For example, where is the imminent risk to your person where the intruder is already running away ? Bear in mind that this is covered by the 'has taken place' part of the legislation.

danivon wrote:Links on ARJ's first anecdata:

Victim Identified in Old City beating death from 16 Jan, the incident took place in the early hours of the 14 Jan

Police charge 3 in fatal Philadelphia beating They were arrested on the 20 Jan and charged on the 21 Jan.

Links on ARJ's second anecdata:

Wrong man attacked in vigilante injusticefrom June 2009. It appears that he did ID two of his assailants and intended to press charges, but I've not seen whether the police did so. If they did nothing more, then that would be pretty serious, and perhaps newsworthy enough for national exposure, but still the fact is that contrary to ARJ's recollection, the victim survived.

As far as I've seen, they didn't even really condemn the attack on the man who was later found guilty, so seems the Commissioner and the Mayor are relatively blasé about vigilantism, which is pretty newsworthy, even if the victim is hardly sympathetic (and didn't die).

Zenquis sues police from last year, with more information about what happened with the actual guy and allegations about the involvement of the police.

Thanks for looking it up Dan. So then tell me, why is the Martin/Zimmerman case a national story and either of those not?

I did already answer:

1) Kevin Kress' attackers were arrested within a week of his death. "Man dies, police hunt killers, police arrest people and charge them" is a story, but it's not exactly unusual.
By the way, the second link was from the CBS main (national) site, not the local sites most stories were on. It did go national, but just not as big as this one.

2) Michael Zenquis did not actually die, even though your recollection ofthe case was that he had.

Personally, having actually tried to look into the facts, I think there are parallels between the second case and the Zimmerman situation, in that there are allegations of police condonement of vigilantism.

The main things that make the Zimmerman-Martin affair more newsworthy (perhaps) are these:

1) The police did not appear to act for weeks (unlike with Kress)
2) The kid died as a result of the vigilante (unlike with Zenquis)
3) The law recently changed in Florida (unlike with either)
4) It fits in with our LIBRUL master plan to - Oh! I've done it again! There is no (4), ok?

Re #4, without it being part of either the LIBRUL or RIGHT WING master plan, I think this has quickly entered the political discourse regardless of the facts, to the detriment of any ultimate truth. We have Fox emphasizing some facts; we have Democratic Congressmen talking to Martin's family; we have a President commenting, we have marches appealing to the Feds to correct the South's biases, we have an election where different sectors want to emphasize different issues.

Some people will immediately sympathize with an African American who may have been the victim of a vigilante in the south while the local police force winks. Another group will be sympathetic to someone who may have been trying to protect his neighborhood from crime, using his constitutional firearm, and perhaps trying to protect himself, and now has been labeled a racist who must be brought to justice based on political correctness. All of us will suffer from confirmation bias and see the facts we want to see.

I think that a different Zimmerman had it just right: "The answer is blowing in the wind".

Another group will be sympathetic to someone who may have been trying to protect his neighborhood from crime, using his constitutional firearm, and perhaps trying to protect himself,

The term for this kind of self appointed person, out patrolling his neighborhood, is vigilante.
Are people generally sympathetic to vigilante justice?

RickyP,
You are talking out of order (a nicer term than what I was going to say you were talking out of). A person who protects himself while using his firearm is NOT always a vigilante. Your comments are biased and completely within your normal scope of misleading statements.
What do you want done with Mr. Zimmerman? Perhaps you have convicted him already? I thought he got a trial in Florida. Perhaps you are confusing this with a foreign nation? Zimmerman did something stupid by leaving the car. Already stated such. Can you say he did anything illegal with evidence to prove it? Not likely. That is why I have recommended waiting until the investigation gets further along.

Here are a couple of media lynchings that occurred in the past.
Tawana Brawley
Duke Lacrosse Team

The media, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton jumped on both of these cases, and looked like idiots.

I believe you are falling into the same image, RickyP.

danivon wrote:1) The police did not appear to act for weeks (unlike with Kress)

Well the Martin/Zimmerman incident took place on February 26th and the information was turned over to the prosecutors after investigation around March 13th. Which is basically two weeks of investigating.

So again I ask, what more could the police have done to make you less disappointed in their actions?