Musings

I am sitting here musing about the recent verdict in the George Zimmerman vs the people of Florida case and I simply wonder. As the CNN news program is on in the background, I try to put myself in the place of George Zimmerman and then in the place of Trevon Martin.

First of all living in the State of Wisconsin, a state that has a conceal and carry law, you never know who is carrying a firearm, and who is not. Knowing this, it causes one, at least in my case, to treat situations differently, situations that might have been provoking in the past are now just dismissed. What I mean, as an example, is that when someone cuts you off in traffic, now I simply might shake my head, I don't get upset by it as I might have in the past. It causes you to think twice about any situation that could result in any kind of confrontation. No, I don't mean cowardly, but I do mean thinking about what the consequences might be, and what are the results that could happen worth it, on a principal, more so than simply walking away.

Now where I live it is a very private community. You get to know your neighbors and you get to observe over time things that are normal and things that are not. You think you know who should be there, and who should not. Now I know as a kid, we were always going places we were not supposed to be in. The golf course at night, the cemetery when it was closed, climbing to the top floor of a three flat and going through the access panel in the roof so we could jump between the building rooftops like you might see on commercials or in a movie. We would jump neighborhood fences and take strawberries, cherries, apples, and other fruits and vegetables from neighbors gardens. We'd climb up the walls of Manning Bowl to get free entrance to the stadium. We'd go to Flax Pond, and if you left your oars in your rowboat, we'd take it for a spin. We did a lot of things that might have deserved adult confrontation, and police intervention, but they were harmless and certainly mischievous indeed but teenage boredom in it's most visible example.

Have I been in a physical confrontation with another individual, well I must admit, the answer is yes. But I have never been in a situation where someone is on top of me, banging my head into the ground, trying to kill me. I can only ask this question. If you are on the ground and and being pummeled, at what point in your mind, do you fear for your life? At what point do you have so much survival instincts and adrenalin flowing that you try to stop the situation by any means that you can, your survival instincts, and if one of those solutions is to pull your gun, the gun that you have every right to carry and possess, and use it, would you? I don't think at this point of the confrontation that it matters who started it, why it was started, or who struck the first blow. The issue is does the person on the bottom fear for his life. How do you measure that? Each persons interpretation might be different. But to assess your threshold on someone else, is simply wrong.

Now try to put yourself into the head of the victim. He's walking in an area he is not supposed to be in. But he is a kid, they do that all the time, so what? But there have been issues in that area, a gated community I believe, and that is why the community initiated a neighborhood watch committee. So here I am, walking along going to the store, and I notice someone is following me. "I" would turn and ask him why he is following me, who wouldn't? Others might simply run. BUT, lets face it, teenagers think they are invincible, I did. So that is what I believe might have happened. Trevon simply turned and asked why he was being followed and then the confrontation ensues and escalates. Asking, can be in many different forms and does not mean verbal. Teenagers simply DO NOT know when to walk away. Did Zimmerman try to restrain Martin, and that's what started it? We'll never know. But I do know that if someone was following me, it wouldn't go without notice and question.

Simply put, in our system of justice, EVERYONE is presumed innocent until PROVEN guilty. If you look at the whole of the facts (where your only source of facts are through the media) you come away with Mr. Zimmerman being guilty and he must prove his innocence. But that is not the case. The prosecution must prove, BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, to a jury selected by both the prosecution and the defense that Zimmerman was guilty. The jury weighed all the facts "that were presented" and found Zimmerman was not guilty "of what the charges were". We have to accept that, it is the system that we live by. The same system that let OJ Simpson go free. The process is now, that we have concluded the proceedings, the only way to make sure there might be a different outcome from this point forward would be to change the law. But even if that were to happen, there is no guarantee that a jury would vote any differently and we'd be right here where we are now.