There are several good diaries today about the verdict travesty in the Trayvon Martin case. My goals are to add a few thoughts about the prosecution's court performance and also, more importantly, offer a few suggestions about how we can channel our righteous anger about the verdict into positive action that benefits our nation.
First, a bit about me. I was raised in a public housing project on the East Side of Detroit. I misspent my youth hanging around with street gangs and motorcycle gangs as well as some mind-numbingly vicious career criminals and an assortment of dumbass petty thugs. Half of my childhood friends are either dead or in prison.
One thing I can say with a high degree of certainty is this: I know thugs. Some of my friends are or were thugs. But Trayvon Martin was no thug. This young man did not deserve to die.
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We'll never know exactly what happened the night of the shooting because George Zimmerman will never tell us the truth. I am convinced that Zimmerman has told us what he believes happened. He believes that he captured a burglar, a young black man wearing a hoodie, and the burglar had to be shot while resisting arrest. That, of course, is not the truth. But it is probably close to how Zimmerman internally justifies his actions.
Prosecution Missteps
In my opinion, the prosecution failed at trial in several areas. They were atrocious in witness handling. Rachel Jenteal, who should have been a key prosecution witness, was allowed to become a punching bag.
Jonathon Good should have been smacked down for his assertions about Ground-n-Pound and MMA-style fighting. The prosecution did not even call their own MMA expert. They left further discussion of MMA fighting totally in the hands of the defense, who provided Adam Pollock's self-serving testimony. (New Kokopelli's Fight Gym advertisement: After a year of 3 times a week training with Kokopelli's, you will not even be able to defend yourself against a skinny 17 year old with no training. Sign up today!!)
I could go on and on about prosecution missteps, but want to end this section with perhaps the most egregious misstep: The foam dummy. Instead of obtaining a 200 pound crash test dummy to accurately reflect Zimmerman's size at the time, prosecutors used a lightweight foam dummy that defense attorney O'Mara was able to use in a demonstration of how Trayvon Martin, possessing superhuman strength, was able to bash Zimmerman's head repeatedly against the sidewalk. (Let's ignore the fact that all or almost all of the fight occurred on grass.)
As a relatively strong man who has been weightlifting since the age of 10 (I can still bench press 315 at age 57), I can state with no hesitation that grabbing a man you are kneeling on and lifting his entire torso with your hands on his shoulders is physically impossible. Especially when the man outweighs you by 45 pounds. Considering that both legs make up 20% of total body weight (Leg Weight), that leaves 80% for the torso and head. For Zimmerman at the time, that is 160 pounds.
That means Martin, who weighed 158 pounds, while kneeling on the ground and stretching forward, pulled an amount equal to his own body weight repeatedly up to his chest and returned it to the ground. Do you think this is possible? Don't take my word for it. Try your own experiment. Kneel on a person who outweighs you by 45 pounds and lift their upper body with just your hands on their shoulders. Or take a barbell loaded with your own body weight and place it two feet in front of you. Then lift it to your shoulders. And remember! You're kneeling, so you can't use your leg muscles.
But what impression was the jury was left with? The burning image of a preternaturally strong black thug throwing poor little 205 pound George Zimmerman around like a rag doll. Repeatedly bashing his head on imaginary concrete. What else could George do but what he did?
Channeling Our Anger
The trial is over. Zimmerman was found not guilty. End of story? No, and here's why. This episode has highlighted the steady encroachment of gunslinger mentality in the United States. Although Zimmerman did not invoke Florida's Stand Your Ground law in his defense, many states have enacted Stand Your Ground (25 states), Castle Doctrine (19 states), and Concealed Carry (49 states) laws at the urging of groups like ALEC.
The goal of these types of laws is to let people who use a gun against another person escape criminal and civil liability for their actions. Let's be clear: Sometimes, guns are lawfully used by gun owners to save their own or another person's life or to prevent a heinous crime. When I last lived in Detroit, in the late 1970s, a neighbor saved herself from rape (and possibly death) by firing her shotgun through the door as a neighborhood creep was climbing the stairs toward her bedroom. He was not injured and was soon apprehended by police.
However, problems arise when the situation is ambiguous and the shooter invokes the cover of the law to avoid prosecution. Tampa Bay Times did excellent work examining Florida's SYG law last year. Here's the Link. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free. Also, as Salon relates in this article, how successful your self-defense claim will be depends to a large extent upon your skin color.
So what can we do? Consider this: Trayvon's death had an unintended higher purpose. It has shone the spotlight on some of the cockroaches infesting our nation's state legislatures. Progressives are now on high alert and must work to stop the spread of gunslinger laws. We must also work to defang ALEC and its ilk before they do even more harm to our country.
This is a state-by-state battle, and each of us can play a role through our votes for state and local offices. Do you know who your state representatives are? If not, it's time to find out. Contact them and express your views. Work to roll back these insane laws. Make sure that when unarmed young people are gunned down, the shooter has a LOT of explaining to do. Put the burden of proof back where it belongs: On the person with the gun.
This is 21st Century America. The days of the Wild, Wild West are over.