Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: I mean, how do you feed bullets
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: if you don’t have a gun? If you listen to that tape, it’s my son Erik saying, ‘Look out! He’s got a gun!’ You know, he’s screaming. It’s the first voice you hear on that video is him warning them that he’s coming around the corner with a gun.
Bartlett: Uh huh.
Zimmerman: You don’t know who he’s going to shoot. He could shoot a pedestrian, I mean shoot somebody out there. But I think he had a death wish (unintelligible). I mean, he calls his girlfriend to say goodbye?
Bartlett: Oh wow.
Zimmerman: And then she won’t release her phone.
Bartlett: Huh.
Zimmerman: So they really don’t know what texts he was saying.
Bartlett: Uh huh.
Zimmerman: He was so dumb. So another version was he thought he was going to go to prison for life, you know, for one deal. (Unintelligible) a year, he might get diversion, he might get drug court, but anyway, he was calling goodbye, and then supposedly, then she comes out with this false narrative that they shot him, you know, 30 times in the back. He didn’t get shot once in the back, you know?
Bartlett: Uh huh.
Zimmerman: But unfortunately he got shot. They were very, very convinced, and it still might be the story that he got two rounds off, because there’s two bullets missing out of the gun, assuming it was full.
Bartlett: Mm hmm, right.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible) it’s 20, whatever, it’s 12, 12 shots.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: And then you have 10 in to begin with, then I guess it’s not missing two.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible)
Bartlett: Right.
Zimmerman: They were even checking the guy. Erik said, ‘I was checking him for bullet holes.’ One guy thought he was shot. His adrenaline was going so much, he didn’t even know if he had been shot.
Bartlett: Oh my gosh.
Zimmerman: But they heard shots.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: So they thought he fired (unintelligible) you see the video, hell, they told him a couple times, ‘Drop your gun, drop your gun.’ And he didn’t drop his gun. He’s, you know, it shows him right there. And his dad says, ‘Well (unintelligible) (laughing).
Bartlett: So your son was there for the whole incident?
Zimmerman: What?
Bartlett: Your son was there?
Zimmerman: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Bartlett: How’s he doing?
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible) He actually met, what was it, he met with one of the guys.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible) yeah, he met with one of the guys, just to go visit with him. Talk. (Unintelligible) They never released once that one of the shooters was Black.
Bartlett: One of the police officers, or?
Zimmerman: Yeah, I guess it doesn’t match some narrative (unintelligible).
Bartlett: Yeah, oh gosh.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible) If it’s such a big racial deal, then you should (unintelligible). He obviously thought he was going to get killed himself, he shot him. He was Black. It wouldn’t have mattered if the guy was green (chuckles) is the point. But it’s just this narrative that there’s like (unintelligible) killing minorities (chuckles) (unintelligible).
Bartlett: Gosh. Yeah, every, everything…
Zimmerman: There’s even an article I saw that, I sent it to other people, I sent it to my son (unintelligible) NAACP, and I was (unintelligible) a lifetime member. My first job out of college working at an all Black community center.
Bartlett: Uh huh.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible)
Bartlett: Uh huh.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible)
Bartlett: That’s good. It’s good to feel what that feels like I think.
Zimmerman: Yeah
Bartlett: It’s important.
Zimmerman: Yeah, but anyway, (unintelligible).
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: I coached and counseled
Bartlett: Uh huh.
Zimmerman: and did all kinds of stuff.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: But this lady, she talks about the Blacks being murdered here in Clark County, allegedly armed, allegedly? (Unintelligible) throw that stuff out there. You don’t know the facts; it’s not allegedly.
Bartlett: Mm.
Zimmerman: He had a frickin’ gun, and they got it on video. And you put this uh, you know, distrust out there in the community. It’s still the same thing. They want to argue that because there’s whatever (unintelligible) 4 percent Blacks in Clark County, but there’s 12 percent Blacks in the jail. So does that mean we’re automatically racist?
Bartlett: Mm hmm.
Zimmerman: Does it?
Bartlett: Not necessarily, I mean…
Zimmerman: Well yeah, it doesn’t (Unintelligible) Three Black guys shot and robbed this guy. (Unintelligible) time in the Clark County Jail.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: You know, they won’t go to trial for a year or so,
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: … and then they’ll be off to prison for (unintelligible) years for robbery and shooting somebody, and they pistol whipped him, too.
Bartlett: Mm hmm.
Zimmerman: They were not nice kids, put it that way. And he was a Spanish guy, so is that racist? I don’t know.
Bartlett: Every, every, the bottom line is every case is different. We have to look at the facts of every single case.
Zimmerman: Oh yeah.
Bartlett: But there’s so much anger out there now.
Zimmerman: Oh yeah, I agree.
Bartlett: I just feel like we’re falling off a cliff.
Zimmerman: (Unintelligible) I remember this one lady, she accused, it was after the fact, and she was a Black lady and she accused me of being racist, whatever. I said, ‘OK, I was racist because I ruled against you, but you admit that this brand new Brazilian hardwood floors that she didn’t like the color of it, so you rolled it all in white? (Chuckles) And the, you know, the landlord.
Bartlett: Mm hmm.
Zimmerman: I’m trying to remember what they were.
Bartlett: Oh, is this small claim?
Zimmerman: Yeah, small claims. I said, ‘Yeah, because they’re like brand new, $6,000 for the Brazilian floor,’ and they came in and said they need $2,000 to sand off all of the white paint, and they don’t even know if they can get it back to the original thing.
Bartlett: Mm hmm.
Zimmerman: I said, back then (unintelligible) whatever it was I said, it could have been five, but anyway, you know, so I ruled against the, you know, the other minority couple (chuckles), not because they were (unintelligible) or whatever, but because they were right. She just had it in her mind; I mean she was mental.
Bartlett: Yeah.
Zimmerman: She said it was too depressing to have the dark floor (unintelligible).
Bartlett: Oh, and she was just a tenant?
Zimmerman: Oh yeah, she was a tenant.
Bartlett: And she painted all of the Brazilian floors white?
Zimmerman: Oh yeah, white.
Bartlett: And then the landlord wanted to recoup that damage it sounds like?
Zimmerman: Oh yeah, to get it back to…
Bartlett: Oh no, that’s awful.
Zimmerman: It was awful (unintelligible).
Bartlett: Oh, God; that’s awful. How did she not think she’d have to pay for that? Come on now
Zimmerman: I know because she…
Bartlett: Did she think she was improving it, like had made it better? They owe me money for the paint?
Zimmerman: No, she wanted, it was depressing to have dark floors.
Bartlett: Oh, got it.
Zimmerman: You have dark floors, (unintelligible) would you paint them white?
Bartlett: I mean, I don’t know, I guess I can’t know until I’m in that situation. OK so really quickly with the…