A strange thing happened on my way to reading the coverage about this tragedy. I came across the Mother Jones coverage of the 911 logs and in looking at the night of the killing of Trayvon Martin there appears to be a "Nixon" problem - something is missing. First listen to the unedited version of the 911 call:
In the logs obtained by Mother Jones there also appears to be a second call that was placed to the Sanford PD - about 10 minutes after the first 4:14 second call by Zimmerman. Zimmerman's family claims he was reaching for his phone when confronting Martin, the call only lasted about 20 seconds - BUT is stamped at 7:20. The first call was at 7:11 and Martin's phone records indicate he was on the phone with his girlfriend who heard a "scuffle" until 7:16 when the phone went dead. Zimmerman hung up at 7:15. That is approximately
240 seconds of time for Zimmerman to "do what he did" as his father put it.
The 911 call timing logs from the other callers/witnesses are going to be absolutely essential to this case.
Also, in the previous 2 calls to 911 made by Zimmerman on 1/29 and 2/2 the officer that responded was - I'm shocked here - Officer Timothy Smith. The very same officer that was first on the scene when Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin and the one who conveniently wrote there was grass on his jacket and he was "bleeding from his head and his nose". A very strategic omission of any detail whatsoever as to the extent or location of such ostensible bleeding.
http://www.propublica.org/...
It is basic police procedure to put as much detail into a report as possible for later evidentiary use. So one of three things has happened here: 1) he has never been properly trained; 2) he deliberately obfuscated the little injuries in his report; or 3) he wrote more detail and that POS Police Chief told him to back it off to as little detail as possible. It becomes even more imperative to get any affidavits from the Fire Department personnel on scene as to what they saw, but as the weeks go by (part of the strategy of course), those memories will fade and do not carry the same weight as the Police Report.
In Officer Smith's report he claims to have "responded to 1111 Retreat View Circle" at 19:17 (7:17 PM) and that "as I arrived on scene dispatch advised of shots fired in the same subdivision". So either he was in the subdivision at 7:17 when shots were fired or he was just starting on his way. Neither his nor Officer Ayala's reports indicate the time at which they arrive at the actual scene of the killing. Contrast that to Ayala's report of "at 19:17 I was dispatched to 1111 Retreat View Circle". Is there a different meaning, is there a standard in the Sanford PD about how reports are to be written?
The EMS reports are also going to be equally important to getting justice for Trayvon Martin, but under privacy laws cannot be released without Zimmerman's consent. What strikes me is that it hasn't been released. If is injuries were what they say they were, where is the confirmation from the Fire Department - or is there some "Blue Glue" going on here between the Fire Dept. and the Police Dept. to coordinate reports produced post facto?
While the report itself cannot be used in court as evidence unless it is first used to cross examine Smith in the dock by Martin's attorneys. Then only admitted if there are inconsistencies. That should be interesting for him, to say the least.
There are other issues with the 911 calls published by MoJo as well:
The "connect" time for the night of 2/26 shows 19:09:54, with operator "snofke".
The record was created starting at 19:11:12, yet in audio of the call it goes on for 4:14. The call goes on the record until 19:13:41
.
So where is the transcript of the missing remainder of the call? The police have admitted there is at least a one minute "gap" in the tape during that time (verrry convenient), but this does not explain the lack of documentation.
Secondly, in review of the other 911 logs there is a notation when a unit is dispatched to deal with Zimmerman's complaints. There are always tracking and time notations as to what time the unit was dispatched and when the issue was resolved. Yet, inexplicably, in this one there is no such notation on this record.
In fact, on the record for the 2/2/12 call it reads like this (see pg.45):
http://www.documentcloud.org/...
with all actions related to the call notated with time.
Yet for the night in question it reads without those (pg.46).
There is also a SECOND call placed to a different operator with operator ID "LCresswe" which began at 19:20:30 and ends at 19:20:54 (see the last page). Further, the log indicates a referral to the previous call, yet begins with the phrase "subj now running towards back entrance of complex" and states that "compl will 1056 at mailboxes of complex", meaning he will meet the police there at the mailboxes.
I am admittedly not privy to the training manual for the Sanford dispatch officers, but I would sure be curious to know why the night of Trayvon Martin's killing the notations appear to deviate from the norm and there appear to be gaps in the record.
And where is the tape from the second call? Was it right before or after the killing occurred? If it was after, a not unlikely scenario, did he call in that he had shot Martin and then hang up when the police arrived? Was he on the phone just before it happened? What was heard? What was said? Did he in fact reach for his phone and shoot Martin out of fear and call immediately after and hang up to cover his ass?
A third a perhaps most crucial issue of all. On review of the police reports they are all marked in the upper right hand corner with the word "cleared", and all the ones that have that have time/action notations. however on very minor incidents - like reports of a garage door being ajar for example - or reports that duplicate earlier reports the operators just delete the report and it is noted "deleted". On the night of Feb. 26th the only reports listed are both noted as "deleted". This means that there is a third - and definitive - report out there with the play by play of what was going on during the first call with Zimmerman, likely including the language he used stating "these assholes they always get away" and of course at 2:30 into the recording the instructions to not follow Martin.
http://www.youtube.com/...
There is another lie to Zimmerman's story as well. Starting at the sound of him closing the door to his truck (2:18), it takes 12 seconds until the dispatcher tells him not to follow and Zimmerman says "OK" and then he walks for another 13 seconds until he stops walking and assures the police he will meet them at the mailboxes. So either he moved closer to Trayvon or walked back to his truck at that point - almost the exact time it took him to walk away from the truck before he was told to not follow.
Another issue is the placement of where he was when he made the call and why. Supposedly he was on his way to Target. If that is true he would have left his house and driven Northwest staying on Retreat View Circle passing the clubhouse and then turning left out of the front gate. Yet, inexplicably he was parked on Twin Trees. Why would he be over there? Because he saw Martin taking shelter at the clubhouse and hen followed him in his truck that's why. This is borne out by the audio of Martin telling his girlfriend that he was being followed. Again if Zimmerman had just gone to Target and not followed Martin, and not packed a weapon, and not gotten out of his car, and followed instructions to stand down - Trayvon Martin would be alive. Instead, Zimmerman stalked him and bullshitted the dispatcher on the call to make it seem like he was just sitting in his truck minding his own business.
http://maps.google.com/...
An unbiased source also takes great issue with how the Police "report" written up by Officer "Friendly" Smith was completed.
http://lawenforcementtoday.com/...
If someone out there in Kos-land has a different interpretation of these logs I would be interested to hear it. And I remain mystified why none of the media reports have keyed on this apparent second phone call to a different 911 operator made barely 10 minutes after the first call began, timed to coincide precisely around the time of the killing of Trayvon Martin.
12:09 PM PT: I had written this diary last night and put it on the timer for this morning at 10 AM. I would recommend strongly that you also read another excellent diary posted early this morning on these "fluid" police reports:
http://www.dailykos.com/...