Last night I was making my rounds around the blogs. I stopped by Norm’s. Norm Pattis always makes me think. Last night, Norm made me mad. You see, I had not seen the article he pointed out.
In his blog post “Why Florida v. Zimmerman is necessary” he discussed an article concerning the shooting of Trayvon Martin with details I had not seen before. So I looked it up and compared it to the pdf files I had earlier downloaded from CNN re Trayvon Martin. The article Norm refers to is by Kyle Rogers and he writes for the Charleston Conservative Examiner. Unfortunately, the article is not available anymore.
In the comment section a reader asked Norm to share the link to the article which Norm did. He wrote too: “I cannot vouch for its accuracy, but it does raise interesting questions.” I agree. I compared the article with the pdf file and found the following.
Point 1 in the Examiner states: “The witness reports that George Zimmerman was on the ground and Trayvon is on top of him punching him.” We cannot prove the last part but the first part is confirmed by the police reports. Check page 3 from the above mentioned pdf files where officer Smith describes what he saw when he arrived: “While I was in close contact to Zimmerman, I could observe that his back appeared to be wet and was covered in grass, as if he had been laying on his back on the ground.”
Point 3 in the Examiner states: “Police arrive and find Zimmerman bleeding on his face and the back of his head. He also has had grass stains on his back. All this confirms the story told by Zimmerman and the witness.” For the grass stains I refer you to the above. For the injuries, I refer you again to Officer Smith who wrote on page 3: “Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and back of his head.”
Also, I just found an article describing why Martin was away from school: “Family attorney Benjamin Crump confirmed to ABC News that Martin had been slapped with a 10 day school suspension after a bag with suspected marijuana was found in his backpack.” And there is more. “Last year Martin was suspended for spraying graffiti on school grounds. The Miami Herald reported that the school guard who stopped him searched his backpack and found 12 items of women’s jewelry and a flathead screw driver that the guard believed to be a “burglary implement.” But Martin was never charged or specifically disciplined for the incident.” Last: “Zimmerman is described as 5-foot-9 and well over 200 pounds while Martin was 6-foot-3 and 150 pounds.”
I agree with Norm: “There is no doubt that George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. The only question is whether he was justified in doing so. That question should not be answered by opinion polls. It should be answered in a courtroom.” Thanks Norm, for pointing this out. I also agree with Elie Mystal‘s article: we don’t know what really happened in those last moments.
What I had seen in the national papers was not a comprehensive overview of this case. That’s why Norm’s post made me mad. There was more information out there but it didn’t make it into the bigger papers. And indeed, only the facts that pertain to those last moments count. However, it would be good to be able to read all the information instead of those bits and pieces that either party wants you to read.
NOTE: I just saw that the pdf files cannot be downloaded anymore but there is mention of them here.