So one of the Zimmerman jurors (who signed a book deal five minutes after the trial ended, although the publishing company has since dropped her) is making the media rounds. Having seen her interview, I have some comments/questions:
1) This particular juror says she feels equally sorry for both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Interesting, since one is dead and one is alive and kicking. Trayvon's only crime was going to a gas station to get a snack. The jurors, at least according to this one, seemed oddly sympathetic towards Zimmerman. I think even more sympathetic than they were towards Trayvon who, by the way, is dead. This juror would later go on to say that she felt closer to Zimmerman because they "heard a lot about him" during the trial, and didn't hear as much about Trayvon (which is another prosecution miscue). Still, Zimmerman was the recipient of a few paper cuts. One person consciously pulled a trigger and took the life of another human being. If it were a true case of self-defense, as in someone broke in or charged you and your only option was to shoot them, then maybe there is sympathy to be had. But not in something this ambiguous. The deceased was not a thug or or "drug runner" as those close to Zimmerman have said. He was a 17-year-old kid who had never physically harmed anybody in his life, yet died a violent, and unnecessary death. Sympathies should be with Trayvon Martin and his family, not the man who caused the the circumstances that resulted in his death.
2) The juror says that everyone in that deliberation room believed Zimmerman's heart "was in the right place" and that he did not intend to shoot anyone. I don't believe he got out of his car intending to shoot somebody at all. But I also don't believe all of his actions are those of a man who was just being a good samaritan for his community. If your heart is in the right place and you think you see someone suspicious, then you call 911 and you await the arrival of the cops. Zimmerman called 911 and was told by the dispatcher to keep his ass in his car and wait for the police. I saw a dog locked in a car on a 100 degree day with the windows rolled up in a parking lot a few years back and I called animal control and waited for them to show up. I did not bust the windows out the car and rescue the dog. Why? Because I knew the latter would do even more harm than good. Animal control took less than ten minutes to arrive, the dog was taken and all was good. If Zimmerman were truly just a concerned citizen, he would have sat in his car and waited. The police arrived rather quickly but unfortunately, not soon enough for Trayvon Martin.
3) This juror conceded that Zimmerman "shouldn't have gotten out of the car", but excused this by saying the 911 operator "egged him on" because she asked him if he could see where this "suspicious" person was going. Are. You. Serious?? If you've ever been on the phone with 911, then you know they ask you a billion different questions in order to keep you on the phone and keep the situation from escalating. The fact that the operator said, "CAN you see where he went" tells us that she meant just that - if you can see where he went, tell me and if not, that's fine. Common fucking sense is all it takes to understand the question. This juror seems to want to blame everyone but the man who actually pulled the trigger. Trayvon was at fault, the 911 operator was at fault. But not Zimmerman. He was the true victim here, not the dead kid. That's just disgusting. Zimmerman got out of that car and trekked across to Trayvon because he thought he was more powerful and important that he actually is. He wanted to be a cop and once he was granted power of the neighborhood watch, he felt any actions he took would be justified. I believe he completely bought into all of this and that is why he pursued. If he has no gun, if he has no presumed "authority", he does not leave his vehicle, period.
4) Direct quote from juror - "Trayvon Martin played a huge role in his own death". Bull. Shit. While on the phone with his girlfriend Trayvon Martin was approached by George Zimmerman who asked, "What are you doing here?". Trayvon responded by saying, "Why are you following me?". Both valid questions. But the juror's belief that Trayvon "could have just run away" when Zimmerman confronted him and then no one would have been harmed in any way is ludicrous. (And btw, if we go by that logic then the same could be said about Zimmerman staying in his car.) Do you honestly believe that Zimmerman, a wanna be cop who had a weapon and considered himself 'the law' in that neighborhood, would have just let Trayvon walk away? You're awfully naive if you do. I think it is more likely that Zimmerman would have continued to pursue him and demand an answer to his question, maybe even attempt a citizen's arrest. And then what happens? A scuffle and quite possibly a gunshot. Trayvon had every right to ask why this man who did not identify himself was following him, as much as Zimmerman had the right to ask this person he did not recognize what he was doing there. The real question is why Zimmerman felt the need to ask at all. I know a lot of white folks who do not understand why minorities get so sensitive about such questions but once you've been profiled yourself based on race, you get it. Did he ask this kid why he was there because he wore a hoodie? Did he ask him why he was there because it was raining? Or, as most believe, did he ask him because he was an African-American in a hoodie on a rainy night whom Zimmerman assumed was up to no good? Only Zimmerman himself knows for sure. And maybe he's convinced himself it wasn't racially motivated, we'll never know. But to say that if Trayvon had just answered the question, he would still be alive doesn't work for me. How many of us are going to identify ourselves to someone who just came up to us off the street and asked us without reason or provocation? And especially a teenager. Teenagers don't want to tell their own parents what they're up to, nevermind a stranger. 99% of us would have done the same thing he did and ask why this person was following us.
5) The juror said she believed Trayvon Martin threw the first punch and charged George Zimmerman, and also that he slammed Zimmerman's head into the ground. There is absolutely no evidence of any of this. By all accounts, Trayvon was not a violent person and had no reason to suddenly attack someone he didn't even know. He was also considerably smaller in stature compared with Zimmerman. If he did throw a punch that cause Zimmerman's nose to bleed, then why where there no marks on Trayvon's hands? If you hit somebody, it leaves a mark on both of you. If Trayvon "slammed" Zimmerman's head into the ground repeatedly, then why weren't his injuries worse? Why didn't he have a concussion or skull fracture or worse contusions to the back of his head? Zimmerman was bald at the time of the shooting so he had nothing to protect him from being smashed into the ground repeatedly. He would have felt every one of those blows. Yet he only had two small cuts on his head that didn't even require stitches. Also, Trayvon's body was found on the grass and not on the sidewalk. Interesting since Zimmerman put forth this story of the cement being Trayvon's alleged weapon. If he was on top of Zimmerman throwing punches, then he wasn't very good at it since the only injury to his face was the bloody nose, and since Zimmerman ended up being able to break his arms free and pull a gun. Much of what happened in this scuffle doesn't make sense. Of course, we only have Zimmerman's side and not Trayvon's (or the truth).
6) The juror claimed that Trayvon's girlfriend, who was on the phone with him when Zimmerman approached, was not a good witness for the prosecution. Why? Because the jury "couldn't understand" her testimony. I've never understood why this poor girl was raked over the coals by blogs and trolls on the internet, and I am beyond sure that none of it would have happened if she'd been white. People attacked her for being uneducated and not credible, but I thought she came across as real. She did not want to be there and admitted as much, but she wanted justice for her friend. She could have buckled under the pressure of such a high-profile case and twisted the events of that night to portray Trayvon in a martyr kind of light, but she did not. She stuck to the truth, even when it did not flatter him. Was she combative with the defense? Hell yeah. But the defense was terrible in terms of cross-examination. They often cut off witnesses in mid-sentence and attempted to force them to testify to one tiny chunk of what they told officers, instead of the entirety of their statements. Most of us would have been combative with them, nobody likes to be misquoted. They also badgered her until she admitted she could not read cursive, something they had no reason to do other than to make the jury think that all of her testimony should be disregarded because she was less educated than most. True, this young lady is not the most educated person in the world but, as the defense and Zimmerman's family continue to show, all of the education in the world cannot buy class.
7) This juror says they couldn't understand some of what Trayvon's girlfriend said because of the way she spoke. But Zimmerman's mother and uncle both testified for him and both have very heavy Spanish accents. I grew up around Spanish accents and even I had issues understanding these two at times. But all six jurors, all white except for one, had no trouble at all hearing what they said, and believing every word? That seems sketchy to me.
8) According to this juror, race played no part in the death or Trayvon Martin or the verdict. They believe that Zimmerman would have stopped and followed anyone he deemed suspicious, regardless of color. Maybe. But there are problems with that assumption. For one thing, how many of us know every single person that ever enters or exits our neighborhood? The answer is nobody, not even a neighborhood watchman. People have parties and wakes out of town visitors they haven't seen in ages, and children have friends over and people date new people. I guarantee you that dozens of people George Zimmerman did not know came in and out of that development while he was driving to go run errands and, as far as we know, not a one of them was stopped. I guess none of them looked "suspicious" enough. Another reason I do not buy this "no race involved" comment from a juror is what she said about the exchange Trayvon and his girlfriend had on the phone that night. The girlfriend said that once Trayvon realized he was being followed, he told her that some "creepy ass cracker" was hounding him. Some people take this to be a racially insensitive comment, some don't. When the juror was asked if she believed it was said in hate or meant as a racially charged comment, she said she did not and that her belief was that's "how those people talk". The only way her response does not have racial undertones is if she's not from this planet and is referring to humans. Otherwise, what she's saying is that she believes "cracker" is a perfectly acceptable form of speech amongst "those" African-American people. That's a comment driven by racial assumptions, something she said has no part in the case at all. Hypocritical, methinks.
9) The tape. There were no less than 15 witnesses testifying about this damn tape, most of them in Zimmerman's defense. There are actually two tapes; one of Zimmerman on with the 911 operator and one of a neighbor on with 911 after the scuffle breaks out. In the former, you hear Zimmerman being instructed to stay put and in the latter you hear muffled screams of, "Help!" in the distance. The neighbor seems genuinely concerned about what might be going on and says as much to the operator. The question brought up at trial, and in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, is whose anguished scream it is. The fight is going on so far in the distance that you can't make out who is calling for help, but both sides thought they had it figured out. The prosecution said it was Trayvon, without question, calling out for help because Zimmerman is attacking him. The defense claimed it was Zimmerman who was crying for assistance as his head was being slammed into the pavement. Honestly, I still can't tell. But I didn't know either party and have never heard either cry out in that tone of voice. But a parade of witnesses each told the jury that they believed it was whoever they felt to be the victim. Zimmerman's parents and uncle and a neighbor claimed it was him, though all said they'd never heard him cry out in that tone before. Trayvon's mom and brother said it was their loved one, but also had to concede they hadn't heard him in that tone. I felt like the voice witnesses sort of canceled each other out. What the prosecution did not allude to, and REALLY should have, was this: if that is in fact Zimmerman's voice crying for help, then why do all cries and sounds cease immediately after the gunshot? And also, why are you still screaming for help if you're holding a gun to the chest of your attacker? If it were Zimmerman screaming then one would think it's mighty coincidental for him to stop mid-scream after firing his weapon. But if you're the one screaming and are then shot dead, your scream would be silence immediately. I'm not sure why the prosecution did not mention this fact once during the trial. Apparently five out of the six jurors believed it was Zimmerman's voice on the tape.
10) The Stand Your Ground law. Twenty-one states have this law and it is one that desperately needs to be repealed. It basically allows for you to kill anybody on your property for any reason, as long as you claim self-defense when the cops show up. It was not a huge part of this case because Zimmerman's attorneys chose to abandon that as a defense before trial (they'd previously used the law as his defense in the media). I'm not sure what the reason was behind the change in strategy but it could have something to do with the fact that Trayvon Martin was not on George Zimmerman's property. He was in his neighborhood, but not on property that Zimmerman owned himself. Even though this was not his defense, the jury still heard about the law via an interview the accused did with a national news station a year ago. It seems to have resonated with this particular juror as she said in her interview that Zimmerman had the right to defend himself, even if HE initiated the fight. Under the Stand Your Ground law, you're apparently allowed to start something and then finish it however you see fit. Who's going to know anyway? The only other person involved is dead.
11) The night of the verdict (or a few nights later, I don't remember) I logged on to Facebook and saw a friend had posted pictures of a pro-Trayvon march taking place in California. I was struck by a few of the comments left on the status update. One comment mentioned that it would be nice if people cared as much about important things. Because the unnecessary death of a kid isn't important I guess. Another said something along the lines of people having nothing better to do but protest and using any excuse to do so in the misguided belief that it will bring justice. On one hand, I understand where that comes from, but on the other hand it's not like people are taking to the streets for the hell of it. This is a case that has moved a lot of people and has become about civil rights, something that is important to several different races, not just those involved in this case. Another status comment said, "I think all of these people are just looking for a reason to riot and lash out at white people". Right. Because we minority folk didn't have any reason to be upset at you white folks until THIS verdict. And now that it's been handed down, we're all a bunch of rabid, white-hating dogs. Yep, that must be it. Somebody commenting on another friend's status expressed surprise that she was on the Trayvon side of the fence since she's Latino (as is Zimmerman), as if we're all supposed to side with the person who shares the same culture we do. It was just a dumb thing to say. What all of these comments miss is the plot. These protests are not people looking for an excuse to riot. In fact, 99% of them have been peaceful protests by people who want more than justice for one murdered boy. They want things overall to change. If this case had been about a black man shooting a white boy, or a white person shooting another white person, or black on black crime, then there would be no protests or calls for equality. The case probably wouldn't have even made the news if any of those other scenarios had taken place. It is because people feel a minority was profiled and murdered and his killer set free that they are so passionately calling for change. As for what someone said about the protesting not bringing about any kind of justice, that may turn out to be true. Things could go the way of every other controversial court decision and the hoopla dies down and it fades from the media and everything remains the same. That's probably the way it will go. But there's also a chance it does prompt a dialogue and maybe even some changes. After all, what brings about change? Action. Isn't it crazy that as we approach the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, much of what envisioned still has not yet come to pass.
