Embarrassment Surrounding the Trayvon Martin Case

Embarrassment Surrounding the Trayvon Martin Case
By Katie Pavlich
3/29/2012



Initial notice: I’m fully aware I will be called a racist by even attempting to write about this, so let’s just get that out of the way right now. This is a long post, but bear with me.

By now, you’ve probably heard something about the Trayvon Martin killing. A man named George Zimmerman shot the 17-year-old black male in Florida on February 26, 2012. The facts of the case remain very unclear. Zimmerman has not been arrested.

Zimmerman has not been arrested because he told police he acted in self-defense, and then-Chief Lee said police did not have probable cause. Florida Statute 776.032 expressly prohibits police from arresting someone who had a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm. Police may investigate, the statute says, “but the agency may not arrest the person” without probable cause.

Although we don’t have all of the facts surrounding the circumstances of what happened that day, some things are certain. The way that the media, President Obama, race-baiter Al Sharpton, celebrities, the Congressional Black Caucus and other politicians have responded to the situation is embarrassing, to say the least.

Let’s start with the media. For weeks, we’ve been hearing about the case of the unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin being “gunned” down in a Florida neighborhood by an overzealous neighborhood watch captain named George Zimmerman.

Predictably, the liberal media has completely hijacked the narrative and the facts of the story. First, they used old and misleading photos of both Martin and Zimmerman for weeks.

Finally this week, they started using up-to-date and accurate photos. Changes things a bit, doesn't it?

Media outlets using old photos will claim they received the outdated photos of Martin from the family, which they did, but a little research would have brought them to Martin’s Twitter page, where up-to-date photos would have been found and should have been used in place of the photo of a much younger Martin. The old photo of Zimmerman is from the police department.

Then, multiple media outlets called Zimmerman a “white Hispanic,” in order to further push the narrative that this was a crime motivated by racism. Once again, we don’t know if the crime was racially motivated or not, but calling Zimmerman a “white Hispanic” only encourages racial tension, which is exactly what liberal media feeds off of. They just had to get the "white" part in there.

Also, MSNBC, home of Al Sharpton, deliberately edited the phone audio between Zimmerman and the 911 dispatcher to make Zimmerman look like a racist. H/T Weasel Zippers

So, who are these people anyway?

Who is George Zimmerman?

-At one point he owned a pressure washing company
-He’s married
-He once had a run-in with police, charge reduced to simple battery
-Currently a mortgage analyst
-5'9"

Who is Trayvon Martin?

-Caught defacing lockers at school
-Marked up a door at school with "W.T.F."
-Found with burglary tool at school
-Suspended from school after being found with marijuana baggie
-Suspended three times
-6'3"

Now, does Martin's background justify that he should have been shot? Of course not. Does his background and criminal behavior give credibility to Zimmerman's decision as a neighborhood watch leader to allegedly ask Martin what he was doing in the neighborhood? Yes. Especially in a neighborhood with nine thefts, eight burglaries and a shooting in the past year according to the Miami Herald? Yes.

Police records, which show that 50 suspicious-person reports were called in to police in the past year at Twin Lakes. There were eight burglaries, nine thefts and one other shooting in the year prior to Trayvon’s death.

In all, police had been called to the 260-unit complex 402 times from Jan. 1, 2011 to Feb. 26, 2012.
“He once caught a thief and an arrest was made,” said Cynthia Wibker, secretary of the homeowners association. “He helped solve a lot of crimes.”

The media's narrative that Martin's background "doesn't matter" is only an effort to portray Zimmerman as a cold-blooded murderer who had no business asking a person, portrayed as an innocent kid carrying Skittles, what he was doing in a gated community. Zimmerman described Martin to the police dispatcher as looking like he was "on drugs" and "up to no good."

Moving on to the celebrities and race baiters: Al Sharpton, who wouldn’t dare walk the streets of south Chicago where black on black violence is raging on a daily basis, has of course profited off of the situation by claiming racism:

“Trayvon represents a reckless disregard for our lives that we’ve seen for too long.”

“Don’t talk to us like we stupid, don’t talk to us like we ignorant.”

The New Black Panther Party, notorious for violent and illegal behavior, issued a $10,000 bounty for Zimmerman’s "capture." Luckily, Rep. Allen West, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, condemned the move and called on the Justice Department to investigate their calls. He was the only member to do so.

Then, after the New Black Panthers issued their reward, director Spike Lee, a well known celebrity with 248,165 Twitter followers, blindly re-tweeted (or, published via Twitter) a wrong address for "George Zimmerman." The address Lee sent out was actually the address of an elderly couple, who have since had to flee their home out of fear for their personal safety. Lee refuses to apologize. UPDATE: Lee finally apologized late on Wednesday night.

An elderly Florida couple have been forced to move into a hotel after their home address was wrongly tweeted as belonging to the man who shot teen Trayvon Martin.

The couple, aged 70 and 72, have been harassed with hate mail, been hassled by media and had scared neighbors questioning them since the tweet, their son Chip Humble told the Orlando Sentinel.

Moving onto the behavior of politicians. Trayvon Martin was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, also known as a “hoodie” when he was shot, and many have claimed the hoodie was used to racially profile Martin. U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus out of Chicago, made that statement on the House Floor wearing a hoodie.

“Racial profiling has to stop, Mr. Speaker. Just because someone wears a hoodie, does not make them a hoodlum.”

Oh, so only blacks wear hoodies in America? Who knew! I better go clean out my closet… full of hoodies.

Here's more on racial profiling from Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Frederica Wilson, who represents the district where the shooting took place:

Notice the “murderer at large” classification. Rep. Frederica Wilson has already given Zimmerman title of “murderer,” despite charges not being filed against Zimmerman, not to mention he hasn't been given a trial or convicted of murder. She also said Martin was "hunted down like a dog and shot in the street," and that this "was a standard case of racial profiling."

FLASHBACK:

-White Mississippi State Student Shot By Black Robber on Campus

-Teenage Attacked: “You Get What You Deserve White Boy”

-White Suburban Teenager Killed by Black Gang

Where was the Congressional Black Caucus and Al Sharpton when these incidents occured? Where was the outrage? Where were they to condemn these actions? The answer: Absent.

And where are they on condemning violent actions taken by those supporting Martin?

Police Protestors Ransack Store

North Miami Beach police said surveillance video shows dozens of high school students demonstrating in the Trayvon Martin case Friday ransacking a Walgreens store.

President Obama weighed in on the situation before Zimmerman’s side had even been published. And of course, the Obama campaign “coincidentally” started selling Obama 2012 hoodies on their campaign website as soon as the case got controversial. Talk about not allowing a crisis to go to waste.

Senator Chuck Schumer demanded the Justice Department investigate “Stand Your Ground Laws” in Florida, despite those laws have nothing to do with the situation.

The bottom line is: we don’t have all the facts surrounding what actually happened that day (FLASHBACK: Duke lacrosse case), yet the liberal media and politicians have been more than happy to jump to conclusions and demand Zimmerman be arrested and charged with a crime. They have deemed him guilty by public opinion, which means a few things: 1) he can’t get a fair trial; 2) because he can’t get a fair trial, even if a crime was in fact committed, he’ll most likely be acquitted because the case is so public, which means no justice anyway; 3) if he’s innocent of any crime, Zimmerman has been found guilty by public opinion, which will have a damaging effect on his life moving forward.

This is a very serious situation. A kid is dead, yet the entire thing has been turned into a circus. Hysterical behavior isn't fair to Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman.

A Grand Jury is investigating the case.
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To read a related article, click here.
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To read another article by Katie Pavlich, click here.