OT- Zimmerman v. Martin

[zk]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=zk]It’s right at the beginning. King jumps up off the ground and lunges at one of the officers.[/quote]

[quote=pri_dk]I see some blurry figures but I’ll agree that’s likely what it was.[/quote]

Likely? Anyone that doesn’t see that that was King lunging at an officer, to quote you, just doesn’t really want to see it.

[quote=zk]This was after he’d thrown two officers off his back.[/quote]

[quote=pri_dk]Is that on the video? Or are you adding some context to help with “interpretation?”[/quote]

Neither. It happened before the video was started. It was seen by all in attendance and in the police report.

[quote=pri_dk]
Now of course King was a troublemaker resisting arrest. He should have been convicted of that crime and the crimes he committed leading up to that.

But anyone that doesn’t see a bunch of cops beating the crap out of a guy well after he was subdued just doesn’t really want to see it.[/quote]

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you’ve been seeing the whole thing out of context this whole time and you just don’t really want to see it.

Well after he was subdued? He got up and lunged at the officer at the beginning of this video. And was refusing their commands during most of it. How is that “well after he was subdued?” And after he gets up a couple times, and consistently resists, and you’ve seen he’s super strong and violent and wants to attack you (and you make a reasonable, but incorrect, guess that he’s on PCP) how long do you wait to approach him and risk your life? How subdued do you want him at that point. Pretty fucking subdued, if you ask me. More subdued than he was during most of that video.

[ocrenter]

[quote=davelj][quote=ocrenter]It is the South.

This is expected.[/quote]

Just a point on what defines “the South” (being from the South myself).

Florida is IN the South – geographically – but it is not OF the South. Culturally, Florida is completely different from the aggregate of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas, which are culturally somewhat similar (at least compared to Florida).

Culturally, Florida has more in common with California or New York than with Georgia, et al. Just clearing that point up.[/quote]

I do agree it is not the prototypical southern state. But there’s still shades of its racial attitude. Call it the California of the South, if you will. Kinda like how Santee’s mayor describe his city as the La Jolla of east county.

[no_such_reality]

The only thing this case is good for is highlighting the old saying, point a finger and three point back.

It’s also highlights, the spin intent of the media.

It’s gotten so bad, even the LA Times is reporting on the media bias in the case and how skewed the reporting is depending on what source you are listening too.

[Anonymous]

[quote=ocrenter]I do agree it is not the prototypical southern state. [/quote]

I agree Florida is culturally different than say Mississippi or Alabama – certainly more ethnically diverse.

But Florida was part of the Confederacy, which is the standard definition of the American “south.” And pre civil war it had an economy heavily dependent on slavery, which is the root of racial tension in America.

[Anonymous]

[quote=zk]Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you’ve been seeing the whole thing out of context this whole time and you just don’t really want to see it.[/quote]

Let’s consider a hypothetical:

You are arrested by the police. They tell you to get on the ground. You comply.

They start beating you. It really hurts. You say. “Ok, I’m down!”

They keep beating you. There are shocks of pain all over your body.

What do you do? Lie there and keep getting hit…plead with them to stop…try to get up and run away?

This is the point in the story that deviates from reality for most Americans, and essentially all white Americans (including me.)

All you have to do is comply with the police and they stop using force, right?

Yeah right.

So what do you do when they keep hitting you after you comply? The blows are hard enough to kill. All it takes is one strike to the head and you are finished.

Are you such a tough guy that you lay there and take the pain because it’s the “correct” thing to do?

So, what do you do?

Oh, you think that didn’t happen – cops did not beat the shit out of blacks, routinely, in cities all across the country at that time?

Remember Mark Fuhrman?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuhrman_tapes

Any chance that he may have administered a little extra “justice” while making an arrest? You think he was an anomaly?

There’s a whole reality out there that is very different from the civil, air-conditioned offices that so many people sit in while they pass judgement. The video camera exposed that reality for the first time.

And so many people, including the jury, still just did not want to believe it.

[davelj]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=ocrenter]I do agree it is not the prototypical southern state. [/quote]

I agree Florida is culturally different than say Mississippi or Alabama – certainly more ethnically diverse.

But Florida was part of the Confederacy, which is the standard definition of the American “south.” And pre civil war it had an economy heavily dependent on slavery, which is the root of racial tension in America.[/quote]

That part of Florida that identifies culturally with the South is principally north of Gainesville and through the Panhandle. If you asked a sample of residents south of Gainesville whether they had more in common culturally with Georgia or California/North East… the majority would answer the latter. I don’t think there’s any more racial tension in Florida than there is in, say, California. The same cannot be said of much of the rest of the South.

[Anonymous]

[quote=davelj]That part of Florida that identifies culturally with the South is principally north of Gainesville and through the Panhandle. If you asked a sample of residents south of Gainesville whether they had more in common culturally with Georgia or California/North East… the majority would answer the latter.[/quote]

I agree with your main point, but I think the results of your poll may be not be what you’d expect. You might be making some assumptions about your sample.

Let’s not forget that a huge portion of the US (probably more than half) have never even been to California. Florida is probably no different. And there are a lot of misconceptions across the US about what California is really like (we all live on the beach, right?)

I agree that much of Florida may have more in common with California than neighboring states. But I’ll bet most Floridians don’t realize it.

[poorgradstudent]

Predicting the results of a jury trial can be challenging. There are a lot of variables at play. This case has a number of hot-button issues; Florida’s Gun Laws/Stand your ground law, Race, and the technology evidence, which can be used to support a case but isn’t really a slam dunk.

This certainly could be an instance where there is no criminal trial but a civil suit finds in favor of the Martin family. But again, hard to predict.

[zk]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=zk]Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you’ve been seeing the whole thing out of context this whole time and you just don’t really want to see it.[/quote]

Let’s consider a hypothetical:

You are arrested by the police. They tell you to get on the ground. You comply.

They start beating you. It really hurts. You say. “Ok, I’m down!”

They keep beating you. There are shocks of pain all over your body.

What do you do? Lie there and keep getting hit…plead with them to stop…try to get up and run away?

This is the point in the story that deviates from reality for most Americans, and essentially all white Americans (including me.)

All you have to do is comply with the police and they stop using force, right?

Yeah right.

So what do you do when they keep hitting you after you comply? The blows are hard enough to kill. All it takes is one strike to the head and you are finished.

Are you such a tough guy that you lay there and take the pain because it’s the “correct” thing to do?

So, what do you do?

Oh, you think that didn’t happen – cops did not beat the shit out of blacks, routinely, in cities all across the country at that time?

Remember Mark Fuhrman?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuhrman_tapes

Any chance that he may have administered a little extra “justice” while making an arrest? You think he was an anomaly?

There’s a whole reality out there that is very different from the civil, air-conditioned offices that so many people sit in while they pass judgement. The video camera exposed that reality for the first time.

And so many people, including the jury, still just did not want to believe it.[/quote]

A hypothetical is exactly what that is. What you describe is not what happened in this case.

Passing judgement from a civil, air-conditioned office is exactly what you’re doing.

[Anonymous]

[quote=zk]A hypothetical is exactly what that is. What you describe is not what happened in this case.

Passing judgement from a civil, air-conditioned office is exactly what you’re doing.[/quote]

The cops were convicted. Looks like I’m not the only one that “passed judgement.”

Oh…the convictions were wrong?

So the legal system is legitimate when it’s beating the crap out of someone on the street, but not when due process is applied in an air-conditioned courtroom?

But let’s get back to the “hypothetical.” Cuz you avoided an answer to my question:

What would you do?

56 baton blows and six kicks

From people trained in the use of force.

Fifty six baton blows.

So when was King supposed to think that the blows were going to stop?

After the first ten?

After the next twenty?

Not exactly “love taps.” Those cops were winding up for each swing!

Ten more blows…we are barely half way there…

“Oh yeah, sure the pain is excruciating, but I’m sure they’ll stop beating me. Probably sometime before I’m dead…”

Since you know the situation so well, the answer should be easy:

What would you have done?

[zk]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=zk]A hypothetical is exactly what that is. What you describe is not what happened in this case.

Passing judgement from a civil, air-conditioned office is exactly what you’re doing.[/quote]

The cops were convicted. Looks like I’m not the only one that “passed judgement.”

Oh…the convictions were wrong?

So the legal system is legitimate when it’s beating the crap out of someone on the street, but not when due process is applied in an air-conditioned courtroom?

But let’s get back to the “hypothetical.” Cuz you avoided an answer to my question:

What would you do?

56 baton blows and six kicks

From people trained in the use of force.

Fifty six baton blows.

So when was King supposed to think that the blows were going to stop?

After the first ten?

After the next twenty?

Not exactly “love taps.” Those cops were winding up for each swing!

Ten more blows…we are barely half way there…

“Oh yeah, sure the pain is excruciating, but I’m sure they’ll stop beating me. Probably sometime before I’m dead…”

Since you know the situation so well, the answer should be easy:

What would you have done?[/quote]

I wouldn’t have thrown two officers off my back, then got up and charged them. I wouldn’t have continued to move around. Then I wouldn’t have gotten 56 baton blows.

Now let me ask you a question. What would you have done if you were in the cops’ situation? A man twice as strong as you wants to attack you. He wants to hurt you. If you go in and try and restrain him, there’s a very good chance he’ll get your gun and shoot you. Now your children are fatherless. What would you do?

[blahblahblah]

[quote=zk]
Now let me ask you a question. What would you have done if you were in the cops’ situation? A man twice as strong as you wants to attack you. He wants to hurt you. If you go in and try and restrain him, there’s a very good chance he’ll get your gun and shoot you. Now your children are fatherless. What would you do?[/quote]

You’re a cop. You draw your sidearm and aim. He comes at you, you drop him. 99% of the time he will go down on the ground without a fight and be on his way to jail. No beatings necessary. And if he is that 1% well then he probably deserves the street justice.

[CA renter]

[quote=pri_dk][quote=zk]A hypothetical is exactly what that is. What you describe is not what happened in this case.

Passing judgement from a civil, air-conditioned office is exactly what you’re doing.[/quote]

The cops were convicted. Looks like I’m not the only one that “passed judgement.”

Oh…the convictions were wrong?

So the legal system is legitimate when it’s beating the crap out of someone on the street, but not when due process is applied in an air-conditioned courtroom?

But let’s get back to the “hypothetical.” Cuz you avoided an answer to my question:

What would you do?

56 baton blows and six kicks

From people trained in the use of force.

Fifty six baton blows.

So when was King supposed to think that the blows were going to stop?

After the first ten?

After the next twenty?

Not exactly “love taps.” Those cops were winding up for each swing!

Ten more blows…we are barely half way there…

“Oh yeah, sure the pain is excruciating, but I’m sure they’ll stop beating me. Probably sometime before I’m dead…”

Since you know the situation so well, the answer should be easy:

What would you have done?[/quote]

The first jury did NOT convict them. The second jury did — and that trial came about as a result of the riots. Blacks all across LA were threatening to riot again if the jury didn’t convict. You think that was a fair trial?

…………

“Four LAPD officers were later tried in a state court for the beating; three were acquitted and the jury failed to reach a verdict for the fourth. The announcement of the acquittals sparked the 1992 Los Angeles riots. A later federal trial for civil rights violations ended with two of the officers found guilty and sent to prison and the other two officers acquitted.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King

[no_such_reality]

[quote=zk]I wouldn’t have thrown two officers off my back, then got up and charged them. I wouldn’t have continued to move around. Then I wouldn’t have gotten 56 baton blows.[/quote]

You shuold go find Kelly Thomas and ask him how complying turned out.

[Anonymous]

[quote=CA renter]The first jury did NOT convict them. The second jury did — and that trial came about as a result of the riots. Blacks all across LA were threatening to riot again if the jury didn’t convict. You think that was a fair trial?[/quote]

Your wikipedia reference offers no evidence whatsoever that the trial, or the verdict “came about as a result of the riots.”

Show me where the prosecuting federal attorney said “we are going to put these guys on trial because of the riots.”

Did the jury convict because of the fear of riots? Nope. Actually most of them wanted the cops to be sentenced to MORE jail time:

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-08/news/mn-21823_1_rodney-king

[…]complaints from five jurors that Officer Laurence M. Powell and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon should have received longer prison sentences than the 2 1/2-year terms handed down Wednesday.

Wanna know why the two trials had different outcomes? It’s real simple:

Unlike the Simi Valley jury, the federal jury was racially mixed. Although the defense made a considerable effort to exclude African-Americans, two blacks were seated as jurors.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html

There are a lot of Americans that believe in civil rights and due process of law. We don’t accept that police can do whatever they want to anybody for any reason.

But somehow I’m not at all surprised that you would make up your own version of reality so that you could side with racist criminal thugs.

[Author]

Posts