Obama: 'If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon'

[ylcard]

Did you even read what you quoted?

Again following or the fear of being followed lies with the person being followed. You may follow someone and you may claim no ill intent but you can't speak for the person you are following. You have no basis to make the claim that they weren't feeling anxiety or fear from you following them. That's why it's a law geared more towards the one being followed then the one doing the following.

I hate to be saying this.. but.. learn English.

That's NOT what it says.

[mudslag]

I hate to be saying this.. but.. learn English.

That's NOT what it says.

When you accuse someone of pulling "insulting cheap shots" then turn around and do it yourself, it looks pretty hypocritical. As for what it says, I understand what it is saying. If you have a problem with what Im saying then explain it, dont go off on a silly rant while offering no counter point.

[ylcard]

When you accuse someone of pulling "insulting cheap shots" then turn around and do it yourself, it looks pretty hypocritical. As for what it says, I understand what it is saying. If you have a problem with what Im saying then explain it, dont go off on a silly rant while offering no counter point.

DocM already explained it, you just didn't understand the sentence, or worse - purposely misinterpreted it, which wouldn't be a big surprise given how much of that has happened here.

[mudslag]

DocM already explained it, you just didn't understand the sentence, or worse - purposely misinterpreted it, which wouldn't be a big surprise given how much of that has happened here.

And I countered that.

[mudslag]

Id still like an answer to my question "Who are you to say what does or doesnt feel threatening to someone?"...

[ylcard]

Really ? Well that's interesting, because all I see is this:

1. First you ignore the actual clause in the sentence for the 2nd part to be "eligible", so it has to be "generally comprised of repeated persistent following with no legitimate reason".

The word "generally" here means that most stalkings are comprised of these actions, sometimes they don't - it doesn't mean that any person following you is considered a stalker. It's not that vague.

So even by this, somewhat vague definition, Zimmerman is not considered a stalker, by "THE LAW". Like I said, you interpret it in such a way where "generally" means "but sometimes anyone, for any reason, is stalking me - if I want him to be" That's wrong.

2. The "or so as to arouse anxiety or fear of harm in the person being followed." bit refers to "and with the intention of harming", possibly also "with no legitimate reason", it does not refer to the first bit where it says "generally comprised".

3. DocM cleared it up by pulling the relevant Florida statute, I merely looked for a random (in the sense that I didn't look for something specific) definition, one that doesn't define the word, but the action, as someone else tried to prove me wrong. And if that "vague" bit confused you, the Florida one should be very, very clear about it.

4. "Course of conduct", the highlighted words "however short" still refer to a pattern (repeated persistent following). So "both" pursuits have to be of a pattern, this refers to incidents where someone was stalking someone at one time and actually broke it off, only to resume at a later time. It doesn't mean that following someone twice is considered stalking, the action still has to be identified as stalking in regards to prior definitions, such as the intent to harm and so on. It is used to "legally" connect two or more stalking events as a series of events and not separate, unrelated incidents.

5. Like DocM said, it's too much of a stretch to call this a second pursuit. But you're right, we will see what they decide later on.

[ylcard]

Id still like an answer to my question "Who are you to say what does or doesnt feel threatening to someone?"...

I already answered that, I never claimed to be anyone of authority to tell someone how, or if he should threatened by anyone at any given time. Or "what" is threatening to someone.

They can "feel" whatever they want, they just can't act upon it without suffering the consequences, be it the "threat" pushing back, or "THE LAW" placing them under arrest.

[mudslag]

Really ? Well that's interesting, because all I see is this:

1. First you ignore the actual clause in the sentence for the 2nd part to be "eligible", so it has to be "generally comprised of repeated persistent following with no legitimate reason".

The word "generally" here means that most stalkings are comprised of these actions, sometimes they don't - it doesn't mean that any person following you is considered a stalker. It's not that vague.

So even by this, somewhat vague definition, Zimmerman is not considered a stalker, by "THE LAW". Like I said, you interpret it in such a way where "generally" means "but sometimes anyone, for any reason, is stalking me - if I want him to be" That's wrong.

2. The "or so as to arouse anxiety or fear of harm in the person being followed." bit refers to "and with the intention of harming", possibly also "with no legitimate reason", it does not refer to the first bit where it says "generally comprised".

3. DocM cleared it up by pulling the relevant Florida statute, I merely looked for a random (in the sense that I didn't look for something specific) definition, one that doesn't define the word, but the action, as someone else tried to prove me wrong. And if that "vague" bit confused you, the Florida one should be very, very clear about it.

4. "Course of conduct", the highlighted words "however short" still refer to a pattern (repeated persistent following). So "both" pursuits have to be of a pattern, this refers to incidents where someone was stalking someone at one time and actually broke it off, only to resume at a later time. It doesn't mean that following someone twice is considered stalking, the action still has to be identified as stalking in regards to prior definitions, such as the intent to harm and so on. It is used to "legally" connect two or more stalking events as a series of events and not separate, unrelated incidents.

5. Like DocM said, it's too much of a stretch to call this a second pursuit. But you're right, we will see what they decide later on.

!. Exactly that, generally means sometimes repeated persistence isn't always the case. Legitimate reason, well that's a bit subjective and the courts might not always agree. As for Zimmerman officially being called a stalker, well that could still come about. He was asked to break off pursuit and didnt. Those actions alone resulted in a chain of events that led to the death of someone. So its very reasonable to think that possible stalking charges could be part of what they may come up with or they may decide to not press any charges at all.

2. "Generally comprised" falls in the part of the "repeated persistent following". The "with the intention of harming, or so as to arouse anxiety or fear of harm in the person being followed", I get that too and my point still stands, the anxiety or fear of harm from being followed lies with the person being followed. Again according to the girlfriend, Martin expressed his anxiety and/or fear of Zimmerman following him. He even thought he got away from him only to run into him again.

3. Im still not confused.

4/5. Zimmerman followed, called 911 and was asked to back off, agreed and still went ahead anyway. The girlfriend says, Martin thought he was able to get away only to come across him again. Again this ends up being at the prosecutors discretion. Dont count out a possible charge for this just yet.

[mudslag]

I already answered that, I never claimed to be anyone of authority to tell someone how, or if he should threatened by anyone at any given time. Or "what" is threatening to someone.

They can "feel" whatever they want, they just can't act upon it without suffering the consequences, be it the "threat" pushing back, or "THE LAW" placing them under arrest.

Then you agree it's possible that Martin felt threatened by Zimmerman following him?

Actually they can with the stand your ground law. You have to remember there is no witness who saw the fight start. The closest person would be the girlfriend but even she doesn't know who started it. According to her, Zimmerman came up to Martin and if that's the case and Martin felt threatened he had the right to stand his ground.

http://en.wikipedia....und_law#Florida

776.012?Use of force in defense of person.?A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other?s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: (1)?He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or

[DocM]

Martin may have felt threatened by someone following him, but that doesn't mean that he would have had the right to turn and initiate a fight, which is what Zimmerman is claiming and there is yet no evidence to refute.

If Martin did initiate first contact and had Zimmerman in a position where he couldn't effectively defend himself from further head injury any other way the shoot is good.

Also; the Florida self defense law you quoted clearly states that the defender has to "reasonably believe" they in danger to use force, so it's OK for Martin to believe he is endangered under the stalking law but it's not OK for Zimmerman to do the same under SYG? Seems more than a bit hypocritical.

Another thing you don't seem to be considering is that in 49 of the 50 US states Citizen's Arrest is legal, which basically grants civilians a degree of police powers. I've done it several times.

While Florida has no specific Citizen's Arrest law, in Ripley v. The State of Florida (2005) it was held that a Citizen's Arrest is identical to a police officer arresting someone outside of their normal jurisdiction. So, if a cotizen observes suspicious behavior and that evolves into a crime they can make the arrest. That may of necessity involve following them.

[mrchetsteadman]

Jesus Christ...

So much ignorance in one topic. I honestly don't understand how anyone can not understand what is going on here. Regardless if Trayvon was the demon that the media wants to paint him as, he was murdered in cold blood. People, including me, rushed to judgment because the evidence was always there. It's hard to say it isn't about race when that's honestly what it looks like. Now they say that the voice crying for help was NOT Zimmermans and the EMT report said he didn't have any serious injuries, and the funeral director who handled Trayvons body said his hands showed no signs of a fight. No bruised knuckles etc. Call me anything you like but the facts that HAVE come out were more than enough to arrest the guy.

Wow, this is so very sad and I stand by every one of my statements.

[nominak]

As the Trayvon Martin controversy splinters into a debate about self-defense, a central question remains: Who was heard crying for help on a 911 call in the moments before the teen was shot?

A leading expert in the field of forensic voice identification sought to answer that question by analyzing the recordings for the Orlando Sentinel.

His result: It was not George Zimmerman who called for help.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-31/news/os-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-911-20120331_1_voice-identification-expert-reasonable-scientific-certainty

Ouch. That's gonna be a nail in the proverbial coffin.

[mrchetsteadman]

I can't get over this. I try to stay away from this topic but I can't. A great point was just raised, do you know how many white prep school kids are found with weed and or suspended? Does that mean they should be killed for it? Does it mean that they don't have rights? Even if Trayvon was a convicted felon that bragged about slapping bitches and selling cocaine by the kilo, Zimmerman had no way of knowing ANY of this. Zimmerman should NOT have stopped him, should NOT have had a gun and that is all there is to it. Zimmerman could be the sweetest person on Earth but these mistakes made on his part lead to a death of a young man who has a right to live just like everyone else. These are inalienable rights granted to every human being by God. We should all be able to walk down the street without fearing being shot. Trayvon did not leave his home looking for George at all. What part of this is hard to understand? Why is this not a one sided debate?

[metallithrax]

Martin may have felt threatened by someone following him, but that doesn't mean that he would have had the right to turn and initiate a fight, which is what Zimmerman is claiming and there is yet no evidence to refute.( also no evidence to prove)

If Martin did initiate first contact and had Zimmerman in a position where he couldn't effectively defend himself from further head injury any other way the shoot is good.( he couldnt have hit him with the gun instead of shooting?)

Also; the Florida self defense law you quoted clearly states that the defender has to "reasonably believe" they in danger to use force, so it's OK for Martin to believe he is endangered under the stalking law but it's not OK for Zimmerman to do the same under SYG? Seems more than a bit hypocritical.( from both sides - hence why it is a crappy law)

Another thing you don't seem to be considering is that in 49 of the 50 US states Citizen's Arrest is legal, which basically grants civilians a degree of police powers. I've done it several times.(still don't make it right, if the law is used wrongly)

While Florida has no specific Citizen's Arrest law, in Ripley v. The State of Florida (2005) it was held that a Citizen's Arrest is identical to a police officer arresting someone outside of their normal jurisdiction. So, if a cotizen observes suspicious behavior and that evolves into a crime they can make the arrest. That may of necessity involve following them.

I've bolded the bits I added

[ylcard]

http://articles.orla...tific-certainty

Ouch. That's gonna be a nail in the proverbial coffin.

Hopefully they will do the same with a sample of Trayvon?s voice, it shouldn't be too difficult to get a recording of him, the audio quality was terrible in the 911 call, so any family video will do, maybe he even some in his phone or something, there has to be a sample - the amount of "data" in the 911 call was so minimal that even a "hello" should be sufficient for them.

With that said, I'd like to point out that I find it a bit odd that he's labeled as an "expert" at this, it is said that he used a piece of software to compare the voices, you don't need to be an expert, all you need is 5k USD.

So it's not HIM who proved it, it's the piece of software. Not that it invalidates his findings, just that labeling him as an "expert" might influence people into believing that he used some kind of "expertise" when he came to this conclusion, while he did nothing of the sort. I guess it wouldn't look as good if it was a rich 16 year old with a spare 5k to his name that compared the voices with this program...

[DocM]

"sounding like" isn't near enough - you do indeed need a full spectrum voiceprint analysis to tell.

Lots of talk going about Zimmerman asking "where's the blood?" and "where's the wound?"

After seeing the upthread Daily Caller "enhancement" of the police station video showing a wound on the back of Zimmerman's head I thought I'd give it a shot. Here's a back view based on frame 2010 of the ABC News cut.

I first ran video enhancements (levels etc.) for the whole clip then exported it as a sequence of 2,616 640x360 *.BMP's. Next I picked a good one, cropped and enlarged it using very high-quality settings, and ran it through filters to pull out the details of the Daily Caller wound area and the (apparently) fabric shoulder piece of his jacket - the portion most likely to retain a blood stain from the wound.

Here they are in 2 separate images, saved as 80% *.JPG's.

Still working on a facial view, but the going is tougher because of the angle.

[fintechfooty]

IMO everybody is being ignorant of the case and just taking sides. You have people claiming that it was a racist shooting, and you have another side claiming it was self-defense. Now that new evidence has emerged everybody should stop being ignorant and focus on getting this 'Stand your Ground' law removed so that the next time something as murky as this happens it can be taken to trial and decided upon. It's a tragedy to see, but the way I view it both scenarios could have happened.

[nominak]

"sounding like" isn't near enough - you do indeed need a full spectrum voiceprint analysis to tell.

Lots of talk going about Zimmerman asking "where's the blood?" and "where's the wound?"

After seeing the upthread Daily Caller "enhancement" of the police station video showing a wound on the back of Zimmerman's head I thought I'd give it a shot. Here's a back view based on frame 2010 of the ABC News cut.

I first ran video enhancements (levels etc.) for the whole clip then exported it as a sequence of 2,616 640x360 *.BMP's. Next I picked a good one, cropped and enlarged it using very high-quality settings, and ran it through filters to pull out the details of the Daily Caller wound area and the (apparently) fabric shoulder piece of his jacket - the portion most likely to retain a blood stain from the wound.

Here they are in 2 separate images, saved as 80% *.JPG's.

Still working on a facial view, but the going is tougher because of the angle.

Those are some pretty big stretches to think those are blood stains. I thought you said the footage was too terrible to be able to tell?

[DocM]

As is the case in the lo-res versions corculating, and for the red polyester or whatever it is that's still true - too little color contrast, but fabric that's been wet & stained has enough lumance contrast. Add a higher-res version of the clip, filters designed to bring out shadow details (similar to what NASA uses) and voila'. Wet some darker fabric yourself and see.

[Buttus]

Think about it; there are hundreds of black youths killed by other black youths but you never hear about them at this scale, but give the race-baiters like Al Sharpton or Jessee Jackson one killed by a hispanic or white (or in this case, both in one package) and you have a [ii]cause celebre[/i].

nail on the head, right there!

[seta-san]

IMO everybody is being ignorant of the case and just taking sides. You have people claiming that it was a racist shooting, and you have another side claiming it was self-defense. Now that new evidence has emerged everybody should stop being ignorant and focus on getting this 'Stand your Ground' law removed so that the next time something as murky as this happens it can be taken to trial and decided upon. It's a tragedy to see, but the way I view it both scenarios could have happened.

stand your ground is a great law as is the castle doctrine. Was it misapplied in this case? Probably. But the idea behind it is fundamentally correct.

[MDboyz]

If anyone thinks they are doing that for Black community, they are just retarded. These two are just doing it to get more publicity for their own.

Think about it; there are hundreds of black youths killed by other black youths but you never hear about them at this scale, but give the race-baiters like Al Sharpton or Jessee Jackson one killed by a hispanic or white (or in this case, both in one package) and you have a [ii]cause celebre

[libertas83]

Looks like ABC news did their own enhancement and it shows a head injury.... Funny though, I didn't see this video headlined anywhere on the main ABC website.....

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-22424932/george-zimmerman-enhanced-video-shows-injury-28804646.html#crsl=%252Fvideo%252Fus-22424932%252Fgeorge-zimmerman-enhanced-video-shows-injury-28804646.html

So no, the video is not the smoking gun proof that Zimmerman murdered a kid in cold blood. I would say the video is inconclusive given the low quality. However, based on the police reports and the video it leans to a fight breaking out. It still does not resolve the fundamental issue with this case.....who started the fight! And no, following someone is not starting a fight. Travyon had options.

[DocM]

Precisely - and the "sound expert" guess that it was Trayvon screaming is very iffy absent a full comparative spectrographic voice analysis with a known sample. Absent that I'd put it at 50/50 - a tossup.. The quality of the 911 or other phone calls might also be an issue.

[ylcard]

I'm tempted to buy that piece of software and see if it does a successful job at comparing my voices in similar circumstances, not that I would go and murder someone, or get murdered myself, but it'd be interesting to see if I could pull it off XD