George Zimmerman's arrival at the Sanford Florida police station
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ow that ABCNews has shown us what George Zimmerman looked like when he arrived at the police station, we have more than enough information to highlight the inconsistencies in his story. As the police expert from John Jay College of Criminal Justice said on the Lawrence O’Donnell show yesterday, “If he [Zimmerman] alleges that he was in a life and death struggle, this video belies that claim.” There is:
- No blood on his shirt from a shooting that allegedly occurred at close range, while Trayvon Martin was on top of him.
- No signs of bruising, abrasions or even redness on his face. No signs of cuts on his head. No wounds on his allegedly broken nose.
- No emergency room visit for a broken nose or anything else.
- No torn clothes. No disheveled appearance. And possibly no dirt on his light grey shirt or red jacket.
- No signs of trauma on Trayvon Martin’s hands.
- No signs of agitation or stress after just having engaged in a fight for his life.
- No explanation for how a scuffle that he says began beside his parked SUV meandered into the alley and ended with Trayvon dead in less than 1 minute.
- No reason for Trayvon to attack him if Trayvon were afraid and had escaped him.
- No reconciliation between Zimmerman’s account and the account of Trayvon’s girlfriend, who is now being called DeeDee. She was allegedly on the phone with Trayvon when he and Zimmerman first spoke.
- No reason to continue following Trayvon after the 911 operator said “We don’t need you to do that.”
And as a bonus, can anyone explain why — if Trayvon wasn’t the one screaming in the 911 tapes — the screaming stopped immediately after the gunshot?
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The question that keeps coming to mind is, when Trayvon allegedly hit Zimmerman and knocked him down, then climbed on top of him and started beating his head in the ground, did Zimmerman ever hit Trayvon back? His dad says Trayvon was holding Zimmerman’s arms down w/his legs, and he was able to free his arms grab his gun and shoot Trayvon. Why didn’t he punch or push him off of him? Looking at the surveillance tape, he looks pretty fit. He didn’t try to get a few hits in on Trayvon? He just HAD to use his gun??? Zimmerman’s brother said Trayvon covered Zimmerman’s nose and mouth with one hand to keep him from screaming (that’s what miraculously caused the broken nose bleeding to stop). How could Zimmerman scream if his mouth was covered?? If you are screaming WHILE getting your head bashed in the concrete wouldn’t the screams sound “choppier”??? The screams stopped INSTANTLY. If it were Zimmerman screaming, wouldn’t we be able to hear the “end” of the scream…a cry out of relief or something??? Instead, he calmly tells a neighbor to “call 911″. If Zimmerman listened to the 911 dispatcher and stopped following Trayvon, why couldn’t he meet the police at the mailboxes? If he were going back to his car to wait for police, why would they need to call him for his whereabouts? Could it be because he continued to follow Trayvon, and he didn’t know where it would lead him?
Here’s another question… why didn’t George Zimmerman call 911 himself after this incident? Why didn’t he call 911 to tell them that he had just shot and killed an unarmed boy?
I need to say more about #2 because my answer was incomplete.
2. No signs of bruising, abrasions or even redness on his face. No signs of cuts on his head. No wounds on his allegedly broken nose.
A broken nose doesn’t show “wounds.” This is an impact injury, not a laceration one. Broken noses swell somewhat: the nose gets bigger because of edema in the local tissues. The swelling can hide the disfigurement caused by the broken nasal bone.
There IS a gash on George Zimmerman’s head. It is visible in the video tape from the police department garage.
The video shows Zimmerman getting out of the police car, then going to stand in the lower left corner, where an officer searches his clothes, and then the officer examines the gash on the back of Zimmerman’s head. The officer can see it, but the camera can’t–yet.
Zimmerman moves over to the right side of the camera’s field of view and turns his back to the camera. He stays that way for about two-and-a-half seconds. That 2.5 seconds is when the gash on the back of his head can be seen in the video. It begins near the top of his head, where the hair is thinnest, and goes down and slightly toward the right.
Then the officers lead Zimmerman through a door on the far side of the police station garage.
Even so, there are no bandages… no butterfly bandage, no steri strips… no evidence of life-threatening injury.
The thing I find most suspicious regarding George Zimmerman’s accounts, is why the EMT’s did not take him into an ER, and a Hospital do a CT or an MRI scan of his alleged head injuries? If anyone says someone was “banging” their head on a pavement, as the Elder Zimmerman stated his son told him, the first thing a rational medical person would think, is preventing a “sub-dural hematoma”. I am sure you have read of people getting hit on the head, especially in the parietal areas of the head, say they feel fine at the scene, and sent home, only to die later from a sub-dural hematoma. It is an EMT / ER / Hospital nightmare when that happens because it shows great negligence, this is why people with head injuries are usually kept for 24 hours for observation.
By the way, what is wrong with the son’s of Judges? This so reminds me of Joran van der Sloot, how his Magistrate father ran interference to prevent his son from being properly investigated, only to have his son murder again. To the George Zimmerman supporters, does he have to kill again in order for you lot to see the danger this man poses? If your support gets him exonerated or not even prosecuted, and if he kills again, what would you say to the victims family? After all, got away with it once, why not try it again.
1. No blood on his shirt from a shooting that allegedly occurred at close range, while Trayvon Martin was on top of him.
When you shoot somebody, the entrance hole is small. That hole is on the side of the shot person that is facing toward the shooter. The exit hole, however, is large. That’s the hole facing away from the shooter. Furthermore, the mass of tissue and blood affected by the bullet acquires some of the bullet’s momentum: it moves AWAY from the shooter, toward the exit hole.
2. No signs of bruising, abrasions or even redness on his face. No signs of cuts on his head. No wounds on his allegedly broken nose.
A broken nose doesn’t show “wounds.” This is an impact injury, not a laceration one. Broken noses swell somewhat: the nose gets bigger because of edema in the local tissues. The swelling can hide the disfigurement caused by the broken nasal bone.
3. No emergency room visit for a broken nose or anything else.
He was treated by EMS (paramedics) and his injuries were not life-threatening. You don’t have to go to the emergency room when first aid will get the job done. Note that Zimmerman shot Martin IN ORDER TO AVOID being injured to the point where he might need a trip to the emergency room (or worse).
4. No torn clothes. No disheveled appearance. And possibly no dirt on his light grey shirt or red jacket.
Nobody ever said his clothes were torn. There was said to be grass stains on the back of his jacket. There might have been. The videos we’ve seen are of low resolution, and we wouldn’t necessarily have seen them.
5. No signs of trauma on Trayvon Martin’s hands.
The manner in which Martin was abusing Zimmerman, other than the initial punch in the nose, was slamming his head into the ground. That wouldn’t cause trauma on his hands.
6. No signs of agitation or stress after just having engaged in a fight for his life.
Oh? Just what do you expect Zimmerman to do? He’s in police custody being obedient and doing what the officers ask. His attention is focused on that now, and not on the fight.
Now there is a type of person who would be engaging in sympathy-seeking theatrics and self-serving rhetorical chatter non-stop in that situation. Zimmerman isn’t that kind of person.
7. No explanation for how a scuffle that he says began beside his parked SUV meandered into the alley and ended with Trayvon dead in less than 1 minute.
He SAID that he was ON HIS WAY back to his SUV when Trayvon Martin attacked him.
8. No reason for Trayvon to attack him if Trayvon were afraid and had escaped him.
That’s true. Or, rather, there was no GOOD reason for Trayvon to have attacked George. There are a couple of a bad reasons, though. Arrogant pride and racial resentment.
Trayvon COULD have spoken with George and answered George’s reasonable questions about why Trayvon, a person unfamiliar to him, was in the community so near to sunset.
Trayvon COULD have shrugged George off by going into his father’s girlfriend’s house and watching TV.
But instead he probably started thinking something like: “I’m gonna teach that honky a lesson.” This honky, however, was a Hispanic, and he had a gun, and so Trayvon Martin was the one who got taught a lesson.
Now the blacks want to revise the outcome.
9. No reconciliation between Zimmerman’s account and the account of Trayvon’s girlfriend, who is now being called DeeDee. She was allegedly on the phone with Trayvon when he and Zimmerman first spoke.
Given a choice of whether to believe the story of “DeeDee” or the combined testimony of “John” and the police and the paramedics and the little black boy whose testimony supports Zimmerman, I think it’s clear which side is the more credible.
10. No reason to continue following Trayvon after the 911 operator said “We don’t need you to do that.”
He didn’t. LISTEN TO THE AUDIO TAPE, for crying out loud. After the 911 operator said “We don’t need you to do that,” Zimmerman thinks it over for 12 seconds. Then HE STOPS FOLLOWING MARTIN, turns around, and begins walking back to his vehicle.
Let me say it again. Zimmerman did NOT chase Martin down. Rather, the opposite is what happened.
BONUS. Can anyone explain why — if Trayvon wasn’t the one screaming in the 911 tapes — the screaming stopped immediately after the gunshot?
Zimmerman was no longer yelling for help because Martin, having been shot, was no longer beating his head against the ground. Therefore there was NO NEED to continue to yell.
Did you think that you were making some sort of point with these very easily answered questions?
“He didn’t. LISTEN TO THE AUDIO TAPE, for crying out loud. After the 911 operator said “We don’t need you to do that,” Zimmerman thinks it over for 12 seconds. Then HE STOPS FOLLOWING MARTIN, turns around, and begins walking back to his vehicle.”
You state this as if it’s fact. How do you know this to be fact?
“BONUS. Can anyone explain why — if Trayvon wasn’t the one screaming in the 911 tapes — the screaming stopped immediately after the gunshot?
Zimmerman was no longer yelling for help because Martin, having been shot, was no longer beating his head against the ground. Therefore there was NO NEED to continue to yell.”
It wasn’t Zimmerman who was screaming according to two forensic scientists.
This is the root of the problem:
“Trayvon COULD have spoken with George and answered George’s reasonable questions about why Trayvon, a person unfamiliar to him, was in the community so near to sunset.”
No. Zimmerman is not a police officer and has no authority to detain or question anyone. A police officer cannot force anyone to answer questions, even when they are arrested.
Trayvon was under no obligation to answer questions, especially from a stranger who was stalking him for no reason. And he most definitely should have been leery of a stranger attempting to detain him.
1. I agree the exit would have been larger than the entry wound, however if I am shooting at an upwards angle the body is likely to fall on top of me. There should at least be a smear of blood on Zimmerman’s shirt it appears clean.
2. Broken noses bleed, again no blood on Zimmerman’s shirt.
3. Zimmerman is insisting his life was being threatened but of course we can see that he has no life threatening injuries.
4 & 5. If am in a fight for my life as Zimmeran claims to have been there is going to be tearing on my clothing or at least some evidence of a struggle. Zimmerman’s shirt does appear stretched or mishapen at all, wouldn’t Zimmerman at least have pushed at the boy tried to get him off.
7. He shouldn’t have gotten out of the car in the first place.
8.
8. Zimmerman is not a cop. He had no right to question Trayvon, that is what police are for, he knew the cops were on the way to the scene. He could have simply followed Trayvon all the way home if he just wanted to know what he was doing there. Here’s a thought walk up to the girlfriends home, knock on the door introduce yourself and ask the adults in the home why the child was out.
9. Phone records clearly back up the statement that she was on the phone with Trayvon. Eyewitness testimony is consistently unreliable, phone records don’t lie.
10. You honestly believe that Trayvon was the initial agressor. That doesn’t even make sense, considering you previously suggested Zimmerman questioned Trayvon about being in the neighborhood.
I have no horse in this game except the thought that a young man lost his life is a tragedy. However, you ask the bonus question and my answer is; once the shot is fired, even if it is Zimmerman yelling for help, why would it not stop…if Trayvon is dead then he can no longer yell and if it is Zimmerman his reason for needing help has been addressed. I really don’t think the yelling tells us too much.
If I was fighting for my life and I had to stop my attacker with deadly force and I had a broken nose and gashes in my head as a result of this attack and I was screaming for help – trust me – my screaming would not have stopped the second I killed my attacker. It’s a moot point. It wasn’t Zimmerman who was screaming according to two forensic scientists.
Considering that George’s father is a retired judge, I am also curious about George Zimmerman’s cell phone log. Did he call his father while at the scene or after he killed Trayvon? Is that why the Chief of Police came to the scene which from all accounts is unusual event?
Great question!
How do you know that even is Zimmerman? Do you know when the video was taken? Was Zimmerman cleaned up by paramedics? Did he change clothes? Is the video clear enough that you could even see his injuries? Are you an expert in determining whether someone is traumatized? How do you reconcile your interpretation of the video with the statements by police and paramedics? Are you asserting that they are lying?
The real question is: why do you and everybody else think you need to rush to judgment in your blog, instead of leaving this up to the DA and courts?
@ Mike…because it can’t be left up the DA and courts with no arrest. Why else would Zimmerman be tried in the court of public opinion?
The reason why we’re all reacting so strongly to this situation and we’re not leaving this up to the DA and the courts – not just in the US but also in other parts of the world – is because Zimmerman has yet to be charged with anything – even just manslaughter. If it weren’t for the public scrutiny, they still would not be investigating this situation – yet they hadn’t even interviewed Trayvon’s girlfriend who was on the phone with him when Zimmerman approached him. She heard a conversation between Trayvon and Zimmerman and yet they allowed Zimmerman to walk on this crime without even conducting a proper investigation. As such, it is up to us – the public – to cry foul and to demand to be heard. It’s up to us to keep this conversation going. We want an investigation, an arrest and for Zimmerman to have his day in court. Let a jury hear all the facts and determine his guilt or innocence. But his story is unraveling daily. According to the police report, he stated that he called for help but no one helped him. His friends and family also state that the cries for help are Zimmerman’s voice. But it wasn’t Zimmerman who was screaming according to two forensic scientists. Why would Zimmerman lie about calling for help?