Tragedy Becoming Tragicomedy

By now, pretty much everyone is aware of the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida. The shooting was done by a wannabe cop and self-styled Neighborhood Watch captain. Perverting Florida’s “stand your ground” law, the killer was continuing a pattern he had been following for a very long time. A sensible neighborhood crime prevention program and a sensible law were twisted into the loss of a young life on the flimsiest of grounds.

The travesty is grounded in two perfectly acceptable concepts. First, neighborhoods have a basic right to make sure their families and homes are safe. Neighborhood Watch was created years ago to provide eyes and ears to accomplish that goal. But look at the name of the group: Neighborhood Watch. These are not duly-sworn police agencies, nor even well-trained armed private response teams. They are there to watch and report. They are not there to bag strangers or to shoot human beings that they perceive to be some kind of abstract deadly danger. Even well-trained police officers have made tragic mistakes misidentifying an innocent act as a deadly threat. In most cases, those were true mistakes, but they bear no resemblance to the homicide in Florida.

Here, an amateur protector of the peace essentially stalked a lone teenager whom he considered to be “acting suspiciously” and who looked like “he didn’t belong there” (more on that later). Instead of “watching and reporting,” he followed the kid like a bloodhound, finally calling the local police to report the “suspicious activity.” The police recognized the modus operandi of wannabe cop George Zimmerman, who had called in dozens of similar reports, none of which had turned out to be a genuinely dangerous threat to the neighborhood.

The police took the call, noted the report and said they would send a patrol car out to investigate. Zimmerman then asked if he should continue to follow the boy. The police were very specific: “That’s not necessary. Do not continue to follow him.” But this self-appointed protector of the public peace continued to follow the youngster anyway. His activity finally caused the mystified teenager to approach Zimmerman to find out what was going on and why he was being followed.

We’ll probably never know for sure what went on in Zimmerman’s fevered mind, but whatever his motivations, he decided that the teenager was now a physical threat, and proceeded to shoot him down. Had he followed the instructions of the police dispatcher, an unnecessary death would have been avoided, and the police would have gotten a completely valid explanation from the boy as to why he was moving through the neighborhood at that time of night. He had simply gone out to get candy and soft drinks for the relatives he was visiting. Zimmerman didn’t know that, and it’s my opinion that he didn’t want to know that. He just wanted an excuse to fire his weapon at someone he had decided didn't belong there.

Second, Zimmerman was [incorrectly] hiding behind Florida’s new “stand your ground” law. As with the concept of Neighborhood Watch, this law was perfectly sensible and was passed in order to protect citizens from criminal prosecution and/or civil liability for using deadly force to counter deadly force when confronted with a situation that previously required the potential victim to flee rather than protect himself.

The law was not designed to protect self-appointed peacekeepers who put themselves into a volatile situation voluntarily and provocatively. Such activity turns the innocent victim/aggressive perpetrator scenario on its head. Zimmerman’s use of the law is totally misplaced. Part of the problem is the long history of the law abandoning simple common sense and the ancient principle of “the reasonable man” standard (more recently, the “reasonable person” standard).

Both sides of the legal spectrum have erroneously gone to a more absolutist view of any criminal statute rather than inferring the actual “intent of the law.” The old view (and the far better one) is “what would a reasonable man, under the same or similar circumstances, believe he should do?” The teenager was out in the late hours of the evening, but he was not doing anything a reasonable person would consider dangerously suspicious. A reasonable person would have followed the instructions of the police and abandoned the activity of following the teenager.

A reasonable person, even if he decided to continue following the boy, would have done so at a distance and left when the police arrived. But Zimmerman continued to follow the boy, up close and personal. The youngster apparently got either tired of being followed or curious as to what was going on. What he couldn’t know is that Zimmerman appears already to have determined that a young, black man wearing a hoodie (hooded sweatshirt) with the hood up is automatically a deadly threat. So Trayvon Martin approached Zimmerman’s car, resulting in his own unexpected and violent death.

Whether Zimmerman was a racist vigilante or not will eventually be determined. But he is at best a dangerous fool who knew just enough law to get it all wrong and commit a homicide which should have been completely avoided. And then it got worse. The police investigated the shooting, and applying the same misinterpretation of the new statute as Zimmerman himself was pleading, they let the killer go and didn’t confiscate his weapon. Even a police officer who, in the performance of his official duties, shoots a suspect is automatically relieved of his weapon until the investigation is completed. But Zimmerman was sent home, with the deadly weapon in hand.

And then the race vultures got into the act. Those who automatically assumed that this was a race-based homicide called for the immediate arrest of Zimmerman. Not entirely a bad idea, but not automatically the correct thing to do either. But simply determining that Zimmerman bore no responsibility has resulted in the “stepping down” of the police chief. He didn’t resign, and he wasn’t fired, indicating that he still believes his cops did the right thing in releasing Zimmerman complete with his weapon. The city's police review commission issued a no confidence vote as a result of the chief's earlier actions.

[Note: The facts and statements continue to come out. The police have said that they had no contact with the police review commission. But one of the commissioners has stated that after she voted against the no confidence resolution, a police officer informed her that Zimmerman's clothes and gun had indeed been taken from him. That remains to be verified at the time of this writing.]

Our first post-racial President diverged from his usual pattern of not answering questions following a public announcement of the nomination of a new head of the World Bank, and did answer a question about the shooting. Rather than say that the legal authorities should do their job, he went into full emotional mode and declared that the youngster could have been his own son if he had had a boy. Well, he could have been my son as well, if his mother and I were black. But what does that have to do with the known facts? About as much as his “typical white person” grandmother, and the “stupid cops” who arrested his Harvard buddy. In the name of racial harmony, he has once again found a way to stir up racial resentment without actually saying so.

The ”Reverend” Al Sharpton immediately called for Zimmerman’s head. The same man directly responsible for the Tawana Brawley hoax and a riot which resulted in the death of a Jewish shopkeeper over “people who don’t belong in our neighborhood” is now calling for the immediate prosecution and conviction of a man who apparently did exactly the same kind of thing. Race hustler and filmmaker Spike Lee has Tweeted what he believes to be Zimmerman's home address, and asked all his followers to pass it on. Thousands have complied, many with the addition of death threats and exhortations to violence.

On the other hand, Geraldo Rivera (a man who routinely finds racism under every white bed) inadvertently supported the shooter and the police chief by contending that the hoodie was a valid reason to believe that the teenager was up to something dangerous. He was immediately reviled for his remark by hysterical partisans on both the left and right. And despite his being a licensed lawyer, Rivera also misplaced the intent of the Florida “stand your ground” law.

The hoodie may or may not raise reasonable suspicion, but every action the gunman took on that possibly-reasonable belief ignored the other half of the law. Which is to say that Zimmerman had no reasonable excuse to use deadly force even if his initial suspicion was reasonable. To add to the confusion, there's now a mystery witness who claims to have seen some kind of physical confrontation between Zimmerman and the teenager.

The mainstream media are treating this as a racist vigilante matter (and they may be right). But their role in stirring up racial animosities is to expand that simple possibility into a general theory that the Ku Klux Klan is ready, willing and able to use this opportunity to retake the entire South into its racist grip. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the killing of black suspects in northern cities by police officers is just another piece of evidence that white racism is still alive and well and waiting to put Jim Crow into place nationwide.

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the poll-watchers of the New Black Panther Party. That organization has decided to fight vigilantism with, well, vigilantism. At a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, they passed around their new piece of racial retribution—a “wanted” poster. It reads: “Murdered in cold blood. Child-killer of Trayvon Martin wanted—dead or alive.” In case you think that was just rhetoric, they've added a $10,000 reward. Somehow, the mainstream media are ignoring or spinning that juicy little tidbit of news while roundly condemning the alleged racial vigilantism of the shooter and the police who let him go.

President Obama has ordered race-neutral Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to investigate the killing. Considering Holder’s history of finding racism where it doesn’t exist and ignoring it where it does, this tragedy will soon turn into tragicomedy.

Tragedy Becoming Tragicomedy

Category : Race Relations

By now, pretty much everyone is aware of the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida. The shooting was done by a wannabe cop and self-styled Neighborhood Watch captain. Perverting Florida’s “stand your ground” law, the killer was continuing a pattern he had been following for a very long time. A sensible neighborhood crime prevention program and a sensible law were twisted into the loss of a young life on the flimsiest of grounds.

The travesty is grounded in two perfectly acceptable concepts. First, neighborhoods have a basic right to make sure their families and homes are safe. Neighborhood Watch was created years ago to provide eyes and ears to accomplish that goal. But look at the name of the group: Neighborhood Watch. These are not duly-sworn police agencies, nor even well-trained armed private response teams. They are there to watch and report. They are not there to bag strangers or to shoot human beings that they perceive to be some kind of abstract deadly danger. Even well-trained police officers have made tragic mistakes misidentifying an innocent act as a deadly threat. In most cases, those were true mistakes, but they bear no resemblance to the homicide in Florida.

Here, an amateur protector of the peace essentially stalked a lone teenager whom he considered to be “acting suspiciously” and who looked like “he didn’t belong there” (more on that later). Instead of “watching and reporting,” he followed the kid like a bloodhound, finally calling the local police to report the “suspicious activity.” The police recognized the modus operandi of wannabe cop George Zimmerman, who had called in dozens of similar reports, none of which had turned out to be a genuinely dangerous threat to the neighborhood.

The police took the call, noted the report and said they would send a patrol car out to investigate. Zimmerman then asked if he should continue to follow the boy. The police were very specific: “That’s not necessary. Do not continue to follow him.” But this self-appointed protector of the public peace continued to follow the youngster anyway. His activity finally caused the mystified teenager to approach Zimmerman to find out what was going on and why he was being followed.

We’ll probably never know for sure what went on in Zimmerman’s fevered mind, but whatever his motivations, he decided that the teenager was now a physical threat, and proceeded to shoot him down. Had he followed the instructions of the police dispatcher, an unnecessary death would have been avoided, and the police would have gotten a completely valid explanation from the boy as to why he was moving through the neighborhood at that time of night. He had simply gone out to get candy and soft drinks for the relatives he was visiting. Zimmerman didn’t know that, and it’s my opinion that he didn’t want to know that. He just wanted an excuse to fire his weapon at someone he had decided didn't belong there.

Second, Zimmerman was [incorrectly] hiding behind Florida’s new “stand your ground” law. As with the concept of Neighborhood Watch, this law was perfectly sensible and was passed in order to protect citizens from criminal prosecution and/or civil liability for using deadly force to counter deadly force when confronted with a situation that previously required the potential victim to flee rather than protect himself.

The law was not designed to protect self-appointed peacekeepers who put themselves into a volatile situation voluntarily and provocatively. Such activity turns the innocent victim/aggressive perpetrator scenario on its head. Zimmerman’s use of the law is totally misplaced. Part of the problem is the long history of the law abandoning simple common sense and the ancient principle of “the reasonable man” standard (more recently, the “reasonable person” standard).

Both sides of the legal spectrum have erroneously gone to a more absolutist view of any criminal statute rather than inferring the actual “intent of the law.” The old view (and the far better one) is “what would a reasonable man, under the same or similar circumstances, believe he should do?” The teenager was out in the late hours of the evening, but he was not doing anything a reasonable person would consider dangerously suspicious. A reasonable person would have followed the instructions of the police and abandoned the activity of following the teenager.

A reasonable person, even if he decided to continue following the boy, would have done so at a distance and left when the police arrived. But Zimmerman continued to follow the boy, up close and personal. The youngster apparently got either tired of being followed or curious as to what was going on. What he couldn’t know is that Zimmerman appears already to have determined that a young, black man wearing a hoodie (hooded sweatshirt) with the hood up is automatically a deadly threat. So Trayvon Martin approached Zimmerman’s car, resulting in his own unexpected and violent death.

Whether Zimmerman was a racist vigilante or not will eventually be determined. But he is at best a dangerous fool who knew just enough law to get it all wrong and commit a homicide which should have been completely avoided. And then it got worse. The police investigated the shooting, and applying the same misinterpretation of the new statute as Zimmerman himself was pleading, they let the killer go and didn’t confiscate his weapon. Even a police officer who, in the performance of his official duties, shoots a suspect is automatically relieved of his weapon until the investigation is completed. But Zimmerman was sent home, with the deadly weapon in hand.

And then the race vultures got into the act. Those who automatically assumed that this was a race-based homicide called for the immediate arrest of Zimmerman. Not entirely a bad idea, but not automatically the correct thing to do either. But simply determining that Zimmerman bore no responsibility has resulted in the “stepping down” of the police chief. He didn’t resign, and he wasn’t fired, indicating that he still believes his cops did the right thing in releasing Zimmerman complete with his weapon. The city's police review commission issued a no confidence vote as a result of the chief's earlier actions.

[Note: The facts and statements continue to come out. The police have said that they had no contact with the police review commission. But one of the commissioners has stated that after she voted against the no confidence resolution, a police officer informed her that Zimmerman's clothes and gun had indeed been taken from him. That remains to be verified at the time of this writing.]

Our first post-racial President diverged from his usual pattern of not answering questions following a public announcement of the nomination of a new head of the World Bank, and did answer a question about the shooting. Rather than say that the legal authorities should do their job, he went into full emotional mode and declared that the youngster could have been his own son if he had had a boy. Well, he could have been my son as well, if his mother and I were black. But what does that have to do with the known facts? About as much as his “typical white person” grandmother, and the “stupid cops” who arrested his Harvard buddy. In the name of racial harmony, he has once again found a way to stir up racial resentment without actually saying so.

The ”Reverend” Al Sharpton immediately called for Zimmerman’s head. The same man directly responsible for the Tawana Brawley hoax and a riot which resulted in the death of a Jewish shopkeeper over “people who don’t belong in our neighborhood” is now calling for the immediate prosecution and conviction of a man who apparently did exactly the same kind of thing. Race hustler and filmmaker Spike Lee has Tweeted what he believes to be Zimmerman's home address, and asked all his followers to pass it on. Thousands have complied, many with the addition of death threats and exhortations to violence.

On the other hand, Geraldo Rivera (a man who routinely finds racism under every white bed) inadvertently supported the shooter and the police chief by contending that the hoodie was a valid reason to believe that the teenager was up to something dangerous. He was immediately reviled for his remark by hysterical partisans on both the left and right. And despite his being a licensed lawyer, Rivera also misplaced the intent of the Florida “stand your ground” law.

The hoodie may or may not raise reasonable suspicion, but every action the gunman took on that possibly-reasonable belief ignored the other half of the law. Which is to say that Zimmerman had no reasonable excuse to use deadly force even if his initial suspicion was reasonable. To add to the confusion, there's now a mystery witness who claims to have seen some kind of physical confrontation between Zimmerman and the teenager.

The mainstream media are treating this as a racist vigilante matter (and they may be right). But their role in stirring up racial animosities is to expand that simple possibility into a general theory that the Ku Klux Klan is ready, willing and able to use this opportunity to retake the entire South into its racist grip. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the killing of black suspects in northern cities by police officers is just another piece of evidence that white racism is still alive and well and waiting to put Jim Crow into place nationwide.

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the poll-watchers of the New Black Panther Party. That organization has decided to fight vigilantism with, well, vigilantism. At a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, they passed around their new piece of racial retribution—a “wanted” poster. It reads: “Murdered in cold blood. Child-killer of Trayvon Martin wanted—dead or alive.” In case you think that was just rhetoric, they've added a $10,000 reward. Somehow, the mainstream media are ignoring or spinning that juicy little tidbit of news while roundly condemning the alleged racial vigilantism of the shooter and the police who let him go.

President Obama has ordered race-neutral Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to investigate the killing. Considering Holder’s history of finding racism where it doesn’t exist and ignoring it where it does, this tragedy will soon turn into tragicomedy.
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By now, pretty much everyone is aware of the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida. The shooting was done by a wannabe cop and self-styled Neighborhood Watch captain. Perverting Florida’s “stand your ground” law, the killer was continuing a pattern he had been following for a very long time. A sensible neighborhood crime prevention program and a sensible law were twisted into the loss of a young life on the flimsiest of grounds.

The travesty is grounded in two perfectly acceptable concepts. First, neighborhoods have a basic right to make sure their families and homes are safe. Neighborhood Watch was created years ago to provide eyes and ears to accomplish that goal. But look at the name of the group: Neighborhood Watch. These are not duly-sworn police agencies, nor even well-trained armed private response teams. They are there to watch and report. They are not there to bag strangers or to shoot human beings that they perceive to be some kind of abstract deadly danger. Even well-trained police officers have made tragic mistakes misidentifying an innocent act as a deadly threat. In most cases, those were true mistakes, but they bear no resemblance to the homicide in Florida.

Here, an amateur protector of the peace essentially stalked a lone teenager whom he considered to be “acting suspiciously” and who looked like “he didn’t belong there” (more on that later). Instead of “watching and reporting,” he followed the kid like a bloodhound, finally calling the local police to report the “suspicious activity.” The police recognized the modus operandi of wannabe cop George Zimmerman, who had called in dozens of similar reports, none of which had turned out to be a genuinely dangerous threat to the neighborhood.

The police took the call, noted the report and said they would send a patrol car out to investigate. Zimmerman then asked if he should continue to follow the boy. The police were very specific: “That’s not necessary. Do not continue to follow him.” But this self-appointed protector of the public peace continued to follow the youngster anyway. His activity finally caused the mystified teenager to approach Zimmerman to find out what was going on and why he was being followed.

We’ll probably never know for sure what went on in Zimmerman’s fevered mind, but whatever his motivations, he decided that the teenager was now a physical threat, and proceeded to shoot him down. Had he followed the instructions of the police dispatcher, an unnecessary death would have been avoided, and the police would have gotten a completely valid explanation from the boy as to why he was moving through the neighborhood at that time of night. He had simply gone out to get candy and soft drinks for the relatives he was visiting. Zimmerman didn’t know that, and it’s my opinion that he didn’t want to know that. He just wanted an excuse to fire his weapon at someone he had decided didn't belong there.

Second, Zimmerman was [incorrectly] hiding behind Florida’s new “stand your ground” law. As with the concept of Neighborhood Watch, this law was perfectly sensible and was passed in order to protect citizens from criminal prosecution and/or civil liability for using deadly force to counter deadly force when confronted with a situation that previously required the potential victim to flee rather than protect himself.

The law was not designed to protect self-appointed peacekeepers who put themselves into a volatile situation voluntarily and provocatively. Such activity turns the innocent victim/aggressive perpetrator scenario on its head. Zimmerman’s use of the law is totally misplaced. Part of the problem is the long history of the law abandoning simple common sense and the ancient principle of “the reasonable man” standard (more recently, the “reasonable person” standard).

Both sides of the legal spectrum have erroneously gone to a more absolutist view of any criminal statute rather than inferring the actual “intent of the law.” The old view (and the far better one) is “what would a reasonable man, under the same or similar circumstances, believe he should do?” The teenager was out in the late hours of the evening, but he was not doing anything a reasonable person would consider dangerously suspicious. A reasonable person would have followed the instructions of the police and abandoned the activity of following the teenager.

A reasonable person, even if he decided to continue following the boy, would have done so at a distance and left when the police arrived. But Zimmerman continued to follow the boy, up close and personal. The youngster apparently got either tired of being followed or curious as to what was going on. What he couldn’t know is that Zimmerman appears already to have determined that a young, black man wearing a hoodie (hooded sweatshirt) with the hood up is automatically a deadly threat. So Trayvon Martin approached Zimmerman’s car, resulting in his own unexpected and violent death.

Whether Zimmerman was a racist vigilante or not will eventually be determined. But he is at best a dangerous fool who knew just enough law to get it all wrong and commit a homicide which should have been completely avoided. And then it got worse. The police investigated the shooting, and applying the same misinterpretation of the new statute as Zimmerman himself was pleading, they let the killer go and didn’t confiscate his weapon. Even a police officer who, in the performance of his official duties, shoots a suspect is automatically relieved of his weapon until the investigation is completed. But Zimmerman was sent home, with the deadly weapon in hand.

And then the race vultures got into the act. Those who automatically assumed that this was a race-based homicide called for the immediate arrest of Zimmerman. Not entirely a bad idea, but not automatically the correct thing to do either. But simply determining that Zimmerman bore no responsibility has resulted in the “stepping down” of the police chief. He didn’t resign, and he wasn’t fired, indicating that he still believes his cops did the right thing in releasing Zimmerman complete with his weapon. The city's police review commission issued a no confidence vote as a result of the chief's earlier actions.

[Note: The facts and statements continue to come out. The police have said that they had no contact with the police review commission. But one of the commissioners has stated that after she voted against the no confidence resolution, a police officer informed her that Zimmerman's clothes and gun had indeed been taken from him. That remains to be verified at the time of this writing.]

Our first post-racial President diverged from his usual pattern of not answering questions following a public announcement of the nomination of a new head of the World Bank, and did answer a question about the shooting. Rather than say that the legal authorities should do their job, he went into full emotional mode and declared that the youngster could have been his own son if he had had a boy. Well, he could have been my son as well, if his mother and I were black. But what does that have to do with the known facts? About as much as his “typical white person” grandmother, and the “stupid cops” who arrested his Harvard buddy. In the name of racial harmony, he has once again found a way to stir up racial resentment without actually saying so.

The ”Reverend” Al Sharpton immediately called for Zimmerman’s head. The same man directly responsible for the Tawana Brawley hoax and a riot which resulted in the death of a Jewish shopkeeper over “people who don’t belong in our neighborhood” is now calling for the immediate prosecution and conviction of a man who apparently did exactly the same kind of thing. Race hustler and filmmaker Spike Lee has Tweeted what he believes to be Zimmerman's home address, and asked all his followers to pass it on. Thousands have complied, many with the addition of death threats and exhortations to violence.

On the other hand, Geraldo Rivera (a man who routinely finds racism under every white bed) inadvertently supported the shooter and the police chief by contending that the hoodie was a valid reason to believe that the teenager was up to something dangerous. He was immediately reviled for his remark by hysterical partisans on both the left and right. And despite his being a licensed lawyer, Rivera also misplaced the intent of the Florida “stand your ground” law.

The hoodie may or may not raise reasonable suspicion, but every action the gunman took on that possibly-reasonable belief ignored the other half of the law. Which is to say that Zimmerman had no reasonable excuse to use deadly force even if his initial suspicion was reasonable. To add to the confusion, there's now a mystery witness who claims to have seen some kind of physical confrontation between Zimmerman and the teenager.

The mainstream media are treating this as a racist vigilante matter (and they may be right). But their role in stirring up racial animosities is to expand that simple possibility into a general theory that the Ku Klux Klan is ready, willing and able to use this opportunity to retake the entire South into its racist grip. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the killing of black suspects in northern cities by police officers is just another piece of evidence that white racism is still alive and well and waiting to put Jim Crow into place nationwide.

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the poll-watchers of the New Black Panther Party. That organization has decided to fight vigilantism with, well, vigilantism. At a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, they passed around their new piece of racial retribution—a “wanted” poster. It reads: “Murdered in cold blood. Child-killer of Trayvon Martin wanted—dead or alive.” In case you think that was just rhetoric, they've added a $10,000 reward. Somehow, the mainstream media are ignoring or spinning that juicy little tidbit of news while roundly condemning the alleged racial vigilantism of the shooter and the police who let him go.

President Obama has ordered race-neutral Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to investigate the killing. Considering Holder’s history of finding racism where it doesn’t exist and ignoring it where it does, this tragedy will soon turn into tragicomedy.

Product Title : Tragedy Becoming Tragicomedy

Tragedy Becoming Tragicomedy,

Race Relations,

Tragedy Becoming Tragicomedy