Trayvon Martin Case: Roost, Meet Chicken

[jaxx]

March 20, 2012 11:21 AM
Trayvon Martin Case: Roost, Meet Chicken
By Ed Kilgore

I hadn’t paid much attention to the Trayvon Martin case until yesterday, but I can now understand why it is generating so much outrage. For all that it resembles a hundred old-school “police brutality” cases where a young black male met a bad end in a murky encounters with white men in authority, it’s actually something different: a lesson in what might happen when a society decides to deliberately supplement its police forces by heavily arming citizens and hoping they act responsibly.

Sometimes they don’t, and sometimes, moreover, if you pass laws designed to give people the benefit of doubt when they are defending themselves you can give vigilantes a license to hunt and kill. The more we learn about the Martin case, the more it looks like that is exactly what happened, with the injustice compounded by the tendency of the actual authorities in Florida to take the side of a gun-toting neighorhood ethnic cleanser with an attitude and an arrest record against un unarmed black teenager brandishing a bag of Skittles and just trying to get out of harm’s way.

<..> Federal and state authorities are now investigating the case and its handling by local police in Sanford, Florida. Ta-Nahisi Coates, who did a lot to draw attention to the case, is optimistic about the outcome now that it’s not all being swept into the files:

What now have is, hopefully, an end to Keystone justice and, at the very least, a statement that the authorities will regard the killing of a child with something more than the lax scrutiny generally reserved for a broken tail-light.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/politic...p#comments

I hope this is a wake up call about the lax gun laws some states have adopted. No kid should have to die so that someone can tote a gun.

[Brewman_Jax]

For black people, this is another example of the law that doesn't protect them from racist vigilantes, racist cops, and a racist justice system that doesn't care about black people's rights. Were the victim white and the suspect black, I'd bet money that the suspect would be in jail.

It's who ENFORCES the law that counts.

[jaxx]

(03-20-2012 10:45 AM)Brewman_Jax Wrote:  For black people, this is another example of the law that doesn't protect them from racist vigilantes, racist cops, and a racist justice system that doesn't care about black people's rights. Were the victim white and the suspect black, I'd bet money that the suspect would be in jail.

It's who ENFORCES the law that counts.

This is why I was so glad to see the DOJ step in, it is obvious the FL authorities are unable/unwilling to do what is needed.

[Brewman_Jax]

(03-20-2012 10:53 AM)jaxx Wrote:  

(03-20-2012 10:45 AM)Brewman_Jax Wrote:  For black people, this is another example of the law that doesn't protect them from racist vigilantes, racist cops, and a racist justice system that doesn't care about black people's rights. Were the victim white and the suspect black, I'd bet money that the suspect would be in jail.

It's who ENFORCES the law that counts.

This is why I was so glad to see the DOJ step in, it is obvious the FL authorities are unable/unwilling to do what is needed.

Agree, once again, the local and state officials are in a bad light.

[jaxx]

Congresswoman Brown to Meet with DOJ. Press Conference to Follow
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Print PDF

This afternoon, Congresswoman Corrine Brown and Sanford Florida Mayor Jeff Triplett will meet with senior officials from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss the federal government’s investigation into the death of Trayvon Martin. Among other things, the Congresswoman will ask the DOJ to consider prosecuting the matter as a hate crime. Following the meeting, the Congresswoman Brown will be available for questions from the media at 3 p.m. at the House Triangle.

http://corrinebrown.house.gov/index.php?...&Itemid=35

I've seen the congresswoman on several tv shows since this happened and she is speaking out about the killing.

[jaxx]

Trayvon Martin's hometown Sen., Oscar Braynon, calls for hearings into Stand Your Ground law

Florida Sen. Oscar Braynon, who represents the Miami Gardens district where Trayvon Martin's mother lives, is calling for legislative hearings into the Stand Your Ground law implicated in the shooting death of the 14-year-old child in Sanford last month.

The law, passed in 2005, expands the rights of people to use deadly force in public if they feel threatened during a confrontation. If a shooter such as George Zimmerman invokes the law, and no witnesses can dispute his claim of feeling threatened, police are all but forbidden from arresting him (background on the law here) ( http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/19/27...fense.html ).

<..> "As we see, this law could disproportionately affect the African American population," Braynon said. "We know how racial profiling goes. If you feel intimidated by someone, you can pull a gun on someone and shoot them? That's not the kind of law we need."

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpoli...nk=addthis

Good, another one speaking out against the law.

[Brainwreck]

I agree with everything in your Ed Gilgore post. Sadly, I know that the outcome on that day would have been quite different if the young man murdered had been a white kid. And then other gun toting idiots might take notice and do something to change the gun laws. Oh, who am I kidding? It never would have happened, and if by some quirk in fate it had, they would have hauled that shooter off to jail and locked him up, and he would have been eating lunch in some prison cafeteria for the next ten to twenty years, no questions asked. And the gun laws wouldn't have changed a bit. I feel so sorry for the Martin family.

[Brewman_Jax]

The law behind this, bka the "Stand Your Ground" law will, regrettably, not be repealed or changed, until the loss of a major or popular figure because of this. It's sad that tragedy becomes the only reason for the use of common sense.

[OptimistesMaddie]

(03-20-2012 10:34 AM)jaxx Wrote:  March 20, 2012 11:21 AM
Trayvon Martin Case: Roost, Meet Chicken
By Ed Kilgore

I hadn’t paid much attention to the Trayvon Martin case until yesterday, but I can now understand why it is generating so much outrage. For all that it resembles a hundred old-school “police brutality” cases where a young black male met a bad end in a murky encounters with white men in authority, it’s actually something different: a lesson in what might happen when a society decides to deliberately supplement its police forces by heavily arming citizens and hoping they act responsibly.

Sometimes they don’t, and sometimes, moreover, if you pass laws designed to give people the benefit of doubt when they are defending themselves you can give vigilantes a license to hunt and kill. The more we learn about the Martin case, the more it looks like that is exactly what happened, with the injustice compounded by the tendency of the actual authorities in Florida to take the side of a gun-toting neighorhood ethnic cleanser with an attitude and an arrest record against un unarmed black teenager brandishing a bag of Skittles and just trying to get out of harm’s way.

<..> Federal and state authorities are now investigating the case and its handling by local police in Sanford, Florida. Ta-Nahisi Coates, who did a lot to draw attention to the case, is optimistic about the outcome now that it’s not all being swept into the files:

What now have is, hopefully, an end to Keystone justice and, at the very least, a statement that the authorities will regard the killing of a child with something more than the lax scrutiny generally reserved for a broken tail-light.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/politic...p#comments

I hope this is a wake up call about the lax gun laws some states have adopted. No kid should have to die so that someone can tote a gun.

from what I understand if you are a felon which this Zimmeron is he should not still hold a weapons permit. The police should be investigated and possibly indicted.

[There Is No Spoon]

Quote:...a lesson in what might happen when a society decides to deliberately supplement its police forces by heavily arming citizens and hoping they act responsibly.

Republicans love their cowboy movies & vigilante flicks.

Perhaps Republicans will show a little more concern when a white guy is killed in a supposed act of "self defense"?