trayvan martin

doc111

Well-Known Member
Found this on Yahoo news this morning.......thought it was interesting and sheds some light on a few things.


http://news.yahoo.com/george-zimmerman-prelude-shooting-194235114.html


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George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting

By Chris Francescani | Reuters






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SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.
The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.
"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.
"Get a gun."
That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.
By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.
Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.
On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.
During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.
But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.
Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.
The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.
A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.
Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.
"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."
"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD
George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.
In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.
Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.
Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.
"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.
Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.
Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.
"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said.
Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.
"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."
George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.
After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.
YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT
On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.
"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."
In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.
Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.
That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.
In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.
In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.
Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.
On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."
A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR
By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.
At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.
In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.
One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.
But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.
On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.
"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.
Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.
After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.
"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."
In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.
"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"
Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.
"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.
Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.
Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.
The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.
"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."
EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE
On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.
"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.
On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.
Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.
Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.
Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.
Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.
"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.
The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.
This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.
"These assholes," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."
After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.
Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.
 

Carne Seca

Well-Known Member
Yeah and Trayvon saved his father's life. So what? This has nothing to do with the choices Zimmerman made the night he shot and killed a 17 year old teenager carrying a bag of skittles and a bottle of iced tea he was bringing home to his younger brother. That little tidbit got left out of most of the media. The black thug wearing a hoodie was buying skittles and tea for his younger brother.

But lets please keep painting Zimmerman as a saint and Trayvon as a ghetto rat.
 

doc111

Well-Known Member
Yeah and Trayvon saved his father's life. So what? This has nothing to do with the choices Zimmerman made the night he shot and killed a 17 year old teenager carrying a bag of skittles and a bottle of iced tea he was bringing home to his younger brother. That little tidbit got left out of most of the media. The black thug wearing a hoodie was buying skittles and tea for his younger brother.

But lets please keep painting Zimmerman as a saint and Trayvon as a ghetto rat.
If all this speculation about Zimmerman's mindset and his past history are coming into play, how does this have nothing to do with the choices Zimmerman made? I'm confused here. I don't think I am painting Zimmerman as a saint and I sure as fuck am not painting Trayvon as a ghetto rat. The fact that there had been a lot of burglaries in the area by "young black men" could've had everything to do with why Zimmerman was suspicious of Trayvon. I'm not saying Zimmerman acted properly, but if you are going to try to dig up dirt on Zimmerman, I think it's only fair to look at EVERYTHING that may have played a role in this tragedy. You can't cherry pick facts. I'm sorry there may be some facts you may not like or disagree with. Don't shoot the messenger.:neutral:
 

Corso312

Well-Known Member
it is a fluff piece ..if it was written in ink i would call it toilet paper ..... yeah so what some blacks burglarized some homes so now any black kid is suspect?.... they really brushed over the beating his girlfriends ass and claiming self defense..and maybe i missed the part where he threw a woman on the ground and sprained her ankle before being fired as security...this changes nothing..zip ..zero ...this dummy shot and killed a 17 year old kid ..period..end of story
 

desert dude

Well-Known Member
Yeah and Trayvon saved his father's life. So what? This has nothing to do with the choices Zimmerman made the night he shot and killed a 17 year old teenager carrying a bag of skittles and a bottle of iced tea he was bringing home to his younger brother. That little tidbit got left out of most of the media. The black thug wearing a hoodie was buying skittles and tea for his younger brother.

But lets please keep painting Zimmerman as a saint and Trayvon as a ghetto rat.
You and the uterus have been busy as little bees painting Zimmer as a racist psycho. It turns out that Zimmer is more or less the All American Boy, and all you have to say is that none of this matters? Shame on you for your obstinate, close-minded attitude.
 

londonfog

Well-Known Member
and WTF does any of that has to do with Zimmerman killing Trayvon. I'm sure John Wayne Gacy was a hit with all the kids when he dressed up in his clown suit.
 

Carne Seca

Well-Known Member
Not to mention all of this "Zimmerman history" is coming from the Zimmermans themselves. I read several articles where Zimmerman went around the neighborhood passing out business cards proclaiming himself the captain of the neighborhood watch. He was annoying the shit out of people and THAT'S why they gave him that title. There are two sides to every story.
 

londonfog

Well-Known Member
Not to mention all of this "Zimmerman history" is coming from the Zimmerman's themselves. I read several articles where Zimmerman went around the neighborhood passing out business cards proclaiming himself the captain of the neighborhood watch. He was annoying the shit out of people and THAT'S why they gave him that title. There are two sides to every story.
I bet Zimmerman would snitch on your ass for growing.
 

Samwell Seed Well

Well-Known Member
You and the uterus have been busy as little bees painting Zimmer as a racist psycho. It turns out that Zimmer is more or less the All American Boy, and all you have to say is that none of this matters? Shame on you for your obstinate, close-minded attitude.
the fired for violent outburst no job having, wife/women beating, hero/cop wannabe who has a history of violent temper tantrums

is the all american boy . . . .. .. you got some strange idols . . .it all makes sense now
 

desert dude

Well-Known Member
the fired for violent outburst no job having, wife/women beating, hero/cop wannabe who has a history of violent temper tantrums

is the all american boy . . . .. .. you got some strange idols . . .it all makes sense now
When you put it like that it sorta sounds like UncelUterus you are talking about.
 

afrawfraw

Well-Known Member
You and the uterus have been busy as little bees painting Zimmer as a racist psycho. It turns out that Zimmer is more or less the All American Boy, and all you have to say is that none of this matters? Shame on you for your obstinate, close-minded attitude.
Thanks for that. I laughed hysterically right before the Facepalm. Either your saying most american boys have Zimmerman's character, which would explain the shit hole our country is in, or you really believe Zimmerman is well adjusted. Either way, fucking hilarious post. Thank you.
 

cliffey501

Active Member
Zimmerman's past = violent pyscho vigilante cop wanna be

Trayvons past = Smear campaign,just a normal teenagers story

If anyone actually watched the bond hearing you would know that the assault on the officer thing must happen quite a bit.
Listen to what the judge says at 44:30 sounds like this assaulting an officer is a routine charge for these kinds of ATF operations.

[video=youtube;Hw0Shw075mo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw0Shw075mo[/video]
 

doc111

Well-Known Member
the fired for violent outburst no job having, wife/women beating, hero/cop wannabe who has a history of violent temper tantrums

is the all american boy . . . .. .. you got some strange idols . . .it all makes sense now
The way you paint him, we should just chuck him away with the trash. It's funny how you guys want to bring up all the negative "facts" yet anything that doesn't paint Zimmerman as a "psycho" or someone with some sort of violent "history" is irrelevant? Hypocrisy much? George Zimmerman may not have been perfect. In fact, he may have been far from it, but he is still a human being. He is somebody's son, somebody's brother, somebody's husband. He has people who care about him, just like (hopefully) all of the people painting him as a waste of flesh. You all should be ashamed the way you are demonizing a human being whom you do NOT even know!:evil:
 

Mindmelted

Well-Known Member
The way you paint him, we should just chuck him away with the trash. It's funny how you guys want to bring up all the negative "facts" yet anything that doesn't paint Zimmerman as a "psycho" or someone with some sort of violent "history" is irrelevant? Hypocrisy much? George Zimmerman may not have been perfect. In fact, he may have been far from it, but he is still a human being. He is somebody's son, somebody's brother, somebody's husband. He has people who care about him, just like (hopefully) all of the people painting him as a waste of flesh. You all should be ashamed the way you are demonizing a human being whom you do NOT even know!:evil:


Again doc you are a class act my friend.

The mob could learn a lot from you.
 

Corso312

Well-Known Member
that makes no sense....even a piece of crap like richard the ice man kucklinski had family photos and heartwarming stories told by friends and family.
 

doc111

Well-Known Member
that makes no sense....even a piece of crap like richard the ice man kucklinski had family photos and heartwarming stories told by friends and family.
So, you know Zimmerman? You know from a few news pieces or some internet blogs EXACTLY the kind of person he is?:roll:


It does make sense.........is it not plain to see that all the Zimmerman haters are painting him as a "psycho, wife beater, cop wannabe" and a few other choice words, but the fact that he did other things with his life besides get into trouble is being completely written off by that same crowd? You can ignore facts all you want, but for anything negative that comes up about Zimmerman, you can bet that his defense team will be trying to do the opposite.:wink:

 

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Corso312

Well-Known Member
no..i don't give a shit what kind of person he is....even a great guy with a loving wife and kids who has a good job and a mortgage payment and vacations once a year with the family in disney land can fuck up and have too many drinks and drive home one night and kill someone..do you think that guy should get a pass because he just fucked up one night of his life?....zimmerman was armed and shot someone he thought was burglarizing homes ...he fucked up..when you fuck up you pay the price....zimm should get a 4 year sentence ...and never be allowed to own a gun in the future . now zimm might be a decent guy i dunno/care but i doubt it..i imagine he is a wanna be cop with too much time on his hands and a vivid imagination who has a anger issues.
 
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