“That child had every right to do what he was doing, walking home,” said John Guy, one of the prosecuting attorneys in the case in which George Zimmerman has been acquitted of charges of second degree murder and manslaughter of Trayvon Martin.
“That child,” prosecutor Guy said – three times – in referring to 17-year-old Trayvon, a high-school football player.
Think about that.
How many high-school teams, or high-school players, in this nation have ever been identified as “those children” or “that child”?
And if that has ever been done – perhaps by bitter athletic rivals – how in the name of common sense and any kind of respect for jurisprudence could such insufferable verbal subterfuge have been injected into the court record of a trial being watched by so many millions of people worldwide?
Then, there was prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel, the 19-year-old who was talking to Trayvon Martin on his cell phone just before the shooting.
She testified that Martin was followed by Zimmerman – a “creepy a–cracker,” she called him – and that Martin was scared. But she admitted that she lied about her age and why she did not attend Martin’s wake.
And the New York Times also noted:
“A prominent forensic pathologist who is an expert on gunshot wounds testified that the trajectory of the bullet was consistent with Mr. Martin leaning over Mr. Zimmerman when the gun was fired.”
Fortunately, Al Sharpton was unable to attract anywhere near the number of protesters he did at his last George Zimmerman protest.
But, to be sure, this did not stop this racial hustler from telling assembled reporters the following:
“Well, I think this is an atrocity … with all kinds of lies, all kinds of inconsistencies … This is a slap in the face to those who believe in justice in this country.”
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous announced: “We’re calling on the U.S. Justice Department to open a civil rights case against George Zimmerman and have launched a petition to Attorney General Eric Holder.”
From Project 21, the Black Leadership Network’s Derryck Green:
“The jury ruled – considering the evidence presented – rightly, in my opinion. George Zimmerman is innocent of the filed charges against him. Despite the considerable emotion surrounding this case, justice has been served. It is not ‘justice for Trayvon.’ Nor it is ‘justice for George.’ It is simply justice.”
Hundreds marched in cities across the country with the vast majority of protests remaining peaceful. Some violence broke out in Oakland, Calif., where crowds smashed windows and started small fires. In Oakland, long a hotbed of racial tension, some protesters turned violent – vandalizing police cars , breaking windows and setting fire to garbage cans. Police quickly brought the Oakland protests under control.
A crowd of more than 100 began marching peacefully in Oakland when a small section broke off, smashing windows and starting small street fires. Local media reports that a police squad car was vandalized and police formed a line to block the protesters’ path.
The Oakland Tribune reports some windows of the newspaper’s downtown offices were broken, and footage from a television helicopter showed people attempting to start fires in the street and spray painting anti-police graffiti.
Officers reported the disruption was under control by 2 a.m. The Oakland demonstration followed a raucous but largely peaceful one in San Francisco. Police say officers escorted demonstrators as they marched on the city’s Mission District. The group was dispersed by 10 p.m.
Authorities in Martin’s hometown in Miami said the streets were quiet with no indication of disturbances. The neighborhood where Martin’s father lives in Miami Gardens was equally quiet. Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s attorney, said his client is aware he has to be cautious and protective of his safety.
“There is still a fringe element that wants revenge,” O’Mara said. “They won’t listen to a verdict of ‘not guilty.'”
|