Oi Boz.
...and so, for all the thousands of people
24 March, 2012 - 05:24
killed around the world that same day, including the UK, why am I being asked this question? I suppose I'll have to answer it using the same level of presumption that the original enquiry seems to contain.
Tray Martin shot to death by George Zimmerman. Shooting investigated by local police, Zimmerman considered within his rights and not charged.
Florida law, as in many parts of the US, has enshrined something commonly referred to as the 'Stand Your Ground' Doctrine. Taken from English Common Law, when the most brilliant mind to ever walk a British court, Sir Edward Coke, defined the concept, 'an Englishmans home is his castle'. While this now seems jokingly archaic considering the ludicrous decisions of the Judiaciary regarding self defence on your side of the pond, it still holds up in many of the colonies where individuals enjoy a level of personal freedom long since forgotten by those who originally wrote the rules. Basically it means that you don't have to shit and run to be law abiding, you may meet force with force and not suffer legal penalty.
Keeping this in mind, we have a case where a resident of Sandford (I have actually stayed in that part of Orlando), admits discharging his legally held weapon, after calling in and reporting suspicious activity by someone not known to live in the area. The man in question, George Zimmerman, is a member / leader of the local neighbourhood watch, who has no known criminal (as yet), record.
No-one knows what happened that night, apart from phone calls, there is only one eye witness, Mr Zimmerman himself. The first repondents on the scene described Zimmerman as looking like he'd been in a fracas, bloody nose etc.
The fatality, Mr Martin, mentioned to his girlfriend on the phone, that he was being watched, the girlfriend recommended he walk / run away, he told her he wasn't a runner.
I know I shouldn't assume but, a chubby individual with a gun, blew away an athletic football team 'jock', in very difficult / impossible to determine circumstances, but getting a feeling of natural male macho tendancies...
Until a few days ago we only had words. Suddenly, the Al Sharpton Bandwagon blows into town with a couple of hundred knee jerk activists accusing local law enforcement of a white on black crime cover up. Then pictures were released, now the goalposts have shifted to 'white hispanic', a term not previously covered by the census and certainly not understandable to anyone unless suffering colour blindness after viewing them. Sanford itself described as 30% black, the remainder white, inferences of stereotypical racial tension...but from my own recollection I thought the place was more cuban / latino than anglo, or are we again tweaking language and stats to suit a situation. Zimmermans family revealing itself to included a number of members considered 'mixed race' / black.
But, in a week where black males have been the victim in hundreds of murder cases that the perpetrators have been other black males, in a week where the court case has started of two (white) British males shot dead while holidaying in Florida, in a week where an incumbent President has yet again been the first leader of the nation to involve himself in local law enforcement issues, I wonder why this story is accumulating such interest?
Maybe Zimmerman is a rascist, maybe he's a liar, maybe a stone faced chubby, spotty faced killer, maybe the police did a poor job...maybe not. It's interesting to witness reaction.
Oh, the British guys, Cooper and Kouzaris, as no-ones overly arsed about their demise I won't bore you reporting the mainstream medias lack of interest in the death of those two johnny foreigners.
Cheers Boz.for
24 March, 2012 - 08:28
the balanced perspective.It is so difficukt to get to the truth in these cases.The media will always put a slant on these stories depending on their agenda.the left leaning media tend to go down the route of "innocent african american gunned down in cold blood by vigilante" whereas the more right wing will be more"neighbouhood watch leader legally acting in self defence"
The truth remains elusive.
After answering your question, I thought it over
24 March, 2012 - 20:34
my respose has played over in my mind and I realised that I too had fallen victim to the racial motivation card.
The case may or may not contain a racial element, but there is a far bigger problem glaring us in the face and that would be the failure of the Sandford Police Department to follow standard protocol in a situation where death or injury has occurred. Mr. Zimmerman's word appears to have been taken at face value, no blood or urine test was obtained from him and there seems good enough reason to at least ask questions as to the possibility he pursued the eventual victim, which would nullify any claim of self defence.
The victims family expressed concern at the lack of investigation and took it upon themselves to make the sort of enquiries that should have been carried out routinely where a death is involved, this acknowledged by the Chief's stepping down while an officer from outside the area examines the case.
Like so many other scandels in this world, the actual incident, no matter how tragic, is often overshadowed by the ineptitude or shoddy professionalism displayed afterwards.
The gospel according to Saint Murdoch
27 March, 2012 - 10:39
Thou shall not let objectivity stand in the way of sensationalism and selling copy. Especially where alleged racial motivation is concerned. Biggest thing I learnt from 15 yrs in publishing is that the most expendable part of any story is often context. Take it from someone who's been misquoted.
"Black teenager shot by mixed race gunman" may get a few sales, but "Black thug killed by gun totting white supremacist - police don't give a shit" is a licence to print money as well as copies.
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"They mostly come out at night, mostly."
newspapers in decline?
It was that
29 March, 2012 - 06:34
or flog my pert little derriere to MP's on Clapham Common for tuppence ha'penny and a bag of Werthers Originals.
The problem with print media is that it has no answer to the immediacy and profligacy of online news. As many have commented, the likes of Murdoch etc have their own agendas (remember News Intl's switch to the tories before the last election because the Blair and his witches started digging a little to deep into Rupey's affairs for comfort). As Arbie said, there's black, there's white and somewhere in the middle there's the grey of the truth.
Online allows a much wider scope of opinions and viewpoints so the reader can acquire a balanced dissemination of information. Many people buy only one or two papers but, when we're looking for news on our beloved R's, for instance, we might look at 5, 10 or 20 websites. It gets worse for print when you look at magazines. When I started out in the press (back in de hearley fiddy's), Britain had over 1,000 papers of varying frequency and around 20-25,000 business and consumer mags, I'd be surprised if more than half survive today. In short, print is too static for advertisers and polarizes opinion, online encompasses the broad spectrum, changes on a constant basis and allows the reader to interact with and to an extent shape the story. The fact we're discussing it here proves the point. Throw in a cover price of around a fiver for a magazine and it's not hard to see why the industry is bleeding to death.
See, I told 'em they'd miss me when I left.
Oh and Boz was bang on, The story wasn't about the shooting (two a penny as they are now), it was about the Gavver's descending to the levels of the chap below.
__________________
"They mostly come out at night, mostly."
what's the mainstream media over there saying about the murder of Trayvon Martin?