Is this a smoking gun that there was no fight, that Zimmerman, and a witness, lied about a scuffle?
(ABC News) The surveillance video, which was obtained exclusively by ABC News, shows Zimmerman arriving in a police cruiser. As he exits the car, his hands are cuffed behind his back. Zimmerman is frisked and then led down a series of hallways, still cuffed.
Zimmerman, 28, is wearing a red and black fleece and his face and head are cleanly shaven. He appears well built, hardly the portly young man depicted in a 2005 mug shot that until a two days ago was the single image the media had of Zimmerman.The initial police report noted that Zimmerman was bleeding from the back of the head and nose, and after medical attention it was decided that he was in good enough condition to travel in a police cruiser to the Sanford, Fla., police station for questioning. His lawyer later insisted that Zimmerman’s nose had been broken in his scuffle with 17-year-old Martin.
Mediaite is taking the position that this proves that Zimmerman was A-OK, that Trayvon didn’t attack him, break his nose, and slam his head into the ground. To my mind, Zimmerman sure looks fine, though his nose does look a bit swollen. One would think there would be some blood spots somewhere with a broken nose, though. As American Power points out
Again, the video changes no facts in the case. All it does is fuel speculation. The paramedics on the scene checked Zimmerman and declared him good to go in the squad car. If all the facts check out in favor of Trayvon, Zimmerman should be prosecuted. Meanwhile, due process must be afforded, despite Democrat lynch mob efforts to the contrary.
Exactly. Let the investigation continue. And, along those lines, I must say that Think Progress has an interesting article up with 5 questions that need answering. Though, none of them would really involve determination of what really happened that night.
Finally, over at Just One Minute, Tom Maguire links to a Baltimore Liberal Examiner opinion piece, and proceeds to tear it apart.
7. Much of the conservative “Blame Trayvon” noise includes the “fact” that he had been suspended three times from school over the last year. A school security camera allegedly caught Trayvon making a childish scrawl on a school locker and searched the child’s school bag looking for the marker. He also allegedly found Trayvon had a screwdriver in his possession and referred to it as a “burglary tool.” The school also says he had a bag with women’s jewelry that he denied knowing anything about. The parents were aware of the tagging incident, but the news about the bag of jewelry came as a surprise to them. But this raises the question, even if Trayvon Martin was the most prolific catburglar in his high school, did George Zimmerman know that, and what does any of this have to do with the shooting? When he was killed all he had was the aforementioned candy and iced tea.
It’s not about “Blame Trayvon”: it’s about showing the facts, and about bursting the media bubble that Trayvon was a little angel. And, really, most of the information comes from media outlets, such as the Orlando Sentinal and Miami Herald, not exactly bastions of Conservatism. But, hey, if the writer is going to call the markings on the locker as “tagging”, well, that’s what gang members do.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Don’t know about your schools, but the ones here would classify a screw driver as a weapon.
The schools here are a little different in that the implement has to be designed as a weapon (knife, gun, etc) or used (even brandishing) as a weapon. So the screwdriver falls into that in between category.
There is something else here that caught my eye. One of the first claims out of some people’s mouths was “Zimmerman was not arrested.”
Now that there is a police tape showing him in handcuffs, do you think those people will pull back and say “we were wrong?”
(An “arrest” is a detention by the police. There is a difference between “arrested” and “charged.” Clearly Zimmerman was arrested.)
Also remember one of the charges against the police incompetency was that homicide detectives were not called to the scene but drug detectives were. The implication was that the drug detectives were bungling the case.
Now that one of the lead detectives has said he thought charges should have been filed, that detective is an “expert” and the DA should have done what the detective wanted him to do.
I haven’t seen the history of the detective and in many ways it doesn’t matter. What matters is that people are trying desperately to keep a certain narrative going, even when the narrative they have is contradicted later.
Good points, both.
Here in NC, a student was charges with a felony for spitting in a teacher’s drink at school.
And Zimmerman sure looks like he is being arrested, or at least detained. He has cuffs on. They might put you in the back of a cruiser to come down for an interview, but not with cuffs on.
Of course there were no blood spots visible. Paramedics and other first responders are trained these days to clean up any blood or other bodily fluids which are present and in locations where others could come in contact with it; they assume that all blood and body fluids which are present are contaminated, and that proper isolation and clean-up procedures have to be followed. If Mr Martin had blood on his face, they’d have cleaned it up; if he had blood on his clothing, that clothing would have been removed and bagged as evidence and a possible biohazard.