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Friday, November 30, 2012

FLORIDA'S STAND YOUR GROUND LAW

THE TAMPA BAY TIMES

Those who stood, those who fell: fatal cases

Critics say "stand your ground" turned Florida into the Wild West. Supporters say it has helped keep innocents out of jail. The truth of how the law has been used over the past six years was unknown until now.

What follows is the most comprehensive list of "stand your ground" cases ever created. Browse by victim or defendant, by fatal or nonfatal cases. Hover over a photo to explore the basics of each case or click it for a more detailed case file. Use the buttons at right to filter by race, sex and location.


Florida stand your ground law cases


About the cases

The Tampa Bay Times used media reports, court records and interviews with prosecutors and attorneys to identify more than 200 “stand your ground” cases across Florida. The list, though incomplete, is the most comprehensive in the state and likely includes most fatal cases.
The Times asked questions about each conflict: Who was armed? Who started the fight? It also recorded the race, age and sex of those involved and the case outcome. Hispanics often are listed as white or black because many police agencies record only race, not ethnicity.
Click here for more information about our data. Know of something we missed or have a photo to share? Submit a case here.

PLEASE VISIT THE SITE --CLICK HERE

A RULING PORTENDS HOPE!!! (a pdf file)

Ron Davis, the father of Jordan Davis, is embraced
as he arrives at the funeral home for the visitation and
a memorial service for his son Jordan on Wednesday
in Jacksonville, Fla.

Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union/AP

Three shooting deaths in the past week raise questions about whether prank-prone and reckless teens are particularly vulnerable under states' 'castle doctrine' and 'stand your ground' laws.

By Staff writer / November 29, 2012 

Atlanta

Recent events are raising questions about whether "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" laws – which offer legal protection to people who hurt or kill someone in self-defense – could disproportionately harm teenagers.

During the past week, three teenagers in states with such laws were shot to death for doing things that, critics of the laws say, teenagers regularly get caught doing.

In Florida, unarmed 17-year-old Jordan Davis was allegedly shot and killed by 40-something Michael Dunn after an argument about a loud car stereo outside a convenience store.

And in Minnesota, retired State Department employee Byron David Smith allegedly wounded and then killed two teenagers, Haile Kifer and Nicholas Brady, who broke into his house on Thanksgiving, apparently on a hunt for prescription drugs.

This week also saw three teen boys charged with murder in Alabama after their friend, Summer Moody, was shot in April. When a man caught the four breaking into fishing cottages in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, he allegedly fired a warning shot that killed Summer in what a district attorney called a "tragic accident." On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted the three boys, not the man who shot Summer.
READ MORE
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These SYG laws will eventually make us each others jailers,  by making us afraid to walk the streets,  without fear that we will be shot for some reason or other.   Local law enforcement authorities,  often do not have the resources needed to investigate these incident thoroughly enough to make a case,  in instance where the shootings were not justified.  Investigations made all the more difficult,  for lack of testimony of the counter party,  who is dead.  

Can it get to the point where we will beg our authorities to take absolute power,  to remove guns from society totally,  so that we can go about our business again?  How ironic would it be that the 2nd Amendment leads us back into dictatorship.

Sign the White house petition to overturn SYG laws here; and let others know to do so as well.  We need to show a groundswell of opinion to get things moving in the right direction,  this petition,  while not really practicable at law,  is made to serve as a flash point of objection.  READ MORE

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This ruling just in,  "Right to bear arms stops  at your front door" Federal Court
http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/ce755d25-3ed1-49ed-9a59-6e924ebc2345/1/doc/11-3642_opn.pdf 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Trayvon

Lost in all the horrible politics surrounding his death is the story of a boy. Before he became yet another flash point in America's painful and never-ending racial drama, Trayvon Martin was just a normal teenager. Here, at last, is the story of what was lost on that February night.

By John H. Richardson

Published in the December 2012 issue

He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.

Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.

He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.

Don't you ever talk? Say something.

Trayvon would just grin.

He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.

The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.

Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.

When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.  <a href=" http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212">  READ MORE </a>
Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI
Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Published in the December 2012 issue
He wanted something sweet, he wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. He slid open the glass door of the patio and slipped out into the steamy Florida twilight, an ordinary thing on an ordinary night.
Trayvon Martin was three weeks past seventeen that day, which was the day a stranger named George Zimmerman shot him through the heart. He was growing so fast, he'd stretched out like a rubber band, 158 pounds on a five-eleven frame, so long and thin everyone teased him: Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.
He was wearing the hoodie he always wore, lost in his music like he always was. People teased him about that, too. Next door to his uncle Stephen's house, a modest ranch house where he often spent the night, lived an old lady who called him Mouse.
Don't you ever talk? Say something.
Trayvon would just grin.
He strolled down the narrow cement path between two buildings. Trayvon didn't live there, he was just visiting, so it was all fairly new to him. Double glass doors faced the area from apartments on both sides, little white fences separated each little yard, central-air units hummed, televisions lit the curtains with their blue glow. Sometimes a Big Wheel tricycle sat forgotten in the path.
The complex looked nice. The buildings were two or three stories, with neat little lawns with neat little borders. No visible garbage bins, a clubhouse, a little lake. Not as nice as the luxury complex just across the no-man's-land where no one had bothered to build a sidewalk, but pretty nice for a kid from the modest side of Miami Gardens. Last night he had a long talk with DeWayne, his buddy from pee-wee football. DeWayne asked what he was doing.
Just chillin' with my ol' boy, Trayvon said. Trayvon's dad was dating a woman who lived there, a woman named Brandy, and it was looking serious. If he had to change high schools again to move up there, he said, it would be a'ight.
When he got to the gate of the complex, he could have slipped through the pedestrian gate. It wasn't locked. Even after the shooting, they never locked it. Florida is geared to cars, and Trayvon was still a BMX kind of guy. He tooled all around Miami Gardens on that little bike, standing on the pegs or doing the cat-walk wheelie on one wheel. And there was no sidewalk most of the way, just a lumpy depression in the grass, so why walk along the road? A man on foot could walk through trees and sand halfway to the 7-Eleven.


Read more: Trayvon Martin Family Interview - Trayvon Martin Aftermath - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/trayvon-martin-1212#ixzz2DXLaLFzI

Sunday, November 25, 2012

LLMPapa says:

we petition the obama administration to: Investigate George Zimmerman for Civil Rights violation in his killing of Trayvon Martin


A Neighborhood Watch Captain went on an illegal patrol and profiled an innocent child as a rogue, thug criminal, who he decided, without reason, deserved to be followed in the darkness and when he caught him he questioned and killed him. His only reason given for his erroneous beliefs was that the child was black and did not belong in the neighborhood. To defend himself with claims of "stand your ground" and "self defense" he concocted a series of demonstrable lies, claiming the child tried to take away the weapon he himself carried everywhere he went and that he was beaten to within an inch of his life, by Trayvon Martin, who had no dna or other trace evidence on his hands. Even while Zimmerman was covered with his own blood. Evidence that Martin never touched Zimmerman at all.
Created: Nov 25, 2012

Signatures needed by December 25, 2012 to reach goal of 25,000

24,999

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