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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums“We don't need you to do that”
End of story.
What happens after that, save the murder of an unarmed pedestrian, doesn't matter.
It's not assault when one is stalked. It's called fighting for one's life, if a fight happens. And the innocent victim ultimately lost.
I'm going to stick with the thought that the DA knows what they are doing in this case.
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)to Stand Their Ground. Apparently.
TBF
(32,060 posts)Our right-wing friends don't like that.
randome
(34,845 posts)It sure as hell wasn't as aggressive a statement as it should have been. It's pretty weak, in fact.
And even if the dispatcher 'ordered' Zimmerman to stand down, he was under no requirement to do so.
He's guilty of manslaughter, to be sure. Anything else is up to the jury.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)A murder would not have happened.
frylock
(34,825 posts)Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)Trayvon's murder was set in motion the second Zimmerman exited his vehicle and pursued him. No cuts, no broken nose -- nothing -- is going to change that.
Bake
(21,977 posts)But disobeying a poice officer on the scene will get you an ass-whupping ... or worse.
Right. Got it.
Bake
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)dispatcher, it was okay for Zimmerman to stalk an unarmed pedestrian.
ManiacJoe
(10,136 posts)(1) It was not OK for Zimmerman to "stalk" anyone. Who he was phoning at the time is not relevant to that decision.
(2) 911 Dispatchers give suggestions. There is no moral or legal obligation to follow their suggestions regardless of what the suggestion is or now good it is. However, in this case, the suggestions were good ones.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)I am going to go with the legal analysts (CNN, when this first hit the news) who say Zimmerman did have an obligation to follow the dispatcher's directive.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)what happened after that was that he started walking back to his truck and then Trayvon jumped out of the bushes and hit him.
Having somebody follow you is simply not always a threat to your life, In fact, most of the time, it is not.
It's a funny sort of double standard at play here. Trayvon gets to fight for his life because he is being followed, but Zimmerman does not get to fight for his life when he has somebody on top of him punching him.
In this case, we blame the (supposed) assualt victim. "He got out of his truck, he was asking for it."
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)to not "do that". They are going to either remain in their car, return home (and wait for the police to get a hold of them like they had discussed), and most certainly not continue to stalk the victim.
"We don't need you to do that" means exactly that.
There's no double play at work here for me at all.
As I stated in the OP, the DA knows what they are doing and I am confident that Zimmerman will be found guilty of the action that he put into play by not following instructions.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)it is called supererogation.
of course
supererogation is a fragile expeditious
the ugly maw of selfishness makes it a meal delicious
a spirit of self sacrifice can seem so hard to find
maybe that's why mankind seems to be in such a bind
for example, I was in a hotel room and the little trash can was over-flowing, spilling trash onto the floor.
So I, helpful janitor that I am, began picking up the trash and compacting it so the trash can would not overflow.
My dad say "don't worry about that" and I kept right on doing what I was doing. I hate when people make messes without a care in the world just expecting that the janitors (i.e. the servants) will take care of it, and there is no need at all to make their job any easier. I said "I am not worrying about it, I am doing something about it, there's a difference."
All of which is just a long way of saying that sane, well intentioned people do not always follow suggestions with a "sir, yes sir" but often will keep doing what they think is the right thing to do.
You also seem to be unware that Zimmerman was already out of his car when he was told "we don't need you to do that".
Another time I was walking my dogs and saw a deer with its back leg caught in a barbed wire fence. First I tried to pull the wires apart and failed. Then I ran home to get a pliers and ran back to cut the fence. Nobody asked me to do that. Nobody needed me to do that, but I was trying to be a hero and save that animal's life. I thought that was the right thing to do. (Maybe I should have mentioned the baby possums that I saved, clinging to their road killed mother. When I called the county animal guy I was told "just leave them" as if babies clinging to a mother who is their food source would survive on their own (and in fact I had already left them for several hours and returned to find them still clinging to her). Or other people think that possums are disgusting animals that deserve to be eradicated. I kept them for two or three days and was about to release them when the game warden picked them up. One giuy I told the story to said "he probably took them and drowned them."
As it turned out, I was a zero. The animal already had several broken legs apparently and could only flop in the snow after I cut it loose.
In a similar way, it seems to me, Zimmerman was trying to be a hero. Trying to prevent his neighbors from being robbed. It turned out he was a zero and ended the life of a young man, but the final result does not prove that he was not sane or well intentioned.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Zimmerman does not get a pass when he is told "We don't need you to do that", by a dispatcher who has told him that police will be there, and continues to do what it is he intended to do.
I am also pretty sure that you or I, if told that, would not continue to stalk the victim.
We don't need to go any further than that.
He was not well-intentioned and disregarding that directive only adds to that for me.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Good advice that apparently got ignored.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)On a case that is pretty cut and dried when one looks at the idea of a man continuing to stalk a pedestrian, while he's armed, after being told police are on their way and he doesn't need to do that.