The News Of …

The Trayvon Martin tragedy demonstrates two things. Most people (including the media) are ignorant of how the criminal justice system really works. Secondly, they are gullible and will believe anything, no matter how outlandish, especially if a so-called expert is involved.
Why hasn’t George Zimmerman (who admitted shooting and killing Trayvon Martin) been arrested?
Arresting a person means charging them with a crime. Police need probable cause that a crime was committed and the suspect committed the actual crime. The preliminary investigation indicated no crime was committed under Florida law. There is a difference between a legal crime and a social or moral crime.
Just because a preliminary investigation has ended does not mean George Zimmerman cannot be arrested and charged at some future point in time. The case was turned over to prosecutors, as violent death investigations usually are. Reports state that a grand jury will be empanelled to investigate.
Investigations can take days, weeks, months, or years. Some have taken decades, even though the actual perpetrator of a crime is known. Knowing a crime has been committed, having probable cause to arrest an offender, and legally proving it in court are entirely different things.

Trayvon Martin.

Protests, rallies, and official pressure have been building ever since the police in Sanford declined to arrest Mr. Zimmerman. Before the shooting, Trayvon had been walking from a convenience store back to his father’s fiancee’s house in a gated neighborhood, with nothing more than a bag of Skittles in his pocket.
The 911 tapes, plus a report Tuesday from a girl who says she was talking with Trayvon on the phone just before the shooting, suggest that Zimmerman may have run after the teen. If true, that could allow the Justice Department to help draw the line on so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws and reaffirm civil rights protections for young men who draw suspicion by virtue of their skin color.
“The Stand Your Ground law was not intended to authorize vigilante action on the part of neighborhood watch guys when they have suspicions about the motivation of some kid walking through the neighborhood” – says James Wright, a sociologist who studies gun violence at University of Central Florida in Orlando. “To simply say this case is ambiguous and therefore can’t be prosecuted opens the door for a lot of nefarious” actions to take place. In that way, he says: “this case could help draw the line between what’s right and legally justifiable and what goes beyond that.”
“With all federal civil rights crimes, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person acted intentionally and with the specific intent to do something which the law forbids – the highest level of intent in criminal law” – the Justice Department said in a statement, upon announcing it would investigate Trayvon’s death. “Negligence, recklessness, mistakes and accidents are not prosecutable under the federal criminal civil rights laws.”
The case has sparked outrage across the US, as well as rallies and protests on college campuses and in the Orlando, Fla., area.
While the exact circumstances of the shooting are not clear, the preponderance of evidence seems to point toward Zimmerman overstepping the bounds of the state’s Stand Your Ground law, say some legal and criminal justice experts. The law obviates an individual’s “duty to retreat” from threatening situations. Zimmerman had made several previous 911 calls about suspicious people in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community.

Last week, the fatal shooting of a black Florida teenager by a neighborhood watch captain had gained little media attention beyond the state’s newspapers, a smattering of mainstream media outlets and several prominent black journalists.
Today, the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is dominating the news in America, the latest example of how the fury of the social media machine and technology continue to transform the very definition of news, and the way that news is reported, written and delivered in this country and around the world.
“What we’ve seen in the past four or five days is that we have the power now” – said Michael Skolnik, editor in chief of GlobalGrind.com and political director to mogul Russell Simmons. Skolnik has been credited with helping the story gain nationwide attention.
“We don’t need a middle man or a middle woman” – he told The Times, referring to the mainstream media. “We can get our message out the way we want it. And we can decide what is important and what’s not important.”
An unusual mix of celebrities – including actresses Alyssa Milano and Gabrielle Union, plus New Age leader Deepak Chopra – is continuing to share the story, continuing to whip up national interest, continuing to demand justice. “Shame on Florida: Arrest George Zimmerman” for murder, tweeted Ice Cube.
“There are so many aspects of this story that make this a story that people want to share and want to tell” – social media guru Peter Shankman told The Times. “Fifty years ago, you could have shared it, but your reach would have been much smaller. You would have shared it with your friend, or at work, or in a letter to the editor. What’s new is everyone having the ability to do that at their fingertips.”
Martin was returning from a candy run on February 26 when he was followed and confronted by George Zimmerman (28). Martin had a cellphone, a bag of Skittles and an iced tea – police said. Zimmerman reportedly had a 9-millimeter.