The Lynching of George Zimmerman.

[Tuberski]

Do you have a source for this?

Do you have a source for him having stolen articles in his locker?

Why should we prove that he didn't have stolen stuff?

Do you have proof that Zimmerman isn't an alien overlord?

Prove he isn't, from a reputable source.

ACK!

[notyoueither]

It is in the OP video. I'm not blindly trusting this, yet another, report with an axe to grind. I am trying to find other information. I found the original Miami Herald article and not much else in the MSM. It isn't too specific on the point of what the police determined about the items. They were in his book bag, incidentally. Quelle surprise that another detail is distorted.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/26/2714778/thousands-expected-at-trayvon.html

In October, a school police investigator said he saw Trayvon on the school surveillance camera in an unauthorized area “hiding and being suspicious.” Then he said he saw Trayvon mark up a door with “W.T.F” — an acronym for “what the f---.” The officer said he found Trayvon the next day and went through his book bag in search of the graffiti marker.

Instead the officer reported he found women’s jewelry and a screwdriver that he described as a “burglary tool,” according to a Miami-Dade Schools Police report obtained by The Miami Herald. Word of the incident came as the family’s lawyer acknowledged that the boy was suspended in February for getting caught with an empty bag with traces of marijuana, which he called “irrelevant” and an attempt to demonize a victim.

Trayvon’s backpack contained 12 pieces of jewelry, in addition to a watch and a large flathead screwdriver, according to the report, which described silver wedding bands and earrings with diamonds.

Trayvon was asked if the jewelry belonged to his family or a girlfriend.

“Martin replied it’s not mine. A friend gave it to me,” he responded, according to the report. Trayvon declined to name the friend.

Trayvon was not disciplined because of the discovery, but was instead suspended for graffiti, according to the report. School police impounded the jewelry and sent photos of the items to detectives at Miami-Dade police for further investigation.

...

No evidence ever surfaced that the jewelry was stolen.

[notyoueither]

Feel free to form your own opinion, but the odds of that jewelry not being stolen are pretty slim.

17 year old, wedding bands, a 'friend' gave them to him, but never wanted them back?

[kentonio]

Ah so when you said you wanted 'tangible' evidence, you'd actually already made up your mind based on supposition and conjecture? Was it stolen? The only honest answer to that is that we don't know. If it was, there's certainly no guarantee that he stole it.

[Alexander's Horse]

This all reminds me of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. It's all there.

[Wezil]

I guess it is possible he just liked to dress up and look pretty in private but was too embarrassed to say so.

I'm still trying to figure out the screwdriver.

[Alexander's Horse]

One rule we have, and the UK and Canada, is people are not allowed to comment on court cases while they are in progress, to prevent "trial by media". It is a major contempt of court for which people have been jailed. I see the value of this rule when I look at cases like this in the USA.

[notyoueither]

Ah so when you said you wanted 'tangible' evidence, you'd actually already made up your mind based on supposition and conjecture? Was it stolen? The only honest answer to that is that we don't know. If it was, there's certainly no guarantee that he stole it.

No, I found the Miami Herald article after that post.

It's an opinion that is easy to change. It looks like odds are the jewelry was stolen. I don't know by who, but Trayvon was in possession of it.

It's relevant to the motive of Zimmerman being interested in the young man. Was he loitering and possibly casing houses or was he racially profiled?

Was this aspect of the case distorted or ignored by the MSM? Looks like it.

[kentonio]

How was it distorted or ignored? All of this is public knowledge.

Also what relevance does this have? You think they should have entered into evidence that the murder victim had some jewellery once that was never proven to have been stolen, but which looked a bit suspicious?

[notyoueither]

I found a single MSM article with original information on this.

The OP screed contains inaccuracies.

I did not follow the case closely (too much noise) but never heard about this before the OP video.

[notyoueither]

"Also what relevance does this have? You think they should have entered into evidence that the murder victim had some jewellery once that was never proven to have been stolen, but which looked a bit suspicious?"

It's relevant to thinking about the media **** show over this case.

[kentonio]

So this wouldn't have been admissable in a court of law, but it's fine for the court of public opinion?

[notyoueither]

Painting Trayvon as a good, young kid racially profiled by the nasty old white guy and ignoring this is certainly distortion.

And of course it's fine for the court of public opinion. It's relevant information to forming one.

[loinburger]

The only thing that morally and/or legally matters is a. whether Zimmerman started the fight and b. whether it was necessary for him to use lethal force. It doesn't matter if Martin drank cough syrup or if he stole jewelry or if he was truant from school etc - it's not okay to assault or kill somebody for any of these crimes, so they shouldn't matter in a court of law or in the court of public opinion. If Zimmerman somehow knew about Martin being accused of theft then that would justify his following him around, but he really doesn't need a legal justification to do this in the first place. Hell, even if he'd been racially profiling Martin then I doubt that would legally matter, unless he were convicted of assault / murder in which case he might be charged with a hate crime or whatever - however, I don't think that it's a crime for a neighborhood watch captain to be racially insensitive when choosing who to monitor, and Martin wouldn't have been legally justified with assaulting Zimmerman even if Zimmerman were racially profiling him.

It also doesn't matter if Zimmerman drank cough syrup or if he stole jewelry or if he was truant from school etc, because none of these crimes would lead one to believe that he'd be prone to assaulting / killing a random teenager. The only type of past offense that matters here is whether Martin / Zimmerman had been convicted of assault, as this would imply that they were more likely than the person with the clean assault record to have been responsible for starting the fight.

[KrazyHorse]

There are lots of things not admissible in court which are of significance in forming an informed opinion. For example, hearsay evidence, evidence deemed inadmissible due to due process violations, or evidence which is excluded as unduly prejudicial but which still has some bearing on the likely course of events.