George Zimmerman's friend talks to FOX 5 about murder charge: MyFoxDC.com
This paints Zimmerman as a very kind man. From DC Fox 5 News:Woodson, who is black, said Zimmerman offered Woodson a place to live in Florida when he fell on hard times and the two have known each other for years. . . .
NBC News has fired a producer who worked on a 'Today' show segment that featured a heavily edited 911 recording in which George Zimmerman appears to racially profile Trayvon Martin before the teen's shooting, according to The New York Times. The name of the Miami-based producer who was fired was not released, according to the Times report, which does not refer to any disciplinary action that may have been taken against other NBC staffers. NBC News has been slammed for the report since last week, and had promised an investigation into what has been described as a grossly misleading editing of the tape. NBC declined to confirm the firing, according to the Times report. "An internal investigation determined that a "seasoned" producer was to blame for the edit, NBC had said earlier in the week, before news of the firing. The edited version of the call that aired on Today clearly made Zimmerman appear to say Martin looked dangerous because of his race. . . .
A student who admitted posting racially offensive comments on Twitter about footballer Fabrice Muamba has been jailed for 56 days.
Swansea University student Liam Stacey, 21, from Pontypridd, admitted inciting racial hatred over remarks about the Bolton Wanderers player, who collapsed during a FA Cup tie at Tottenham.
A district judge in Swansea called the comments "vile and abhorrent".
Muamba, 23, who suffered a cardiac arrest, is still in intensive care.
Sentencing Stacey at Swansea Magistrates' Court, District Judge John Charles told him: "In my view, there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence.
"It was not the football world who was praying for [Muamba].... everybody was praying for his life."
Stacey broke down in tears as he was led away to begin his jail term.
As he passed the public gallery, he was briefly embraced by friends and his parents.
A second year biology student at Swansea, Stacey was arrested after his comments on the social networking site were reported by other users. . . . .
"LOL. F*** Muamba. He's dead!!! #haha."In response to people being upset Mr. Stacey made two other posts. The second one could be construed as racist, though it wasn't made directly at Mr. Muamba.
Filmmaker Spike Lee tweeted the wrong home address for George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., man who many are claiming should be arrested for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin. The tweet could have potentially put the woman who actually lives at that address in danger. . . .
As Florida braced itself for what could be the biggest day of protest yet in the Trayvon Martin case, police revealed new details that depict the slain 17-year-old as the aggressor and appear to support George Zimmerman's claim that he was acting in self-defense when he shot the teenager. . . .
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that police sources say Martin was the aggressor on Feb. 26, knocking Zimmerman to the ground with a single punch and then climbing on top of the 28-year-old neighborhood watch captain and slamming the back of his head into the ground. Police say this account, given by Zimmerman, is supported by eyewitnesses, according to the Sentinel's report.
One such witness reportedly told police that he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, striking the man, while Zimmerman cried out for help. The attack left Zimmerman bloodied, police sources told the Sentinel, and led him to fire at Martin in self-defense.
Police say Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a fat lip and confirm that the back of his head was cut. He received first aid at the scene but refused to go to the hospital and received medical treatment the following day, according to the Sentinel's sources. . . .
As Dan Linehan, a blogger at Wagist.com, pointed out, correspondence with Martin on Twitter before he died alludes to an incident with a bus driver. "Yu ain't tell me you swung on a bus driver," Martin's cousin wrote to him on Feb. 21.
The same week, Martin was suspended for 10 days from Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in North Miami-Dade. "He was not suspended for something dealing with violence or anything like that," his father said. "It wasn't a crime he committed, but he was in an unauthorized area [on school property]," declining to offer more details.
But a family spokesman told the Associated Press on Monday that Martin was suspended because marijuana residue was found in his book bag. . . .
Media stories sharing the transcripts of the 911 tapes from the evening of the incident clearly show that Mr. Zimmerman was instructed by authorities to remain in his vehicle and to cease pursuit of Mr. Martin. George Zimmerman seems to have ignored the direction of the authorities and continued his pursuit of Mr. Martin.
Mr. Zimmerman's unnecessary pursuit and confrontation of Trayvon Martin elevated the prospect of a violent episode and does not seem to be an act of self-defense as defined by the castle doctrine. There is no protection in the "Stand Your Ground" law for anyone who pursues and confronts people. . . .
His parents believe that race was a factor in their son’s death. . . . . Zimmerman’s family made a statement saying, he grew up in a multiracial family and that he was not racist. He has since moved out of the family home after receiving death threats. . . . .
It's not clear. It's said in a low voice. But, in the opinion of many who have listened to this publicly available version of a 911 call made shortly before he shot unarmed Trayvon Martin to death last month, George Zimmerman seems to be saying "fuckin' 'coons." . . . We know for certain that the 28-year-old Zimmerman, who has been identified as the "captain" of an unregistered neighborhood watch group in some reports, made other comments in that 911 call that could, in context, be considered racially charged. For example, "These assholes, they always get away."
-- The witness reports that George Zimmerman was on the ground and Trayvon is on top of him punching him.
-- The witness says that George Zimmerman was screaming and yelling for help.
-- Police arrive and find Zimmerman bleeding on his face and the back of his head. He also has had grass stains on his back. All this confirms the story told by Zimmerman and the witness.
-- Police play the 911 tape for Trayvon Martin's father, who tells police that the voice screaming is not the voice of his son.
"Make no mistake: This tragic shooting represents the National Rifle Association's vision for America. The NRA's vision is an America that looks just like Florida, where it's easy for criminals and dangerous people to get, carry, and use guns. The NRA wants us to be a nation without any gun laws, a nation where just about anybody can get a gun and take it anywhere. Their leaders and spokespeople use fear, paranoia and misleading notions of self-defense to justify flooding our streets with armed and violent people, and the result is more tragedies like Trayvon's.
Trayvon's life has been lost not because of an accident, but because of the easy access to a gun by a violent person permitted by a state with weak gun laws. It is time we stand up to the NRA and the politicians who put the agenda of the gun lobby ahead of the safety of the people they have been elected to represent. It is time that we as a nation flatly reject the vision of the gun industry and replace it with the vision where our young people can grow up without the fear and tragedy of gun violence."
“Recently Judge Benson Everett Legg of Maryland became the first federal judge to hold there is a Second Amendment right to carry a gun outside the home. Only days before, Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager, lay dead from a shooting that dramatically illustrates the price in lives we will pay if Judge Legg’s renegade ruling becomes the law across the United States.”
After speaking with Gov. Scott, State Attorney Norman Wolfinger voluntarily decided to step aside form the case to avoid “the appearance of conflict of interest,” according to a release put out by the governor’s office on Thursday evening. Angela B. Corey of the Fourth Judicial Circuit has been appointed the Assigned State Attorney in the case.
Gov. Rick Scott also announced that Florida will put together a task force to study the state’s Stand Your Ground law, which has come under intense media scrutiny in the wake of Trayvon’s death. Lt. Gov. Jennifer Caroll, House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, will be involved in the task force.
“They will be recommending individuals for me to appoint to the Task Force, which will thoroughly review Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and any other laws, rules, regulations or programs that relate to public safety and citizen protection,” Scott said in a release. . . .
MSNBC host blames Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for death of Trayvon Martin
Karen Finney blamed the language of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rush Limbaugh for creating the enviroment that led to the shooting of Trayvon Martin. . . .
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said Friday that he's grateful the rest of the country has sat up and taken notice of the tragic slaying of Trayvon Martin. But he can't help but wonder: Why has it taken so long for everyone else to recognize the chronic injustices that African Americans face?
"We're surprised that everyone else is surprised," Jackson told the Los Angeles Times. African Americans have tried for decades to get the rest of America to understand their plight, he said, particularly their beliefs that justice is still elusive in many parts of America, especially the Deep South.
Then along comes the Trayvon Martin case, and facts that are not in contention: Volunteer neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman pursued and then gunned down the unarmed 17-year-old last month, and never faced arrest because police said there was no evidence to contradict his claim that he fired in self-defense.
"I hope that this will be a transformative moment," Jackson said. . . .
President Barack Obama weighed into the controversial killing of a black teenager in Florida in very personal terms on Friday, comparing the boy to a son he doesn't have and calling for American "soul searching" over how the incident occurred. . . .
"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said in his first comments about the shooting, acknowledging the racial element in the case.
"Obviously, this is a tragedy," Obama told reporters. "I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids."
The case has rippled across the nation and prompted rallies protesting the failure of the police to arrest the shooter, George Zimmerman, and, more broadly, a pattern of racial discrimination black leaders cite in Sanford and elsewhere in the country. . . .
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that the “stand your ground” self-defense law he signed while in office should not apply to the case of a teenager who was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in his home state.
“This law does not apply to this particular circumstance,” Bush said after an education panel discussion at the University of Texas at Arlington. “Stand your ground means stand your ground means stand your ground. It doesn’t mean chase after somebody who’s turned their back.”
He was referring to reports that the 17-year-old, Trayvon Martin, was pursued by the volunteer and fatally shot in a scuffle.
“Anytime an innocent life is taken it's a tragedy,” Bush said. “You've got to let the process work.” . . .
“It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background," Gingrich said. "Is the President suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot that would be ok because it didn’t look like him?" . . .
In a fiery speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama warned that Republicans hoping to seize control of Congress want "to do what's right politically, instead of what's right — period."
"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, to go back to your workplaces, to go to the churches, and go to the barbershops and go to the beauty shops. And tell them we've got more work to do," Obama said to cheers from a black-tie audience at the Washington Convention Center. "Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now."
His speech acknowledged what pollsters have been warning Democrats for months — that blacks are among the key Democratic groups who right now seem unlikely to turn out in large numbers in November. . . .
With the Republican Party hoping to regain power on Capitol Hill in the November election, Obama described his adversaries as "a crowd ... that wants to do what's right politically, instead of what's right -- period." He never named the opposing party, referring to it as "the other side."
"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops, and beauty shops. Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now," Obama said in his remarks. . . .
For Obama, the caucus dinner at the Washington Convention Center capped a week of concerted outreach to minority supporters, a traditional wellspring of Democratic strength.
The effort began Monday with a White House reception for black college officials. It included speeches by the president on Wednesday to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and by first lady Michelle Obama to a black caucus legislative conference that same day.
Last week, Obama was interviewed on "The Tom Joyner Show" radio program, which enjoys a large black audience. . . .
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