Justice Derailment Against Trayvon Martin
Published: 17 July 2013 Abiodun Giwa
Trayvon Martin
Trayvon Martin was not a burglar. He was not found walking on or into anyone’s property. He was walking on the street when sighted by George Zimmerman. He was not caught breaking into anyone’s home or apprehended on anyone’s home that would have warranted a gun man shooting him in self- defense. Moreover, Martin was unarmed. If he was armed and found breaking into a property not his own, then the issue of self-defense would be tenable. The gun man called the police and the police told him to leave the young man alone. “Don’t follow him,” was the police command to the gun man. But the gun man disregarded the police order, followed Trayvon and killed him!
The issue of self-defense in this case is misnomer. Hearing the B37 juror who spoke on Anderson program saying Zimmerman committed no crime is criminal. The statement of the four more of the jurors who disowned B37’s statement, saying they did what they got to do among an almost homogenous jury of 5 white women and one Hispanic, shows that the public need to hear more.
Five white women jurors in a case of murder against a white guy accused of killing an unarmed black boy made the prosecutors seemed to have failed, for their non-application of the peremptory challenge to disqualify the jurors and ask for a heterogeneous jury.
Listening to whose voice was heard screaming in the background in the court room, whether it was Zimmerman or Martin’s voice was a waste of time and tax payers’ money. The question from the beginning should have been who was the aggressor? Co-incidentally the gun man who the police had told to leave the boy alone and not follow him was the aggressor for disobeying police order. If Zimmerman had obeyed the police and not followed Martin, there would have been no altercation, no murder and no case. Martin would have been alive and his parents and the community would not have been untimely bereaved. And the nation would not have been made to witness mammoth protests across the country, against injustice meted out to a young lad undeserved of death.
It is interesting to hear virtually everyone touched by the injustice meted out to Martin say “We are all Trayvon Martin”, and that what happened to Martin could have happened to any law abiding person. What they are saying in essence is that what Martin’s experience may happen again, without deterrence to the gun man’s disobedience of the police, took the law into his own hands and committed murder. If Zimmerman is allowed to go free, then another vigilante could do the same and say Zimmerman was freed and why not me? The rule of law is aimed to ensure the community is not turned into a jungle.
My experience on Saturday night waiting endlessly for the outcome in the case without result; went to bed , woke up in the morning and read in the papers that Zimmerman was a free man, could not have been different from that of majority of Americans, who felt a bullet in their hearts for the injustice perpetrated against Martin.
The issue of self-defense in this case is misnomer. Hearing the B37 juror who spoke on Anderson program saying Zimmerman committed no crime is criminal. The statement of the four more of the jurors who disowned B37’s statement, saying they did what they got to do among an almost homogenous jury of 5 white women and one Hispanic, shows that the public need to hear more.
Five white women jurors in a case of murder against a white guy accused of killing an unarmed black boy made the prosecutors seemed to have failed, for their non-application of the peremptory challenge to disqualify the jurors and ask for a heterogeneous jury.
Listening to whose voice was heard screaming in the background in the court room, whether it was Zimmerman or Martin’s voice was a waste of time and tax payers’ money. The question from the beginning should have been who was the aggressor? Co-incidentally the gun man who the police had told to leave the boy alone and not follow him was the aggressor for disobeying police order. If Zimmerman had obeyed the police and not followed Martin, there would have been no altercation, no murder and no case. Martin would have been alive and his parents and the community would not have been untimely bereaved. And the nation would not have been made to witness mammoth protests across the country, against injustice meted out to a young lad undeserved of death.
It is interesting to hear virtually everyone touched by the injustice meted out to Martin say “We are all Trayvon Martin”, and that what happened to Martin could have happened to any law abiding person. What they are saying in essence is that what Martin’s experience may happen again, without deterrence to the gun man’s disobedience of the police, took the law into his own hands and committed murder. If Zimmerman is allowed to go free, then another vigilante could do the same and say Zimmerman was freed and why not me? The rule of law is aimed to ensure the community is not turned into a jungle.
My experience on Saturday night waiting endlessly for the outcome in the case without result; went to bed , woke up in the morning and read in the papers that Zimmerman was a free man, could not have been different from that of majority of Americans, who felt a bullet in their hearts for the injustice perpetrated against Martin.
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