1204 Tragedies of Trayvon
The Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., was tragic, as is the violent death of any 17-year-old. In this case however, the tragedy ranges far beyond Trayvon, his family or his friends.
From all accounts, Trayvon Martin was not a horrible kid, but he was not exactly an engaging, harmless angel either. In the year before his death, he had been suspended from school three times for offenses including truancy, defacing school property, possession of a “burglary tool” (a flat-tipped screwdriver), women’s jewelry and possession of a marijuana pipe. The shooter in this case, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, was not perfect either. ABC News was able to find one incident in 2005 of resisting arrest.
The larger tragedies in this situation do not have to do with Martin and Zimmerman but with everyone around them. The most glaring offenses have been perpetuated by opportunists and race merchants like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Spike Lee and the New Black Panthers.
Without any ability to know the investigative details about that fateful night, Sharpton shamelessly fanned the flames by cheerleading crowds screaming for Zimmerman’s arrest and for “justice to be served.” Without entertaining the apparently alien idea that Martin may have been the aggressor who bloodied Zimmerman’s face and bashed his head on the sidewalk, Jackson told his followers that “Blacks are under attack” and that “targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business.” The New Black Panthers put a $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman’s head and Spike Lee endangered an innocent couple by erroneously Tweeting their address as Zimmerman’s.
The media, print, digital and broadcast, are the next worst villains. So far, again without accurate information, various “journalists” have accused Zimmerman (the son of a white father and Hispanic mother who, with his wife, mentored black teens, has black family members and whose “uncle”-type friend is black) of racism, profiling, stalking Martin, vigilantism, civil rights violations and, of course, being disliked by the neighborhood.
In addition, while ignorantly assassinating Zimmerman’s character, they refuse to touch Trayvon’s personal characteristics. One Washington Post columnist published her assumption that Trayvon was “wrestled to the ground and shot to death” as a fact.
Enter the politicians. One U.S. House member has been ranting about Trayvon being “hunted down … like a rabid dog.” Predictably, movement is afoot for more investigations into racial profiling, hate crimes, civil rights, gun rights and Florida’s self-defense laws— this in spite of the bothersome fact that nothing in the Martin case has been shown to have anything to do with any of those issues. While more Americans than ever own and/or carry guns, violent crime ,including gun crimes, keeps diminishing, and while more people actively defend themselves (justified homicide), murder rates and violent crime are at a 10-year low.
The bottom line is that once again, before anyone could know the facts, and in some circles in spite of the facts, the constitutional presumption of innocence has been made void. All of the calls for justice or an arrest or investigations presume that a man cannot be killed by an unarmed assailant. They all presume guilt in George Zimmerman, either as an incompetent gun-toter guilty of manslaughter or as an aggressive killer.
Public sentiments should not be blown about by the famous, the media or opportunistic politicians. We can do better than this .