When "Neighborhood Watch" Gets Out of Hand

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by pointman

Lori, this misses my point. My point is that many are jumping to conclusions without all the facts. I am not taking either side here, but to conduct a witch hunt without knowledge of the true facts and to believe everything the media spouts out as if it is true is just as much a disservice to everyone as letting a guilty man go free. People should allow the justice system time to resolve this without resorting to vigilante justice.

Absolutely this should be resolved through the proper channels, but what started the whole media circus was the authorities choosing not to do anything about the situation, and in fact, doing things that sure don't make sense if one assumes they were acting in good faith (tagging the child as a John Doe even though they'd identified him, for one). And the more the media digs, the more weird stuff that comes out. If the Martins hadn't been smart enough to retain a good lawyer, and if the media hadn't picked up the story, it's entirely possible the whole thing would have been dropped, as the lead investigator, it's claimed, wanted to charge Zimmerman (sorry, I can't refer to him as GZ because I read that as Ghostzapper!) and the state attorney refused. That would have been the end of it without the media stepping in and not letting the story drop. And the state attorney and the chief of police have both stepped down. Which I find it hard to believe they would have done if they were acting in good faith.

If he is charged, more will become clear- at this point, without a charge, there's no way to subpoena hospital records to see if Zimmerman actually went to one for treatment for his alleged broken nose, of which there are no pictures, there's no way to demand an X-ray of him (a broken nose is, I'm told, is visible for years afterwards); there's no way to do lots of things that will, one hopes, make the picture of what happened clearer. For that matter, there's no way for a defense attorney to attempt to challenge the content of the final phone call Trayvon made, because he can't question Trayvon's girlfriend without her being called to testify at a trial.

The media circus is tedious, and as with OJ, and Casey Anthony, and I imagine, the Lindbergh Baby, there's a frenzy, and the media will certainly shape the story they want to tell (that Anthony did it, for example). And it may or may not be true. But in this case, at least it's forcing the state of Florida to do a thorough investigation.

But, yeah, as Riot said, it's contaminating the jury pool. By the time he is charged (if he is), Florida is going to have to start combing the Everglades for swamp people. Everyone else will have an opinion.