When "Neighborhood Watch" Gets Out of Hand

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

rupe, i appreciate your detailed assessment but all of the above is not something new to me. however, it seems you completely ignored the part where i said 'he was NOT a member of neighborhood watch. had he been, perhaps he'd have known they don't want their members carrying guns. i guess you also ignored the part where the 911 operator told zimmerman not to confront trayvon.
i've also seen where there is no indication of there having been a scuffle, which belies your post.

Anyone can keep a close eye on their neighborhood and act as a neighborhood watch. Some neighborhoods have official neighborhood watches that are very well organized and people actually work shifts. In other neighborhoods, it may be less organized where people just do it when they have time.

I have no idea what the arrangement was in this case. It seems that Zimmerman had been doing it for a while. I think they said he had called police around 45 times over the last year. I would assume that he did the informal neighborhood watch with the blessing of his neighbors. We will see if any evidence comes out that his neighbors didn't want him doing this and they saw him as being overzealous and/or harassing people.

I would agree with you that neighborhood watch programs do not encourage vigilantism. They want people to call the police. They don't want people carrying guns and chasing people.

But all that being said, if the verbal altercation was over and Zimmerman was attacked as he was walking back to his car, I don't think there is much of a case against him.

You are the first person that I've heard say that there was no indication of a scuffle. If that is what the evidence shows (that there was no scuffle), then they should have a good case against Zimmerman.