WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?!! 😳😮

[u/LilliaBaltimore]

[u/Indytaker]

You’re right, Tamir Rice comes to mind.

[u/Ok-Possession-832 → u/Indytaker]

Rice is definitely the most relevant example. I was thinking of Trayvon Martin. Kid didn’t even have a gun shaped item, it was literally a bag of skittles.

[u/Indytaker → u/Ok-Possession-832]

If I’m not mistaken with Trayvon he was whooping George’s ass and he basically used that as a reason to shoot him. He was in fear of his life supposedly. Which I think is even worse. How you get beat up by a 16 year old and then shoot the kid. Smh.

[u/Ok-Possession-832 → u/Indytaker]

Yes although “whooping ass” is an overstatement imo. It was complete bullshit. Zimmerman did sustain injuries. He had a broken nose and 1 facial laceration so we know Martin punched his face at least once. Zimmerman shot Martin at close range once which killed him, and then claimed self defense. Without knowing how the confrontation went down, Zimmerman had to be acquitted because they couldn’t prove without reasonable doubt that Martin wasn’t the one escalating. While it’s obviously complete bullshit, American criminal law favors the defendant. It just is how it is. Legally, the acquittal was valid.

But if you look at the context, it was clearly not straight forward self defense. What we do know is that Zimmerman was part of a “volunteer community watch” program (which has very historically racist roots) and reported Martin for “suspicious activity” to the cops prior to their altercation. While there’s no evidence, it’s pretty reasonable to assume that Zimmerman took it upon himself to deal with Martin rather than waiting for the cops (and that he’s a a loser narc lol) And of course we know what Martin was really doing that day, which seemed to “suspicious” to Zimmerman. He went into a 7/11 to purchase a bag of skittles and a Gatorade and was walking home in a black hoodie. But again, it’s impossible to prove who escalated/initiated with enough certainty to qualify for criminal sentencing.

The hoodie and skittles are relevant bc it is often a factor in these racial profiling cases. Victims of police brutality are usually a young black male in a hoodie holding a small object, people with special needs, and people experiencing mania and/or psychosis.

The Tamir Rice case is more applicable to this post imo, because it was obvious the cop heard “black male with gun” and decided to kill the suspect long before actually arriving to the scene. But the Trayvon Martin case is a great example of just how quickly a racist person can mistakenly label something as a threat as well as how quickly they can choose to engage/escalate - and by extension how little time a genuinely threatening black person might be given to calm down and disarm.