Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
Right up until the point he shot and killed a teenager.
This is very standard. Police will people not to follow or get involved; That's what the police are for.
Zimmerman completely over stepped his bounds here. When you see a problem, you call police and let them do their job. Instead, we had a "armed neighborhood watch" taking matters into his own hands. Just the fact that he was a member of the neighborhood watch AND armed says it all to me; The task of the neighborhood watch is just that - watch - and then report... Not forcing a confrontation carrying a firearm.
I don't think Zimmerman went out looking for trouble. I think he put himself in a bad situation, things got out of hand, and he panicked - and ended up shooting the kid and killing him.
Well all we have is his word....
I don't trust a word she says either. She was caught in a dozen lies before the trial started. I'm surprised that charges haven't been brought against her frankly.
This is the problem with firearms - once a firearm is introduced a simple issue such as a fist fight quickly can become a life or death situation. In this case I find it hard to believe that Zimmerman felt threatened, if only because he was the only one who was armed.
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I used to be a member of a Neighbor Hood Watch. I carry a concealed weapon when ever I leave the house...and certainly carried when I was a member of the Neighbor Hood Watch. At least two or three others of the watch also carried concealed weapons. There was also a pump 12 Gauge shotgun in our patrol car. Our instructions was to watch any stranger that we did not recognize as being a member of the community and to continue watching/follow until the stranger was welcomed into a house or had left our community. If at any point a person began to display suspicious activity we were to call the police and continue to watch/follow until the police arrived on the scene. We were instructed to try to avoid a personal confrontation if possible. During the time that I lived in the community we did not have any crime (I suspect that a highly visible Neighbor Hood Watch was one reason we had few problems in the community) and there were not many calls to the police.