Originally Posted by Robbie

People tend to get nuts when they have had their neighborhood robbed several times. As I understand it, several homes there had been broken into. So yeah...unfortunately that can drive people to get an attitude like that.

I would probably feel that same way if my neighbors homes were broken into. I'd start keeping a lookout and be worried that I would be next. And if I saw somebody I didn't know walking up into my neighbors yards right beside their homes (that's what TM was doing) under those circumstances (recent robberies) then I'd get pissed and go after them too.

I guess we can all agree that the whole thing really sucks. TM was a typical young man. Smoked a little weed, acted out a bit, put some dumb pics of himself flipping the bird on his Facebook page, got into a little trouble at school. Just like millions of young men do as teens.

It was just a very bad situation that happened. TM had no idea that there had been robberies in that neighborhood. And being young and dumb he probably thought nothing about confronting GZ when he realized he was being followed. I would have done that too (even now that I'm older and still dumb).

One thing I wouldn't have done is walk up in people's yards at night.

I'm from Fla. and lived near Tampa in my childhood. And people in central Florida WILL shoot your ass if they see you on their property.

So to this day I won't walk up onto someone else's property. I think that was mistake number one for TM that night.

His second and fatal mistake was turning to confront GZ and getting all physical about it. It just goes to show that you never know who you may be fucking with. You never know who has a knife, or a gun, etc.

Seems like it was a tragic "perfect storm".

If GZ had just stayed in his vehicle nothing would have happened. But as you pointed out...his earlier language shows that the people living in that neighborhood were angry, scared, and frustrated by getting their homes broken into. Makes for a dangerous situation.