Martin would have had been justified in his use of force due to his initial avoidance of a potential conflict (running away). However, Zimmerman kept coming after him.

Martin had a reasonable fear that the person who was watching him and then left their vehicle to follow him on foot (at night throughout the neighborhood) would harm him.

If you saw someone watching you at night and began running in the opposite direction and found that they wouldn't stop following you, what would you eventually do?

Why can't we all get along?!! Someone had to say this LOL

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2011 Florida Statutes CHAPTER 776 JUSTIFIABLE USE OF FORCE


Subsection:

776.041 Use of force by aggressor. ?The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:

(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or

(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:

(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or

(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

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I love your .gifs :thumbsup

And then you have a jury who will do whatever if feels like based on biased despite any written laws. Jurisprudence, right? :1orglaugh

nope because there will be always some kind of issue. :2 cents:

Seriously? He was in a gated community, not in some horrible third world ghetto. It wasn't as if the place was deserted, there were plenty of houses he could have ran to and rang for help.

Martin had a cellular phone, he could have called 911.

Err, not confront them?

Sure, let me run right at the potential murdering maniac, that's sure to make things better and safer for me. Confronting dangerous people head-on is always the safest thing to do.

And it wasn't some kind of four hour manhunt, this happened in the space of a few minutes.

According to Martin's girlfriend remember, he was on the phone with her when the confrontation happened. She claims it sounded like Martin got shoved, but impossible to know. I dont know how you start a fight though while you're holding a phone, do you know what I mean? There's enough questions in the case for it to be a case anyway.

I totally agree.

There should have been an investigation from the beginning so that facts can determine culpability if any.

That's actually what I find the most troubling, that it seems like the incident was dismissed way too easily by the cops that initially responded to it.

Was that because the physical evidence was overwhelmingly in favor of Zimmerman's version of the events, or because his ex-judge dad pulled some strings?

Any which way now we'll probably what's what. Just keep in mind that whatever you think happened might actually end up not being what really happened.