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Again, what makes me most nervous about this, living in a "stand your ground" state, is the fact I could be shot and killed because I could be perceived as a threat even if I mind my own fucking business.
Zimmerman admitted he killed Martin from the get go. He hid his passive aggressive racism (something that's very common in the "progressive" cities of the South) while going through his confession and the prosecution had the huge difficulty of proving why.
Knowing how people act when they want to be an authority figure, I suspect things went like this after Martin hung up the phone with his girlfriend.
(Zimmerman, despite being told by the dispatcher, "Thanks for your help, but we don't need it. Leave it to the professionals;" continues to follow Martin on foot. Sees it's a black teenager but doesn't recognize him and decides, "Black kid I've never seen before. He's gotta be up to something." Martin knows he's being followed, hangs up the phone with his girlfriend.)
Martin: Why are you following me?
Zimmerman: What are you doing here?
Martin: Who the fuck are you man? If you aren't a cop, fuck off!
Zimmerman: I asked you a question. What are you doing here you little shit?
Martin: Whatever man, I'm out of here.
Zimmerman: Don't you walk away from me!
(Zimmerman reaches out and grabs Martin. Martin pushes Zimmerman to get free, in turn Zimmerman begins to get more forceful with delusions of grandeur of catching whoever was breaking into the neighborhood. Martin, fearing he could be kidnapped, beaten or worse, begins to fight Zimmerman off in the hopes he can run home and inform his father of what's going on. Martin gets the upper hand and Zimmerman, failing as an authority figure, pulls out his pistol and fires point blank range into Martin's chest.)
And we all know the rest.
In any state that doesn't have a "stand your ground" law not only would the neighborhood watch have fucking listened to the dispatcher, the incident described above wouldn't have happened. But because said situation has happened, it's opened up a can of hornets and made it far more difficult for prosecutors to prove malicious intent.
That's the big picture of this and the racial profiling should be acknowledged just as much, if not more because of it. I'm not scared of the gang bangers who live a few blocks over. I'm scared of the gun toting yahoos who see me as a threat for no other reason then the fact I'm brown and wear black a lot.
Especially given the fact the cops have been called on me just for walking to the corner store to buy a pack of smokes.
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