The grand jury investigation of this case is most likely going to be shut down, but before anybody screams coverup, they should know that the special prosecutor appointed by Governor Scott is one of the most hard nosed Conservative prosecutors in the entire nation. Angela Corey has been criticized by Liberals for her controversial stances of trying juveniles as adults, and seeking maximum punishment in the vast majority of the cases she has tried.
She will undoubtedly not be accepting any excuses from Zimmerman here. Instead, if she determines that Zimmerman broke the law, he will be going to prison for a very long time.
In the end, this is not about Liberal versus Conservative. It is about the whole nation coming together against an asshole weekend warrior policeman wannabe who took the law into his own hands, and murdered an innocent boy. Democrats are shocked. Republicans are shocked. The police chief has been forced to step down, and justice is going to be meted out in spades. At this point, let me bring home 2 important points of Florida's Stand Your Ground Law:
1) Under the law, you can only meet a threat with equal force. If you go further, then Stand Your Ground does not apply.
AND (And this is most important)
2) The person you stand up to must have been the one to initiate action which made you feel threatened. If you are stalking someone, or otherwise following them them, then it is YOU who initiated the confrontation, and Stand Your Ground does not apply. When Zimmerman ignored the police dispatcher's order to stop following Trayvon Martin, he cut himself off from Stand Your Ground, and thus, under Florida's law, he went from defending himself against a threat to committing homicide.
At this time, I am not ready to say that there is a racist element to this case, in that police did not thoroughly investigate the shooting. I will chalk it up to incompetence. As for the prosecutor that Governor Scott appointed, this shows me that, if indeed, Zimmerman is to be charged with a crime, the State of Florida intends to make an example out of him, as a warning to other militia weekend warrior wannabes. In a civilized society you do NOT stalk someone, armed with a gun, for ANY reason. That's what police are for - To investigate the possibility that a crime is about to be committed, and then act accordingly. Those who are not cops, but attempt to take those kinds of powers unto themselves, as vigilantes, deserve whatever they get when they go off the reservation, as Zimmerman did.
If there is a silver lining in all of this, it is that a law that many Florida policemen and prosecutors opposed is going to be under scrutiny, and may soon be abolished. Unfortunately, there is no silver lining for the mother of a boy who was murdered while purchasing a soft drink and a box of candy.
Article is here.
