You forget the joker in the deck...the jury.
If the pross can cast doubt on Z's testimony, they cast doubt on his version of how the altercation started. Then all bets are off.
I'll give you another example of Z gilding the lily. During the Hannity interview he said Tm was "cutting between houses". The inference was that maybe he was looking in windows, checking doors...why else would anyone cut between houses?
But if you look at a Z's first call to police compared to subsequent statements, they differ. In his original call to 911 Z's description of T's actions are thus...
"This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about."
His statements to police that night reflect the same thing.
But here is Z's statements on Hannity.
"ZIMMERMAN: I felt he was suspicious because it was raining. He was in-between houses, cutting in-between houses,"
The implication was that TM was casing houses, maybe looking in windows.
But the Retreat doesn't have a continuous brick fence around the entire complex, it just runs parallel to the street fronting the complex. At the north-west corner, this is what it looks like. (Google satellite image, don't know if it will transfer)
retreat view circle - Google Maps
As you can see the brick wall ends and some kind of wood fence begins but it is clear that fence is penetrable. I read an article some time ago saying that kids used that all the time as a cut through to the complex instead of going all the away down to the gate...I have to assume Zimm, as NW captain, knew this as well.
In other words, it's quite possible TM used this simply as a shortcut, that it is when Zimm first observed TM coming into the community and that is the source of the "cutting through houses" comment from Zimm.
But Z didn't mention it during the 911 call, he didn't mention it to police that night, only on Hannity some time later. The reason is Zimm knew this was a cut through short cut used by kids and at the time he didn't think anything of it. Only later when the pot got hot did he decide to use it in order to make TM look like he might have been casing houses.
Gilding the lily.
Why?
