The Sad Case of Trayvon Martin

*Disclaimer* This post isn't meant to offend anyone. It's just a personal opinion that may or may not fully reflect the true reality of the unfortunate event that happened.

Towards the end of February last year, a 17 year old Black boy was shot by a 28 year old half Hispanic, half White man in a neighborhood in Florida. This story caused quite an outburst within the African American society cause obviously when you kill a member of a minority ethnic group anywhere, people from that group are bound to make some noise.

George Zimmerman, the 28 year old Hispanic dude claimed that he was assaulted by 17 year old Trayvon Martin which was heavily armed with a can drink and Skittles. The shooting took place within a gated community where Zimmerman was a member of the neighborhood watch.

Prior to the shooting, Zimmerman first spotted Trayvon walking around the neighborhood at night in the rain dressed in a grey hoodie. As a result of Trayvon's suspicious behavior, Zimmerman called the police and proceeded to follow Trayvon in his vehicle in spite being told not to by the police while he spoke to them on the phone.

While being followed, Trayvon suddenly decided to run and escape Zimmerman. When Zimmerman finally caught up, he got out of his vehicle and confronted Trayvon. After a physical tussle in which nobody knows who started it, Trayvon was shot in the heart once which killed him.

Zimmerman made no attempt to flee the scene and when the police arrived, they found Trayvon dead on the pavement and Zimmerman with bruises to the back of his head and a bleeding and swollen nose.

After police investigation and a long court case, Zimmerman was acquitted and walked a free man. As expected, members of the African American community did not take this lightly. They claimed that Trayvon was murdered and his killer walks free. Many protests have gone underway and Zimmerman himself has received several death threats.

So this is all the stuff you need to know.

Now lets get down to the details...

First and foremost, people who side with Trayvon claimed that he was this innocent child of a boy who was unfairly murdered by this racist White man. They claimed that Trayvon was a law abiding citizen and an outstanding member of his community.

Is he?

According to Wikipedia,

• At the time of his death, Trayvon was suspended from school for the third time
• He was once caught by the police for possessing a used weed pipe and there was weed residue in his backpack
• He had a history of violence in school, occasionally getting into fights
• During another search, police found a number of women's jewelry in his backpack along with a screwdriver

There was no evidence that suggested that the jewelry was stolen but why would a 17 year old boy carry not one but several pieces of women's jewelry. Perhaps we could have dismissed him as a potential cross dresser and that would have been alright but the screwdriver was what got me.

When Zimmerman spoke to the police, he said there had been some break-ins in the neighborhood. No one was ever caught before.

Now lets look at Zimmerman's background. Firstly, Zimmerman is not a pure Caucasian white man. He's half Hispanic but for the sake of it, lets pretend he's White.

According to Wikipedia,

• Zimmerman assaulted a police officer before and resisted arrest
• His ex-fiancee filed a restraining order against him for alleged domestic abuse
• During the court case for the restraining order, the judge described Zimmerman as a mild person and that "these things" happen. 

Looks like neither of our guys here are saints anyway. For the sake of argument, I'm gonna dismiss Zimmerman's degree in criminal justice and dismiss at the same time this was a racially charged incident.

So lets focus on the incident itself.

According to Wikipedia,

• Trayvon was shot at close range and that the shot was a contact shot, meaning the gun was most likely touching Trayvon when it fired
• There was some yelling for help before the single shot was fired 

Now, I'm not sure about you but I'm definitely not one to bring a knife to a gunfight. Regardless of who started the fight or whether or not Trayvon was provoked by Zimmerman, I wouldn't fight a man who's holding a gun, more so a pistol which could shoot me from a really close range. 

Hell, he could call me or my family anything he wanted and I wouldn't even think about retaliating. 

Debating with certain idiots on the forum, people claimed that Trayvon had "bigger balls" which is why he dared to take on Zimmerman. Bravery or not, this is the kind of stupid thinking that gets people killed. 

Having bigger balls means one would dare fight a Grizzly bear unarmed. Having bigger balls doesn't mean surviving the encounter. If Trayvon made no attempt to flee, then he had what was coming to him. 

But what if he did attempt to escape?

Forensics suggests not. Remember how Trayvon was shot at close range, that the gun was practically touching him? If he was that close to Zimmerman, that means he made no attempt to escape. 

Not convinced?

If you've followed enough forensic shows and stuff, you would notice the forensics people throwing around this term entrance and exit wounds. The wound the bullet leaves when it enters a human body is different from the one when the bullet leaves the body. 

So if Trayvon ran and Zimmerman shot him in the back, the police would have known. Instead, he was shot at point blank, right in his chest, suggesting that Trayvon put up a fight. 

Another thing. If you listen to the audio recordings of all the phone calls made to the police while this was going on, you would notice Zimmerman went a long way of describing to the police the scenario and leading them towards the neighborhood to try and handle the situation first. 

Yeah, he's a dickhead for trying to be a hero which ended up in someone getting killed but if he had every intention to kill Trayvon from the start, he should have called the police after, not before the event started. 

But what if he carefully planned and orchestrated the whole thing all along? 

That would make him a pretty smart guy now wouldn't it? 

However, as smart as he can be, all of it would have been foiled if Trayvon knew how to use his brains. Assaulting an armed man without any weapon, even the drug cartel dudes would say that's loco. 

If you Google Trayvon Martin and look up all the images online, it's hard to see Trayvon as some innocent child. What you see instead is this shirtless young man sticking middle fingers while posing for the camera as if he's some hot shot unstoppable gangsta wannabe. 

This guy ain't no Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. 

As logical as I'm trying to be with this, even ignoring Zimmerman's degree in criminal justice, the fact that Trayvon's only witness was lying in court on the account of so many things and Zimmerman's injuries (assuming he did that to himself), it's getting harder and harder to side with this poor 17 year old boy who was so unfairly taken from this world. 

Many years ago, they gave a 16 year old Black kid life in jail for killing his neighbor while practicing wrestling moves. Teens can be really stupid and sometimes their stupidity results in their own deaths. 

So what actually happened?

Giving Zimmerman and Trayvon the benefit of the doubt, I guess shit happens. I think it was an accident. People can argue that Trayvon was gonna break into someone house and Zimmerman stopped him but he still wasn't caught "breaking in" yet. 

And if no one can prove Trayvon didn't fight Zimmerman, then I guess the self defense plea still applies for him. 

And the moral of the story?

Don't fight a man with a gun. It's stupid. Just do what he asks you. Imagine the situation if Trayvon didn't fight and just curled up into a ball in a fetal position on the floor when Zimmerman confronted him. It wouldn't be his bravest moment but I'm damn sure he'd still be alive today. 

But nooooooo.... his balls were too big for that.