WASHINGTON POST JONATHAN CAPEHART
The killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2012, sparked a national debate on race, justice and the wisdom of “stand your ground” laws. But many of the facts in the case have been in dispute, from the moment this tragedy captured the public’s attention and through the ongoing Zimmerman trial. Misconceptions and misinformation abound about what happened, who did what and who said what to whom.
On the night of the shooting, the police ordered Zimmerman to stay in his vehicle.
“Are you following him?” the operator for the Sanford police’s non-emergency line asks Zimmerman. “Yeah,” he says. The dispatcher on the phone tells him: “We don’t need you to do that.”
Who the aggressor was that fateful night is the central — and most unanswerable — question of the case. Those who fault Zimmerman have latched on to this back-and-forth with Sean Noffke, the operator, as proof that Zimmerman defied a direct police order.
Not so. Noffke testified on the first day of the jury trial that it is dispatchers’ policy not to give orders to callers. “We’re directly liable if we give a direct order,” he explained. “We always try to give general basic . . . not commands, just suggestions.” So, “We don’t need you to do that” is different than a more direct “Don’t do that.”
Under cross-examination, Noffke added more context to his “suggestion” when asked whether his requests for updates on what Martin was doing encouraged Zimmerman to follow the unarmed 17-year-old. “It’s best to avoid any kind of confrontation, to just get away from the situation,” Noffke said.
Martin broke Zimmerman’s nose.
Zimmerman says Martin came up behind him and cold-cocked him square in the nose, knocking him to the ground. In his numerous television interviews, Zimmerman’s brother Robert has said unequivocally that George’s nose was broken. But that was never definitively diagnosed by a doctor.
According to the report by Sanford police officer Michael Wagner on the night of the shooting, “Zimmerman’s face was bloodied and it appeared to me that his nose was broken.” Officer Jonathan Mead made a similar observation. But, according to police reports, “Zimmerman declined” an opportunity “to be transported to the hospital in order to be examined by a doctor for his injuries
To return to work the next day, Zimmerman needed medical clearance. The report from Altamonte Family Practice completed the day after the shooting notes that Zimmerman told the attending assistant physician that emergency medical personnel on the scene the night before told him he had a broken nose. But the Altamonte report states: “We discussed that it is likely broken, but does not appear to have septal deviation. The swelling and black eyes are typical of this injury.” Zimmerman was advised to be evaluated by an ear, nose and throat specialist, “but he refused.”
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Martin’s death led to a reexamination of “stand your ground” laws.
The killing did cause a national outcry against “stand your ground” laws. Florida is one of 24 states that adopted such legislation, which has been championed by the National Rifle Association. In 2005, the Sunshine State amended its self-defense law to allow potential victims to stand their ground against an assailant by removing the duty to retreat and permitting them to meet force with force — including deadly force — if they reasonably believe it is necessary to save their lives. It also granted them immunity from prosecution.
In reaction to the tragedy in Sanford, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) appointed a panel to examine the state’s law. But a year later, the 19-member Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection recommended that the eight-year-old statute not be repealed. And no other state has rolled back a similar law.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted in May to investigate whether there is racial bias in “stand your ground” laws. An analysis of nearly 200 casesby the Tampa Bay Times last year suggests that there is. “Defendants claiming ‘stand your ground’ are more likely to prevail if the victim is black,” the Times found. “Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white.”
Read more at WASHINGTON POST JONATHAN CAPEHART