DoJ to review Trayvon Martin case

[blake 3:17]

U.S. justice department to review Trayvon Martin case
George Zimmerman handed not guilty verdict
Reuters Posted: Jul 14, 2013 10:51 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 14, 2013 4:25 PM ET

The U.S. Department of Justice said Sunday it would review the Travyon Martin-George Zimmerman case to determine if it should consider prosecuting Zimmerman, who was acquitted in a Florida court in the shooting death of the unarmed black teenager.

"Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction, and whether federal prosecution is appropriate in accordance with the Department's policy governing successive federal prosecution following a state trial," said a statement released by the department.

The announcement came just barely an hour after U.S. President Barack Obama urged for "calm reflection."

In a statement released on Sunday afternoon, Obama called the case a "tragedy" for America and asked the public to remain calm, urging respect for the Martin family.

"I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher," he said. "But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son."

"We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities. We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this."

The six women jurors who deliberated for 16 hours over two days found Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter Saturday night in a case that has polarized the U.S. public.

Zimmerman's brother said the former neighborhood watch volunteer was still processing the reality that he wouldn't serve prison time for the killing of Martin, which Zimmerman, 29, has maintained was an act of self-defense.

However, with many critics angry over his acquittal, his freedom may be limited.

"He's going to be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life," Robert Zimmerman Jr. said during an interview on CNN.

In Manhattan, congregants at Middle Collegiate Church were encouraged to wear hooded sweatshirts in the memory of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager who was wearing a hoodie the night he was shot to death in February 2012. The Rev. Jacqueline Lewis, wearing a pink hoodie, urged peace and told her congregation: "We're going to raise our voices against the root causes of this kind of tragedy."

At a youth service in Sanford, Fla., where the trial was held, teens wearing shirts displaying Martin's picture wiped away tears during a sermon at the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.

In Florida, about 200 demonstrators marched through downtown Tallahassee carrying signs that said "Racism is Not Dead" and "Who's Next?"

Full article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/07/14/zimmerman-outrage.html?cmp=rss

[blake 3:17]

From Bill Fletcher Jr

Zimmerman and the question of self-defense
POSTED ON 14 JULY, 2013 · ADD COMMENT

I could not help myself. I kept listening to the pundits, both last night and this morning.

I need to say that i do not respect the decision of the jury any more than the jury that acquitted the killers of Emmitt Till should have had their decision respected. I realize that some lawyers need to say that they will respect the decision, but let us be clear that the decision was not only wrong but was a travesty.

The other piece that has been repeatedly argued is that this was a case of self-defense and that the jury had to let Zimmerman off. So, just to get this straight, an unarmed, 17 year old young man is approached by an adult who is carrying a hand gun. Who should feel threatened?

We do not know what actually transpired in the moments prior to the murder of Martin but every and any Black person in the USA knows the fury that is felt when we are harassed by whites and when our guilt is presumed. Whether this happens as a result of being profiled by the police or stopped in a department store, we know and feel the humiliation. We all know the anger that rises in us, and may literally rise in our throats in the form of bile. We know the impulse to strike out, whether verbally or physically, when we are the recipient of a major or minor form of racial aggression.

Whether Trayvon Martin hit Zimmerman first or not is actually irrelevant. That is the point that the jury ignored, and the TV commentators are walking around. What is relevant is that Martin had every right to be where he was and Zimmerman actually had no right to be infringing on Martin’s space, journey and rights.

Thus, when we hear this rubbish about self-defense we have to ask ourselves some powerful and pointed questions. For instance, if a black person is being approached by an angry white person, do they have the right to shoot and kill that angry white person because we have hundreds of years of experiences with what angry white people can do to Black people? Is that the implication of “Stand Your Ground?” I would guess not.

A friend reminded me this morning about the case of Marissa Alexander from Florida who fired a warning shot to hold off her alleged abusive husband. She tried to invoke the Stand Your Ground law only to be told that it did not apply. The jury convicted her and she was subject to mandatory sentencing, receiving 20 years.

Anyone who tries to suggest that the Zimmerman jury carefully and objectively weighed the evidence and could do nothing more than convict is living in a dream. The fact that this outrageous law can be applied arbitrarily and that the fundamental question of why an armed adult was approaching an unarmed 17 year old (after having been told to stay home by the police) were not together the deciding factors in this case demonstrates the depth of the injustice we have witnessed.

The Zimmerman acquittal should remind us that what we are experiencing at this moment in history is a 21st century version of the dispossession and disenfranchisement that African Americans received beginning in the late 19th century. It is not just the Zimmerman case. It is the attack on affirmative action along with the voter suppression efforts and the weakening of the Voting Rights Act. In the late 19th century the Southern ruling elite was desperately afraid of Black power and the potential for the Black and white poor to unite. Today, the political Right shares similar fears. They also fear the future. They fear the change in the demographics of the USA. They wish to turn back the clock and paralyze the movements for social justice that have been percolating in this country.

The Zimmerman acquittal, and the nonsensical efforts by pundits to justify it, is only part of a larger picture of what we should truly understand as an attempt at Jim Crow 2.0

We cannot let it happen and i know that we won’t.

Link: http://billfletcherjr.com/2013/zimmerman-and-the-question-of-self-defense/

[Vanilla]

"He's going to be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life," Robert Zimmerman Jr. said during an interview on CNN.


Hopefully no vigilantes try to take the law into their own hands! That would be bad!

[khad]

Hopefully no vigilantes try to take the law into their own hands! That would be bad!
Whether or not something like that happens, it's not really anything the left can police.

[Leo]

An article (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201307/4777/bourgeois-justice-not-answer-trayvon-martin)which might be of interest.

[Hermes]

Whether or not something like that happens, it's not really anything the left can police.

I could be totally wrong, and might be missing sarcasm in your post, but I think Vanilla was making fun based on the fact that it was exactly what Zimmerman himself did.

You might've been riffing off of that with 'police', apologies if I missed it.

[#FF0000]

Nothing will come of this, I don't think.

[human strike]

An article (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201307/4777/bourgeois-justice-not-answer-trayvon-martin)which might be of interest.

I can't read or hear the words 'bourgeois justice' anymore without thinking of the SWP rape scandal.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Nothing will come of this, I don't think.

...without either massive riots, sustained protests, and or the threat of a significantly more racially politicized mood among people IMO.

Either way their hope in undoubtedly to maintain the illusion of working justice and keep people clm, or at least too confused to do anything.

[blake 3:17]

I can't read or hear the words 'bourgeois justice' anymore without thinking of the SWP rape scandal.

Makes bourgeois justice look good! Very good.

[MarxArchist]

An article (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201307/4777/bourgeois-justice-not-answer-trayvon-martin)which might be of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/22/us/us-rarely-seeks-charges-for-deaths-in-workplace.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

A less sickening aspect of bourgeois justice but related none the less. When the system depends on oppression of workers, of people of color, of women, the system will not stand for actual justice. It simply can't happen under capitalism. It never will. Ever.