Red and yellow, black and white,
they are precious in His sight....

So exactly what did Z do to deserve to be taken to the ground and having his face pounded on MMA style? Following TM? Asking TM what he was doing? I didnt realize they were acceptable reasons for battery.

Yes, this:

I do not define asking a question to be "stopping" anyone.

MMA style thats funny....in the old days we just called it a fight, but lets spin in some more buzz words to bolster your case.

Maybe if you can't defend yourself with out a gun you should not be confronting persons you think are criminal. He could have easily just stayed in his vehicle and preformed his "duty" of protecting his neighbors.

the obvious failure here is the holy "gated community"...... apparently its not to gated or to safe.......maybe penning all the sheep together attracts all the wolfs..........FAIL

Safer now... if TM was indeed in the wrong.

Following someone around in your car and then pursuing them on foot, and then approaching that person with a weapon, is reason for
a beat down.
I would suggest you don't do it.

"Temporarily Living" at the time. Depending on the HOA rules, temp or visitors can be required to register and/or be escorted. Not being a known resident......AND the Florida laws on stand your ground and other quirks of that quirky state probably lead to Zimmerman being initially released.

While such HOA rules are not always enforced, they are on the books and have yet to be found unconstitutional.

His subsequent arrest and trial is media and partisan reaction.

Hope I haven't added any logic into this thread.....that's against PPOT rules, right?

I am not sure I get your point. Are you saying it is ok to punch somebody in the face if they approach you? Z could have walked up and said, "Hey you stoopid MFing N, what the F are you doing here?!" TM STILL did not have the right to hit him. IMO it really is as simple as that.

I want to point out something I'm sure many of you aren't aware of regarding how communities in the Orlando area.....
There is no 1 nice neighborhood, or bad......(except pine hills)
There are nothing but gated communities here, and they are splattered and surrounded by shady areas....
You could have gated development with 2 million dollar houses in it which is boxed in by all section 8 homes.......
So having heard that there were breakins in his community doesn' suprise me, and could be the reason he followed.......the layout here is different than any other part of the country.....demographics change street to street, not town to town.......
Just putting this out there

Maybe an overstatement but still a relevant observation which helps put things in context. Thank you for posting.

so in every fight you may have been in..... killing the individual would have been .well.....OK?

I don't know what your experiences are but myself I been around the block.......I've been beaten and have beaten.......its just the way it was....... For a man fighting for his life there just wasn't much injury.....I've come out of wrestling matches and football games more blooded.
Have any of you had a serious head cut or got firmly jacked in the face or nose. You bleed like a stuck pig or swell up like a balloon.....Zimmerman was just not that beat up.
Zimmerman,a grow man, over extended his authority.......Martin a 17 year kid, over reacted ...and Zimmerman murdered him ....shot him down because he could not defend himself in a fist fight with a 160 lbs KID....Killed him dead...understand this shot him dead.

And you all think thats just OK..........sad

Maybe not everyone enjoys a good fist fight as much as you do, and would rather end it decisively.

One person here obviously enjoyed fist fights, the other ended it in short order.

No sympathy, sorry.

There are no rules in a street fight, that includes knives, guns and other people jumping in. At least that's what I knew growing up. Fantasy world and TV land is where fair fights happen.

Obliviously this is based on hearsay.....
Were the people beating the crap out of you telling you that you were going to die tonite?
That would make me shoot.......
Just sayin........

I've had people who were looking to move here ask me what the nice areas are......and it's very difficult to explain that there is no answer to the question.......

Florida much?

I recall going to Daytona in 1991 and taking a wrong turn into a certain neighborhood resulting in being pelted by rocks from a definite certain ethic group of teens. They chased us over hill and dale like baboons. I'd call it National Geographic levels of graphicness. You might recall how it made national news how unsuspecting tourists would take a wrong turn, getting robbed or worse in a dead end.

Again, I'd say to you... gird your loins and face a bit of reality here. It's not racism. It's lack of parenting. Every time.

Many ffing laughs here. You are still typing with working fingers. What a goofy post.

So are you saying that it has to degrade to a situation where you lose control??? I mean you are kidding? The first blow by that kid gave him the advantage, the tempo was in his favor and it changed, very suddenly.

Some kids find out that they are not invincible, usually not with this consequence. Why the kid circled back is where he made his first of three mistakes, the second was his verbal initiation of contact with Zimmerman, and the last mistake he made was throwing the first punch.

Yep, **** happens. Zimmerman did it with one bullet, just one. There is no God Damn way Zimmerman was malicious in his defense. If he was the aggressor there would have been more than one round expended. That one round stopped the attack, a second round is usually used to terminate the perp.

Ever hear of a double tap?? Zimmerman did not double tap him which IMHO means that he just wanted the attack, ATTACK, to stop. It did, the kid used damn poor judgement.

Zimmerman used zero judgment, period. Martin was only 17 and he is expected to have less judgment at that age. Odds are that if Z didn't have a loaded gun that night, he would have suffered a beat down and that's about it. Its a stretch to say that Martin was literally trying to do all he could to kill him. Zimmerman had a few cuts and some bleeding because that's what happens in a fight, but he looks fine now, all healed up and 100 lbs heavier. He would have been better off just carrying pepper spray or even a stun gun and learning some basic self defense. A loaded gun will give a person more confidence, which can potentially be a bad thing. I doubt he would have even followed Martin if he was unarmed. I don't think he should be charged with murder at all, but his lack of judgement and careless actions make him most definitely responsible for manslaughter. However I don't know how this will play out. Convicted or not, he will have an extremely hard life ahead of him.

This is very simple. No emotions. No personal arguments. No personal judgement of the man. No personal opinion of the event.

There is simply too much doubt to overcome the requirement of "beyond a reasonable doubt" for a conviction of either manslaughter or murder.

This is how our justice system works. Like it or not, proof beyond a reasonable doubt is necessary and very difficult to accomplish. It just was not proven in this case.