The Political Freakshow

In NO SHIT News: The Sanford Police Department is reporting that the encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was "avoidable" if Zimmerman would have remained in his vehicle.

kyssthis16:

JACKSONVILLE – Newly released evidence in the case against George Zimmerman shows that Sanford Police believed the encounter between Zimmerman andTrayvon Martin was “ultimately avoidable,” if Zimmerman had “remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement,” according to hundreds of pages of evidence in the case released this afternoon.

The evidence — released by Special Prosecutor Angela Corey’s office late Thursday — includes a photocopy of a picture taken of George Zimmerman at the scene of the shooting. In it, he has a bloody nose.

Sanford Officer Michael Wagner pulled out his personal iPhone, he wrote in his report, and shot a photo of Zimmerman’s bloody nose. It appeared to him, Wagner wrote in his report, that Zimmerman’s nose was broken.

“I also saw that the back of Zimmerman’s head was also bloodied,” Wagner wrote.

Wagner downloaded the photo to his computer but never forwarded it to anyone else, he wrote, not until March 18, when he got word that the agency could find no photos of Zimmerman taken at the scene.

Trayvon’s autopsy report is included in the released documents. In it, there is a diagram that shows the gunshot wound was approximately 3/8 inches across, and the “stippling,” powder burns that come as a result of a gunshot, was approximately 2 inches in diameter.

The burns are important because they prove the gun was fired from a very close range.

FDLE firearms expert Amy Siewert examined Trayvon’s gray sweatshirt and gray hoodie and wrote this about the gunpowder burns: “Both holes displayed residues and physical effects consistent with a contact shot.”

Translation: The gun was touching Trayvon’s clothing when Zimmerman pulled the trigger.

The bullet went through his heart, according to the report. The Volusia County medical examiner’s office pulled from Trayvon’s body one lead bullet core and two fragments, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab report. The report also showed a small “abrasion” on one finger on the other hand.

The autopsy report says there was THC — the active chemical found in marijuana — in Trayvon’s blood and urine.

Girlfriend’s statement

An unnamed girl, the one identified by the Martin family attorney as Trayvon’s girlfriend, told Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda that she and Trayvon talked on the phone daily and had known each other since Kindergarten.

The girl told the prosecutor that she and Trayvon talked on and off as he went to the store to buy a snack. She said Trayvon told her he took shelter from the rain under an overhang while walking back to his father’s girlfriend’s home.

Minutes later, she said, Trayvon told her a white man in a vehicle was watching him. Trayvon started walking, and the call cut off, she said. When she called back, “he said he’s walking, and he said this man is still following him.”

The girl said Trayvon started running, “and then, he said he lost him [Zimmerman],” she said, adding that the teen’s “voice kind of changed… I could tell he was scared.” The girl said she told Trayvon to keep running, but “he said he ain’t gonna run. He said he’s right by his father’s house.”

“And in a couple minutes, he said a man’s following him again, he’s behind him,” she said. “I say, ‘run.’”

She said Trayvon was breathing hard. She said Trayvon asked “Why are you following me for?” and a man’s voice said, “What are you doing around here?” Then, she heard a noise and the call cut off.

Zimmerman’s dad says person calling for help was his son

In a recorded interview with FDLE investigators, Zimmerman’s father, Robert Zimmerman, disputed the assertions of Trayvon Martin’s family that it was the teen heard screaming in a 911 call before the shooting.

“That is absolutely, positively George Zimmerman,” the elder Zimmerman said. “Myself, my wife, family members and friends know that that is George Zimmerman, there is no doubt, who’s yelling for help.”

Robert Zimmerman said he was surprised by the high quality of the 911 audio in which the screams were heard. He said he was certain they were those of his son.

“He sounded like he was screaming for his life,” he said.

Two FBI audio specialists tried to identify who was screaming in the background of one 911 call and concluded it was impossible, according to the documents. The quality of the recording was not good enough and the screams didn’t last long enough, they wrote.

Several witnesses wrote statements for police after the shooting. One wrote that “after I completed the statement, I cried and told him I’ll never forget the cries for help and wish I could have helped.”

The investigator, however, “told me ‘If it makes you feel any better, the [cries] for help were not the person that died.’”

The same witness told the investigator that it sounded like a boy’s voice screaming. The person also said it appeared Trayvon’s body was face-down when Zimmerman stood up after the gunshot.

Witness statements

According to documents, FDLE DNA expert Anthony Gorgone found more than a dozen spots of Zimmerman’s blood on the defendant’s shirt and nearly as many on his jacket.

The jacket also had a spot of blood that Gorgone said came from both.

Sanford Police investigator Christopher Serino said statements made on scene to Officer Tim Smith “were corroborated by several witnesses and led to the possibility of this shooting having been in self-defense.”

From the report:

One resident told the investigator that he heard a commotion and when he investigated, “he witnessed a black male, wearing a dark colored “hoodie” on top of a white or Hispanic male who was yelling for help. He elaborated by stating that black male was mounted on the white or Hispanic male and throwing punches “MMA (mixed martial arts) style.” He stated he yelled out to the two individuals that he was going to call the police. He then heard a “pop.” He stated that after hearing the “pop,” he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the black male wearing the hoodie) laid out on the grass.

In a recording from a March interview with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Sanford Fire Rescue’s Mike Brandy said when he arrived at the scene of the shooting, he “saw [Trayvon] laying on the ground… police were there, they were already doing CPR.”

“We put him on the heart monitor and the heart monitor showed no activity,” Brandy said. “He was basically flatlined.”

The report by Serino said Martin had $40.15, Skittles candy, a red lighter, headphones and a photo pin in his pocket.

The documents were released as a result of the discovery process, during which state prosecutors were required to turn over their evidence in the case to the Zimmerman’s defense. The documents are being made available to media outlets through a secure site on the Internet.

The documents show that police reported that when they got to the scene, Trayvon had no pulse and was not breathing.

They tried CPR, but when they breathed into him, it produced “bubbling sounds.”

One officer asked a bystander for something with which to seal off the wound and was handed a plastic grocery bag, which he then pressed against the wound.

Co-worker described Zimmerman as ‘bully’

One of the witnesses interviewed by Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda was a former coworker of Zimmerman’s, who said that he had issues with Zimmerman “on multiple occasions.” He described Zimmerman as a bully.

The ex-coworker, who described himself as Middle Eastern, said Zimmerman and others made fun of his ethnicity, and jeered at him with references to the “Achmed the Dead Terrorist” puppet character created by ventriloquist/comedian Jeff Dunham.

“It was like middle school, high school humor, but it was going on for days and days,” he said. The co-worker said he complained to human resources. It’s unclear where they were working at the time, as some information was redacted from the recording.

Zimmerman faces a second-degree murder charge in Martin’s killing. He has claimed self-defense, telling investigators that the teen knocked him down and bashed his head against concrete.

Sanford police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman, sparking outcry that developed into an international controversy. After weeks of rallies and protests, an arrest was made on April 11.

Martin, an unarmed teenager from Miami Gardens, was returning from a local 7-Eleven to his father’s girlfriend’s house in the Retreat at Twin Lakes when he encountered Zimmerman.

The Neighborhood Watch volunteer reported the teen to police as suspicious, and briefly chased him on foot. During a later confrontation, Zimmerman shot the teenager in the chest.

So, he could’ve been arrested wayyyy before the time that he was? Uh huh…………………………………….