The Zimmerman case--not that it's any of my business

Or is it?  Dr. King said injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.  No man is an island, unto himself.  So whether we like it or not, we are affected by this at some level.  And of course the media would not let us forget it, although I strongly doubt they are that interested in truth, just drama and ratings.

I have two conflicting views on this story.  A young man is dead.  Sure, one side calls him names and says he was a thug and attacked Zimmerman and was beating him up.  We don’t know; we will never know everything.  Zimmerman by his own admission killed him.  If Zimmerman had not been following him, Trayvon Martin wouldn’t have attacked him, etc.  Did Zimmerman have any business following him around the neighborhood,with a gun?  My husband seems to think it was ok for him to do so.  I don’t think so.  That’s what cops are for, and the 911 operator told Zimmerman to leave him alone.  Zimmerman is guilty of stupidity in the first degree.  He should have to pay for killing someone when he started it himself.  Of course, he’s a marked man for the rest of his life, and now there is talk that the NAACP wants federal charges brought against him. 

Which brings me to the second conflicting view.  The state of Florida clearly did not pursue this correctly.  It should have been negligent homicide, not murder 2.  They should have known they couldn’t get a real conviction on that (it would have been appealed).  They didn’t even convene a grand jury.  The state intervened in a local matter, taking over because of political pressure.  And the jury said the state did not present a strong enough case, not guilty (not “innocent,” though, because Zimmerman wasn’t innocent in this affair).  Was the jury right?  I can only say I was amazed that women and mothers were so dispassionate.  I would have felt too much for the parents.  I have to wonder if they thought the government had overstepped its bounds in the whle thing.

Now the NAACP wants the feds involved.  That is just wrong.  If the Martin family wants to bring a civil case, go for it; but this is not a federal issue.  This would be one more example of the Obama administration sticking its nose into something for media coverage, not because it is right or needed. 

This is a tragedy all the way around, but the process worked even when the government bent the rules.