Can't believe this dude isn't in jail....

[SEC=UGA]

 

(CBS) SANFORD, Fla. - The voice heard calling for help on a 911 call just before Trayvon Martin was fatally shot was not that of George Zimmerman, two forensic voice identification experts told MSNBC on Sunday.

 

"The tests concluded that it's not the voice of Mr. Zimmerman," Tom Owen, of Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence said.

 

When asked if he thought such tests would be admissible in court, Owen said "yes" and noted he had recently used similar testing at a murder trial that involved a 911 call.

 

The conclusions of Owen and another audio expert were first reported by The Orlando Sentinel on Saturday.

The 911 call he examined came in on the night of Feb. 26 from a woman who reported someone crying out for help in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. In the recording of her 911 call, panicked cries and a gunshot are heard.

 

After the Sentinel contacted Owen, he used software called Easy Voice Biometrics to compare Zimmerman's voice to the 911 call screams.

 

"I took all of the screams and put those together, and cut out everything else," Owen says.

 

The software compared that audio to Zimmerman's voice. It returned a 48 percent match. Owen said to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he'd expect higher than 90 percent.

 

"As a result of that, you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it's not Zimmerman," Owen says, stressing that he cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon's, because he didn't have a sample of the teen's voice to compare.

 

The Sentinel said that Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, came to the same conclusion.

"I believe that's Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt," Primeau says, stressing that the tone of the voice is a giveaway. "That's a young man screaming."

 

[Savage Beatings]

Ok, I know we need justice and everything, but I'm seriously getting sick of this story.

[electricrelish]

Ok, I know we need justice and everything, but I'm seriously getting sick of this story.

 

That's one of the ways injustice works. It drags out until everyone is sick of it, so they stop being angry and stop pursuing justice.

Edited April 2, 2012 by electricrelish

[detlef]

I think that there is something that is missing from the discussion, and that's the significant responsibilities of someone who is carrying a gun. I think that someone carrying a gun has a moral responsibility to avoid confrontation if possible. You cannot put yourself in a scenario in which your presence may cause a confrontation or escalate an existing situation.

 

You have the gun to protect yourself and perhaps others from an imminent threat of death or suffering great bodily injury. Its to be used as a last resort, even in your home. Which is why I think that the so-called "stand your ground" laws are just wrong (Although I don't have a problem with them being applicable in a home invasion situation, particularly when others are present in the home.)

 

Probably the most troubling situation (IMO) that someone carrying a pistol can face is a confrontation by someone who is not armed. It seems to me that in a blink of an eye you can go from a shoving match, to exhanging blows to a point in which you are getting your ass kicked. Can you shoot someone for kicking your ass in a fistfight? What if you were a willing participant? What about if you didn't start it, but you weren't adverse to throwing a few with the guy? As I see it, you must have the duty to retreat in that situation. But the most important duty, perhaps one that cannot be a piece of legislation, is to do what you can to avoid that situation in the first place.

 

A citizen carrying a gun is not a peace officer. It is not his/or her reponsibility to protect property or to keep an eye on suspicious people or to intervene in arguments, purse snatchings or even fistfights. A citizen carrying a gun has a greater responsibility to avoid those situations than does one who isn't carrying.

 

We may never know who caused the close quarters confrontation between Martin and Zimmerman. But if Zimmerman got out of his car in response to Martin walking down the street, for the purposes of being a peace officer, Zimmerman bears responsiblity for Martin's death. Maybe not all of it, but some and perhaps most.

 

Well said.

 

Quite simply, I don't want citizens to feel empowered that they should act as cops. Otherwise, what is the point of training and monitoring our police? Why should you have to bother with spending time training at the academy and worry about oversight when any jerk-off with a gun can go and do your job?

 

And, I also don't think this should be a state by state deal. In the USA, either an armed citizen can walk around acting like a cop, arming themselves and investigating suspicious characters on the streets, or he can't. But I think it's odd that you'd need to know whether or not that's cool in the specific state you're in. When you go into another country, and show your passport and all that, then I think it should go without saying that very fundamental rules may or may not be different and nothing should come as a surpise. But, I would like to think that this sort of thing would be uniform within all the 50 states.

[SayItAintSoJoe]

I think that there is something that is missing from the discussion, and that's the significant responsibilities of someone who is carrying a gun. I think that someone carrying a gun has a moral responsibility to avoid confrontation if possible. You cannot put yourself in a scenario in which your presence may cause a confrontation or escalate an existing situation.

 

 

I also think that you should have to be squeaky clean from a police record standpoint to carry a concealed weapon in public. Zimmerman had a couple of brush ups with the law in the past. He even had an altercation with a cop but because the charges were plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor he was allowed to keep his CCW permit. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t have been allowed to own a weapon just that the CCW permit should be more of a privilege than a right because of the added sense of responsibility that goes along with having one.

[Ursa Majoris]

Well said.

 

Quite simply, I don't want citizens to feel empowered that they should act as cops. Otherwise, what is the point of training and monitoring our police? Why should you have to bother with spending time training at the academy and worry about oversight when any jerk-off with a gun can go and do your job?

 

And, I also don't think this should be a state by state deal. In the USA, either an armed citizen can walk around acting like a cop, arming themselves and investigating suspicious characters on the streets, or he can't. But I think it's odd that you'd need to know whether or not that's cool in the specific state you're in. When you go into another country, and show your passport and all that, then I think it should go without saying that very fundamental rules may or may not be different and nothing should come as a surpise. But, I would like to think that this sort of thing would be uniform within all the 50 states.

 

 

Congress is in the process of passing a law to force all states to recognize out-of-state concealed carry permits regardless of their own laws or lack thereof. This means that if you're from some backward state like Utah, you can walk around Illinois with a concealed weapon even though the local residents can't.

 

So much for state's rights - Republicans only observe those when it suits them.

[Deathpig]

Congress is in the process of passing a law to force all states to recognize out-of-state concealed carry permits regardless of their own laws or lack thereof. This means that if you're from some backward state like Utah, you can walk around Illinois with a concealed weapon even though the local residents can't.

 

So much for state's rights - Republicans only observe those when it suits them.

 

 

That law only makes sense if you define 'keep and bear arms' as 'allowed to have a concealed carry permit'. If you do, then an 'advanced' state (like Illinois) has fundamentally illegal laws in its books, the same as some 'backwards' state having laws that abridge your 1st, 8th, or 14th Amendment rights (as an example).

 

If 'keep and bear arms' does not mean 'allowed to have a concealed carry permit', then that law makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm pretty sure all extant law to this point is firmly in this camp, as the SC has made no bones about aligning restrictions on firearms with the 2nd Amendment. I'm not sure this would survive SC scrutiny.

 

I can't imagine this law gets any traction at all (though I will say it's pretty shocking it passed with as many 'for' votes as it did).

[SEC=UGA]

Then compound Deathpig's argument with the fact that the SC has upheld "stand your ground laws" since their 1895 Beard vs. US ruling...

 

ETA: Interestingly enough, Illinois has their own stand your ground law...

 

(720 ILCS 5/7-1) (from Ch. 38, par. 7-1)

Sec. 7-1. Use of force in defense of person. (a) A person is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent that he reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or another against such other's imminent use of unlawful force. However, he is justified in the use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another, or the commission of a forcible felony.

Edited April 2, 2012 by SEC=UGA

[detlef]

Either NPR should be ashamed for managing to find a total idiot to take the pro-gun side of this morning's conversation or that's all they could actually find. But dude did not come off well at all.

 

First off, he cited some study; Clack? Something like that, which showed a massive number of cases where guns were used in justified self defense each year. A study that every other panelist was quick to point out is openly mocked by every fact check group, one of whom explained why it is so. Apparently, they polled 66 people, took their personal accounts of what happened as fact, and then extrapolated the data to include every man woman and child in the US to come up with the assumption that there are 2 million cases where guns were successfully used in self defense each year.

 

Then, when one of the panelists asked him if he thought a guy with a criminal record that includes attacking a cop should be allowed to have a concealed carry, he just kept on saying, "If it was against the law for him to carry a gun, he'd be in jail right now." When the questioner recognized that he was legally carrying but was just curious how he felt about whether a guy with a record like Zimmerman's should be legally allowed to carry a concealed weapon, he just came right back with, "According to the laws of FL, he's legally allowed to carry..."

 

Honestly, if the pro-gun lobby wants to ignore the issue with giving a guy with a violent crime on his record a concealed carry permit, then it is rather apparent that all the talk about making our streets safer is total BS and that it really just comes down to wanting to be able to play John Wayne. I beg of anyone on that side of the debate to explain how that is not true. If you truly want to argue your stance on a noble level, then explain that Zimmerman slipped through the cracks or something, but you simply can't just gloss over the fact that a guy with a violent crime on his record is apparently allowed to walk around with a hidden and loaded weapon.

[Ursa Majoris]

it really just comes down to wanting to be able to play John Wayne.

 

 

This sums up the entire gun lobby ethos.

[SEC=UGA]

Either NPR should be ashamed for managing to find a total idiot to take the pro-gun side of this morning's conversation or that's all they could actually find. But dude did not come off well at all.

 

First off, he cited some study; Clack? Something like that, which showed a massive number of cases where guns were used in justified self defense each year. A study that every other panelist was quick to point out is openly mocked by every fact check group, one of whom explained why it is so. Apparently, they polled 66 people, took their personal accounts of what happened as fact, and then extrapolated the data to include every man woman and child in the US to come up with the assumption that there are 2 million cases where guns were successfully used in self defense each year.

 

Then, when one of the panelists asked him if he thought a guy with a criminal record that includes attacking a cop should be allowed to have a concealed carry, he just kept on saying, "If it was against the law for him to carry a gun, he'd be in jail right now." When the questioner recognized that he was legally carrying but was just curious how he felt about whether a guy with a record like Zimmerman's should be legally allowed to carry a concealed weapon, he just came right back with, "According to the laws of FL, he's legally allowed to carry..."

 

Honestly, if the pro-gun lobby wants to ignore the issue with giving a guy with a violent crime on his record a concealed carry permit, then it is rather apparent that all the talk about making our streets safer is total BS and that it really just comes down to wanting to be able to play John Wayne. I beg of anyone on that side of the debate to explain how that is not true. If you truly want to argue your stance on a noble level, then explain that Zimmerman slipped through the cracks or something, but you simply can't just gloss over the fact that a guy with a violent crime on his record is apparently allowed to walk around with a hidden and loaded weapon.

 

 

2 violent crimes. Evidently, he also beat up his GF and she had a restraining order against him for a while.

 

And, agreed.... If you are convicted of a violent crime, no conceal carry for you.

[detlef]

2 violent crimes. Evidently, he also beat up his GF and she had a restraining order against him for a while.

 

And, agreed.... If you are convicted of a violent crime, no conceal carry for you.

 

I think the panelists who kept bringing up his violent past were trying to be fair and only truly sticking him with what he'd been actually charged with. The domestic abuse thing was merely alleged and resulted in a restraining order but could only be included as an "oh by the way" sort of deal. Hence the leaning on the actual charge of violence against a cop and just lumping the rest as "having a violent past".

 

None the less, the point remains that concealed carry should be the final frontier of gun rights and I don't think it's too much to ask that it be reserved for people who are squeaky-clean as it gets. You want to walk around with a hidden piece and play Johnny Law? You'd better be a grown-up version of an Eagle Scout.

[stevegrab]

Heard an interesting remark about this topic the other day. If cop had shot Trayvon Martin he'd be on desk duty, and undergoing a full investigation. But a private citizen gets to walk away and go home. That's pretty messed up.

[detlef]

Heard an interesting remark about this topic the other day. If cop had shot Trayvon Martin he'd be on desk duty, and undergoing a full investigation. But a private citizen gets to walk away and go home. That's pretty messed up.

 

Yes it is and, frankly, among the most messed up parts of this whole thing.

 

Oh and Azz? In light of the fact that there hasn't been one effing peep from the pro-gun side about why a guy with a violent criminal record has a concealed carry permit. Not here, seemingly not anywhere I've seen. Remind me again why it's so silly that the "usual suspects" want to make this about gun control? Throw me a bone here. Explain to me again that this is just one random nut job on a gun bender and has nothing to do with the fact that a state doesn't seem to give two poops about who it allows to carry a concealed weapon.

[Furd]

So Zimmerman's lawyers announce to the media that they are no longer representing him, purportedly because they haven't spoken to Zimmerman in a couple of days.

 

Strange.

 

ETA - Apparently, one of them has suggested that Z has fled Florida.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Furd

[Furd]

More:

 

 

Other significant revelations from that press conference include:

• Both attorneys repeatedly expressed concern for Zimmerman’s physical and mental well-being. “From information made available to us, (Zimmerman) is not doing well emotionally, probably suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and we understand from others that he may have lost a lot of weight,” Uhrig said.
  
• Uhrig told reporters that “We have a pretty good idea of where he is although we didn’t want to know the exact location,” adding, “We didn’t want to know the exact location.”
  
• Also from Uhrig: “We know his phone number. we know whenever that we call it, that phone number goes to voice mail.
  
• “We know that’s the phone number by which he contacted the prosecutor’s office, and that’s the number by which they contacted him back.” (This could give law enforcement the ability to track Zimmerman, should he go “in the wind.”)
  
• According to the attorneys, donations to TheRealGeorgeZimmerman.com are “going to George,” but they couldn’t confirm it was going to the account they had set up with Zimmerman’s father.
  
• The attorneys have never met George Zimmerman in person. “It’s all been through phone calls and meetings with family members,” said Sonner.
  
• Zimmerman has not left the country. “Because I’m still concerned about his safety,” Uhrig said, I’m not going to get into detail. He’s in the United States.”
  
• Zimmerman has never paid his attorneys. “He contacted me by phone,” Sonner said, “and the initial agreement was that I would handle the case pro bono up until charges were filed.”
  
• Their last communication with Zimmerman was “Sunday, and I believe it was a text message.”
  
• In a hopefully accidental bit of unfortunate wording, Uhrig tried to explain why it would be difficult for Zimmerman to get counseling for post-traumatic stress by saying “George can’t go down to the 7-Eleven and buy a Diet Coke.” It was at a 7-Eleven store that Trayvon Martin purchased the Skittles and iced tea that he was carrying when Zimmerman shot him.
  

 

I don't understand why the lawyers are running their mouths like that. They aren't doing Zimmerman any favors.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Furd

[moneymakers]

cuts off just when they get to the meat of the interview. amazing that none of the news stations show this part of the interview.

 

Zimmerman has contacted the Special prosecutor . They know exactly where he is and can get ahold of him at any time.

These guys didnt quit. They where never hired. They were working pro bono as advisors.

 

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/trayvon-martin/ click on the video thats 6:16 minutes long. pretty much wraps it up for the defense. If all he says is true. Zimmerman will not be charged.

[Furd]

Zimmerman has contacted the Special prosecutor . They know exactly where he is and can get ahold of him at any time.

These guys didnt quit. They where never hired. They were working pro bono as advisors.

 

 

So what?

[detlef]

cuts off just when they get to the meat of the interview. amazing that none of the news stations show this part of the interview.

 

Zimmerman has contacted the Special prosecutor . They know exactly where he is and can get ahold of him at any time.

These guys didnt quit. They where never hired. They were working pro bono as advisors.

 

 

http://www.orlandose...trayvon-martin/ click on the video thats 6:16 minutes long. pretty much wraps it up for the defense. If all he says is true. Zimmerman will not be charged.

Where'd you get that? From the part where the guys who have been acting as his counsel are distancing themselves from him? Where they said he basically went rogue (which is entirely within his rights, of course) and contacted Hannity and basically made them look stupid by having them answer questions they had no idea about?

 

Zimmerman may or may not ever be charged or found guilty, but I don't exactly see how that news conference is a shining moment for his cause.

 

ETA: What's funny is that, no sooner do I finish reading mm's "oh yeah, this thing is in the bag", do I log on to FB to read every lawyer friend of mine outraged that Zimmerman's lawyers would throw him under the bus like this. That, regardless of how you feel about the guy, he deserves better than this.

Edited April 11, 2012 by detlef

[matt770]

I think the blacks should save time and just start rioting now.

[Deathpig]

Want to stay warm and comfortable, avoid identification, all while keeping your street cred while rioting? Do I have an offer for you!

 

Taking orders on 'No Justice, no Peace! 2012' hoodies now. 3 colors and 6 sizes to choose from-- supplies are going fast, order now!

[Clubfoothead]

Why would anyone riot?

[Yukon Cornelius]

Why would anyone riot?

 

to save the babies!!

[stevegrab]

from Furd's post

"The attorneys have never met George Zimmerman in person. “It’s all been through phone calls and meetings with family members,” said Sonner."

 

Is that common, to take on such a high profile and volatile case without ever meeting the person you are going to represent?

 

Seems these lawyers were not doing anybody any favors, including themselves (except maybe trying to get some good publicity).

 

From moneymaker's post

"These guys didnt quit. They where never hired. They were working pro bono as advisors."

 

Yep, seems logical.

[Deathpig]

Why would anyone riot?

 

 

After all the notoriety of this case, if Zimmerman isn't indicted (much less found guilty) I have absolutely no idea why anyone would consider rioting. With civic leaders urging people to remain calm until all the details can be sorted out, there is no reason to suspect things could possibly escalate further.

 

This is 1992 on steroids, with national attention and plenty of time to let things really boil over.