Quote: Mintball ""We don't need you to do that," as a response to being told that he was following someone, would, by most normal people, be understood as 'stop what you're doing - ie following'.'"
But the call continued and they were discussing where the suspect was. There was no indication whether Zimmerman had continued to follow or whether he had turned round.
It was a soft suggestion not to follow. It was not an implicit "Stop following" as has been suggested.
One of Martin Gladwell's books discusses a plane crash and the attitude of NY air traffic control. A plane was in traffic to come in to land and was virtually out of fuel. The pilot told ATC that he was low on fuel, but that was useless because virtually every plane coming in to land is low on fuel. The pilot needed to inform the ATC that they needed immediate landing because they were critically short of fuel. ATC would have them cleared him for landing, or it would have been their fault that he crashed. But saying "we're running low on fuel" meant they were ignored because nearly all of them were in the same position.
Quote: Mintball "The core issue is the law itself, which is a straightforward excuse to do what Zimmerman did. The other case that has been mentioned, from last year, where nobody was even injured but where a (black) woman with a gun (shooting at a ceiling as a warning shot – she claims her partner was abusive) was subsequently jailed for 20 years does raise the question of race.'"
There was an argument. She left the room to get a gun. She went back into the room and shot into the ceiling.
If she was free to walk away from her husband, find a gun and then return to the room, then she wasn't under legitimate threat of attack.
I don't know the details, but one point is if they were in an apartment, there could have been someone killed because the bullet could have come through the floor.
20 years is ridiculous for that crime. But that was the statute. It wasn't a race issue.
She should have probably lied and said that her husband had threatened to beat the kids. But that's down to her defence, and they are not supposed to instruct her to lie.
Quote: Mintball "But the law is bonkers. Where, then, was Martin's right to 'stand his ground' when he was followed and 'challenged' by an armed man with a vigilante complex?'"
Martin had a phone. He was okay telling his friend that a "creepy cracker" was following him, but it didn't occur to him to call 911 and report that he was being followed?
You don't know that Zimmerman did challenge Martin. No one does because there is only Zimmerman's testimony. Zimmerman claims that he was taken by surprise and Martin just started beating on him.