Eliminating a bunch of hypotheticals....

[nancylebov]

No blood on Zimmerman.

A police surveillance video [available at the link] taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who says he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.

Not only did Zimmerman lie, so did the police report.

The initial police report noted that Zimmerman was bleeding from the back of the head and nose, and after medical attention it was decided that he was in good enough condition to travel in a police cruiser to the Sanford, Fla., police station for questioning.

His lawyer later insisted that Zimmerman's nose had been broken in his scuffle with 17-year-old Martin.

In the video an officer is seen pausing to look at the back of Zimmerman's head, but no abrasions or blood can be seen in the video and he did not check into the emergency room following the police questioning.

Sometimes it's good to be living in the future.

Before this came out, did any of you see speculation that Zimmerman was just plain lying?

Link thanks to bradhicks

Comments

[redbird]

My immediate thought was that either Zimerman or the people defending him were making this up (because it made no sense in terms of Martin's motives or existing data), but I haven't been posting on this and wouldn't have been likely to get much traction if so. I also haven't been reading much commentary outside LJ and DW, for my own sanity. So I've seen a few "this is obvious nonsense" and discussion of the tendency to side with the powerful (in this case, a live white man rather than a dead black one) but not explicitly "Zimmerman is lying."

[green_knight]

To be honest, none of the sources I read mentioned his 'self-defence' with anything other than incredulity, because when you're armed and sitting in a car, it's impossible for an unarmed teenager to attack you.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yes he was lying--you heard only the kid's voice begging for help in that horrible 911 call.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

I saw plenty of, not speculation, but confident statement that Zimmerman was lying. Also confident reports that he was telling the truth. There's a lot of people out there on the webs who know exactly what happened, apparently by magic.

I assume the people who are reserving judgement are just shutting the hell up about it.

[avram]

Wait --- if the video was taken at the police station, and he was only taken to the station after he received medical attention, isn't it possible that whoever gave him medical care cleaned the blood off?

Still, I didn't see any bandages or anything. If (as his lawyer claims) his nose had been broken, I'd expect that to be very visible.

[chaosdancer.livejournal.com]

There'd be bloodstains on his clothes, at the very least - and, as a friend pointed out, if there was bodily fluid splashing around, the cops would have (or should have) been wearing gloves. I didn't see anything indicating any sort of an injury at all in that video. Dumb question, but are they sure that's the right guy? It didn't look at all like his publicized photo. I did figure Zimmerman made up the attack anyway, but all the bases should be covered in this investigation.

[madfilkentist]

I've seen speculation on all kinds of things, including the truth of what people have been saying. Reason's been doing a pretty good job of bringing up odd angles on the case.

NPR's radio coverage has gotten me particularly annoyed. In one of its hourly news updates, the one fact deemed worthy of mention was that Martin had been suspended for having a tiny amount of marijuana. Even if it had been a pound of heroin, that would have had no bearing on Zimmerman's guilt or innocence.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Yep, that right there was all I needed to hear to know that this mess with exactly as ugly as it looked. I'm hoping that with both the phone call and this, I'm hoping both that Zimmerman goes to prison for a long time and that people get to work overturning that vile law.

But, but, but

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

He wuz neighborhood watch! Ain't that almost a boy scout?

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

His story is that he was punched hard enough to get a broken nose. Without some bandaging (clearly absent in the video) it's just not credible that his face wouldn't have gotten bloody again by the time he reached the station even if it had been cleaned up on site.

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

Facebook friend of mine also posted a response to this updated item with a simple and terse "Gee. Go figure. I guess this was one of them _metaphysical_ broken noses. OKAY: YOU CANNOT BREAK SOMEBODY'S NOSE, BARE-HANDED, WITHOUT IT LEAVING SOME MARKS ON YOUR KNUCKLES. I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE BRUCE LEE. I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE CHUCK NORRIS. I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE _BATMAN_."

Not a whole helluva lot I can really add to that.

eliazar

Another perk of being in the future.

[brian huntington (from livejournal.com)]

Sometimes it's good to be living in the future.


There was blood on his head.

Another one of the perks of being in the future: seeing just how disastrously wrong you were in the past--and having the opportunity to acknowledge that you were wrong.

http://media.metronews.topscms.com/images/05/ed/785270b240489264a0b4541ff624.png

You allowed yourself to be bamboozled by the crowd baying for vengeance against an acceptable target. You really should have known better. You chose to believe an extremely blurry video still (there was already a high-def version available) over the word of a large number of cops (and doctors!). You took a conspiracy theory on face value, because... hey, it fit your worldview!

Being disastrously, embarrassingly wrong might even be an opportunity to test your strength as a rationalist... if you have the courage. ;)

Re: Another perk of being in the future.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I obviously fell for a narrative which wasn't true. I'm not sure in what way I should update except for being more cautious, especially in the early stages of a hot news story.