george-zimmerman

The Zimmerman Jury Told Young Black Men What We Already Knew

Cord Jefferson · 07/13/13 09:43PM

Tonight a Florida man’s acquittal for hunting and killing a black teenager who was armed with only a bag of candy serves as a Rorschach test for the American public. For conservatives, it’s a triumph of permissive gun laws and a victory over the liberal media, which had been unfairly rooting for the dead kid all along. For liberals, it's a tragic and glaring example of the gaps that plague our criminal justice system. For people of color, it’s a vivid reminder that we must always be deferential to white people, or face the very real chance of getting killed.

Will George Zimmerman Get Away With Murder?

Tom Scocca · 07/12/13 04:26PM

Trayvon Martin was murdered. George Zimmerman murdered him. The jury may or may not see it that way; juries get a narrow and complicated view of things, and sometimes they get things wrong. But outside the jury box, there's no excuse.

This, Courtesy of MSNBC, Is Trayvon Martin's Dead Body. Get Angry.

Adam Weinstein · 07/12/13 09:36AM

A reader of mine sent me this photo last night. As the murder trial of George Zimmerman wheezes to its conclusion, the TV networks dutifully pipe in live pool video from the courtroom, as if it is force-fed to them and they have no choice but to excrete it, soft and undigested, into our living rooms, bedrooms, offices. Sometimes, the pool recorder or the networks' producers don't switch to a mundane image of lawyers being lawyerly quite fast enough, and we get to see snippets of the human cruelty, stupidity, and frailty that occasion trials such as this.

Tom Scocca · 07/11/13 11:56AM

The jury in the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin will also be allowed to consider manslaughter charges, judge Debra Nelson ruled today. The judge has yet to rule on the prosecution's request that the jury also consider charges of third-degree felony murder—on the grounds that Zimmerman's violent confrontation with an unarmed teenager was an act of child abuse. UPDATE: The third-degree felony murder charges have now been ruled out.

Is It Time to Give Up on CNN?

Sid Bedingfield · 07/10/13 08:00AM

For several days now, CNN’s extensive coverage of the George Zimmerman trial has shouldered aside the more important Egypt story on the network’s U.S. channel.

Cord Jefferson · 06/26/13 02:33PM

Rachel Jeantel, the girl Trayvon Martin had been speaking to on the phone immediately before George Zimmerman killed him, told a court this afternoon that Martin had grown worried when someone began following him. He described the person as a "creepy-ass cracker."

Don't Cry For George Zimmerman, Who Got Screwed By a Security Firm That is Now Suing Him

Jordan Sargent · 12/28/12 12:13AM

George Zimmerman — who you may remember as the man who accosted and then shot a teen named Trayvon Martin for the crime of being black and wearing a hoodie — is in a bad place as the calendar slides towards 2013. Well, you knew that, but here's just one example of the pit that Zimmerman is currently in: he's being sued by a security firm that says he owes them $27,027 for services rendered. The response from Zimmerman and his attorney?

First Photo of Trayvon Martin's Hoodie Released with Other Evidence

Max Read · 07/12/12 11:16AM

Above, on the right, you can see the hoodie that Trayvon Martin was wearing the night he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. On the left his his shirt, on which a bloodstain is clearly visible. Prosecutors released the photographs today along with documents detailing the Sanford police response to Martin's death; among them include a statement from lead investigator Christopher Serino holding that Zimmerman "profiled the unarmed teen because he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, not because he was black." [WTSP]