from SLATE: >The slow trickle of new info on the Trayvon Martin murder case turned into a >flood Thursday afternoon when Florida prosecutors turned over a mountain of >court documents, videos and photographs to media outlets large and small.
>>There are 67 CDs worth of evidence, including photos from the scene, so it >>will probably take some time for reporters to finish sorting through it all. >>But in the meantime, here are the early takeaways that will likely have >>people talking. 1) "Avoidable" - Local police believed that the encounter between George Zimmerman and Martin could have been avoided if the 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer would have heeded the 911 dispatcher's advice and stayed put, or simply identified himself to Martin at the outset. NPR flags the section in question: "The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog in an effort to dispel each party's concern," the investigators wrote. ... 2) Drugs - Medical examiners discovered that Martin had drugs in his system at the time of the shooting. From ABC News: "The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin's blood and urine." ... [I've never heard of marijuana making people more aggressive. Quite the contrary.] 3) Crime-scene photo - The trove of evidence includes a photo of Zimmerman with a bloody nose on the night that Martin was shot and killed. A report from emergency personnel also said that the 28-year-old had a 1-inch laceration on his head, along with an abrasion on his forehead. From the Associated Press: "'Bleeding tenderness to his nose, and a small laceration to the back of his head. All injuries have minor bleeding,' paramedic Michael Brandy wrote about Zimmerman’s injuries in the report." 4) What Martin had on him - From the Associated Press: "A police report says Martin had $40.15, Skittles candy, a red lighter, headphones and a photo pin [?] in his pocket. He had been shot once in the chest and was pronounced dead at the scene." ... 5) What's missing - The Miami Herald: "[I]ncluded are cell phone records for Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, and the girl Trayvon chatted with in the moments before his death. ... Not included: [Zimmerman's] three statements to police or the video-taped reenactment he did for detectives the day after he killed Trayvon. Under Florida law, confessions are exempt from public records laws." ... The documents were released as part of the discovery process, during which the state is required to turn over their evidence to the defense. They did that earlier in the week (which may account for at least some of the earlier leaks) and then on Thursday gave the media access through a secure online site.<< -- Jim Devine / "When truth is nothing but the truth, it's unnatural, it's an abstraction that resembles nothing in the real world. In nature there are always so many other irrelevant things mixed up with the essential truth." -- Aldous Huxley _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
