This incident – a boy killed for the crime of possessing an innocuous object – in this case a bag of Skittles – and which I am observing from the very safe distance of both geography and white privilege – makes me want to stuff cotton in my ears. I am – dare I say – at a loss for words….I suppose it speaks to the very definition of incomprehensible oppression … I can’t make the words. How do people go on living under this kind of thing? My only defense is slogging through material facts.
Although the Florida cops are likely shitty, their hands are somewhat tied by a charming law that Florida adopted 7 years ago called “Stand Your Ground” – aka “Shoot First”. As stupid sounding as “The Castle Doctrine” or “MAKE MY DAY”, STAND YOUR GROUND (SYG) is worse, perhaps the worst law in the history of Florida – swampy home to some pretty terrible laws. SYG is a stupendous example of how a bad legislative solution in search of a nonexistent problem has created almost incomprehensible tragedy. How poorly written is this law? It could be: Trayvon with a bag of candy – in a black hand. Zimmerman with a gun. In that “battle,” candy always loses. Here is an example of how SYG works:
The Jets and The Sharks agree to meet under the highway for a rumble. Tony, Riff, Bernardo,Big Deal, Chino, Moose, Baby John, they all show up for the fight. Riff and Bernardo are stabbed to death. When Officer Krupke shows up, he tells them that only the ones that have not gotten killed are found legally immune from prosecution. It doesn’t matter that they all came to fight. There is no duty to retreat and no rule to not escalate and no rule about not being the aggressor. It’s really the wild west. There was a case in Leon County in 2008 where these kids in a gang ended up in a shootout with each other. The ones who didn’t die in the gunfight were legally found to be immune from prosecution under SYG. In the decision the trial court judge said:
“Umm the law would appear to allow a person to seek out an individual, provoke him into a confrontation, then shoot and kill him if he goes for his gun.”
FYI: the statute uses a subjective standard so “goes for his gun” could also be “moves his hand to where I assume he has a gun because he’s black”.
If Trayvon Martin called Zimmerman a creep, or took a swing at him (if some totally creepy dude with or without a Glock was following me with his car, then jumped out to chase me down, I’d try to kick his ass), then Zimmerman could legally shoot him. The law doesn’t use an objective standard of reasonableness. It’s subjective. If he “believes” that he was in danger then he can use deadly force. Which leads to a delightful bit of circular logic where if you reasonably believe you are in danger then you can shoot. And if you shot then you must have reasonably thought you were in danger. And we have to sort of take the shooter at his “word”.
Most states follow a longstanding English legal notion that the justifiable use of deadly force first entails a ‘duty to retreat’, some with an exception to the retreat duty called the “castle doctrine.” Seems like it should be sufficient legal protection for those citizens who have used deadly force in self defense. But not for the NRA, who had this on their agenda for years, but needed a state stupid enough to try it out. That’s where “Florida” comes in, with 19 other crappy states following suit. Poor confused, Talking Heads loving Charlie Christ asked for a special session to repeal the law a few years ago, before his party decided to take the exit off the freeway of sanity and logic. I’ve heard news sources talking about how if the criminal courts don’t give the family justice they can still go to civil court. WRONG. Florida’s added bonus is that if Zimmerman is found immune under SYG, he is also legally barred from any civil penalties from a wrongful death suit. AND, if Martin’s family tries to bring a civil suit and it gets dismissed because of this immunity then they have to pay Zimmerman’s attorney fees. It’s a madhouse. The great brain-trust of Florida is letting any private citizen use deadly force in circumstances that in a regular state would send a trained police officer to jail.
“Through time, in this country, what I like to call bleeding heart criminal coddlers want you to give a criminal an even break, so that when you’re attacked, you’re supposed to turn around and run, rather than standing your ground and protecting yourself and your family and your property.” Marion Hammer, NRA Board Member, in support of Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law.
Although this horror will be shoveled into the NRA statistics as a “Self Defense” use of a gun, you won’t be hearing the usual “if only that black teen was armed” bullshit they retort to any time there is a gun tragedy. Nay, it’s only white folks that have Second Amendment rights. Ronald Reagan was all about citizens arming themselves until Black Panthers starting walking around the state capitol with shotguns.
I just realized I can commit the perfect murder of my enemy. No alibi needed, no criss-cross, no nothing. I just need to to lure my enemy to Florida with invitation or prize trip. Meet him on a dark street. Dial 911 and scream like a loon into the phone that some one is attacking me with a knife. Pull a Glock from behind my ear and bang bang. Put a knife in his cold dead hand. Rumple my hair, scuff cheeks with dirt. Wait for police to let me go home because I was just defending myself. Enemy eliminated. No investigation, and if there is any scuttlebutt, I certainly get a pass for being white!
I assume that if a black/brown/sallow man stalked and gunned down a white tyke walking home with a bag of candy, that no “stand your ground law” would apply. It’s really just a post-reconstruction white vigilante law, the only way this whole scenario could read more like KKK apologia is if a white woman’s honor being besmirched. Conservative leadership does a great job of twisting racial/religious bigotry into political capital, playing the fears of today’s “White America” for profit – the post 9-11 “Call to Arms”, mushing politics and racial/religious bigotry to cover for policies that American citizens would never allow otherwise. This whole shebang dispels any argument that the equation “states rights” = racism is not 100% accurate and, why Ron and “Rand” Paul are flaming racist douchenozzles.
This, along with every stupid hayseed state adopting looser and looser concealed gun laws, is really what will bring our society to a screeching halt. If we all think everyone is armed and even a few bozos take the Bush Doctrine as their personal philosophy, we’ll be living the kind of crap we used to laugh about, write snarky blog posts and tweets about, or make low budget dystopian road movies about. Amphibious Transport Docks and Type 56 Assault Rifles for everyone. Yeeeee Haw!
Hopefully now that it’s in the hands of the FBI, whose political bosses aren’t in the pocket of the NRA, civil rights violation charges can be brought against Zimmerman (the same method that was, ultimately, used to nab the murderers of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in Mississippi in 1964). And if in the course of the prosecution, SYG gets overturned by a higher court then some small measure of justice can be done for this family.
Hey I wonder if a woman, of whatever color, who had been harassed by a fella in a bar or at a party, could get away with blowing him away, even if she felt genuinely threatened by a hulking man following her to her car, maybe grabbing her arm…no, you know, she would never get away with it, because, ya know, she was at a bar or a party, wearing a skirt, or she talked to the guy, ya know, leading him on….
