It has happened yes, but it didn't happen here objectively speaking. We are completely basing his justification on whether he percieved a credible threat of death or severe injury. It's possible, but it's not the only scenario that doesn't include race hatred. Read on.
There have been cases of accident victims refusing medical treatment at the scene of an accident only to die later of undiagnosed injuries.
True, but it's not what happened here. His wounds were minor.
There's alot of energy behind explaining his actions in terms of fear, what he thought could have happened. I don't think that was the main operant at work here.
We've looked at Trayvon's background so it's only fair we mention a little bit of Zimmerman's. Alleged domestive abuse, restraining order, anger management classes,
resisting arrest with violence, described as "overly aggressive" when he worked as a security guard "like Jekyll and Hyde". He's a guy who really wants to learn how to fight, but snaps too easily. But thankfully all those personality traits were completely inactive by the time he met up with Trayvon right?
Ok.
To me, this indicates that this event wasn't motivated by racism or fear of imminent death but by anger. Whenever you get hit in the face most guys want to hit back harder, happens all the time (and they usually don't die after one hit). Then you have the guys out there who just take it to another level altogether. They tend to have a short fuse to begin with. You know the kind, he's a spaz when he gets angry and it's unlikely he's going to be able to think clearly about the situation once he gets into it.
I find George being highly anger prone a little more believable for a guy going out on his own on a dark rainy night following some suspicious kid all the way home from a convenience store ("they always get away!") who could have been armed for all he knew. What he might not have planned on is finding a younger man with a hotter temper who hits harder than he does. He gets a surprise punch in the face, goes down, kid gets on top and knocks him around a bit while stunned (maybe he throws some punches but the kid dodges) but as he comes back to his senses he goes for the gun because for a split second he's like "**** you kid" and does it. Trayvon didn't have to have him pinned on the ground to be above him, he could have been backing off him too.
But we'll never know.
Thanks to there being no one around who had a clear view on all the action, we aren't in a position to really prove what happened that night outside of Trayvon being followed, George getting ruffed up and Trayvon getting shot. There's alot of blanks to start and not a boatload of evidence.
Then we get to George's account which had me scratching my head in a few places. Then you get to the trial and I gotta tell you, the Defense just did an amazing job. The Prosecution on the other hand looked like they just assumed it was a done deal. In the end they were left chasing the only well defined theory of what happened that night (the defense's version) and embarrassingly enough for them, backed down from their initial assertion that Zimmerman was on top.
Overall though, this guy doesn't come off to me as easily cowed or fearful. On the contrary he's quite fearless. Unfortunately, it's coupled with thoughtless too. He's doesn't come across as a guy who's going to think about the worst case scenario primarily because
he has a documented history of acting on anger regardless of the obvious and direct consequences.
On the positive side it also enables him to do courageous things like this:
https://www.policeone.com/vehicle-incidents/articles/6335838-Zimmerman-saves-4-from-car-accident/
I don't think it's a stretch to say that this man always wanted to be a hero. Particularly tragic for him is the same fearless aspect that eats danger for breakfast (and lots of pancakes too no doubt) fueled the wrong instinct that day in February.
The law can't resolve every single aspect of this case nor do I expect it to. If anything I want to try to give people who might not feel 100% right about Zimmerman's story a version that doesn't include the need to bring up race.
