Thoughts on the shooting of Trayvon Martin

I’m writing this almost 2 years after the event happened, and about six months after the trial. Now that things have finally cooled down, I’d like to write my thoughts on the matter so they are just not lost in the noise. My view on this is simple…Zimmerman is completely innocent. It was not a hate crime. The people upset he walked away are a fantastic example of why democracy is such a horrible idea.

So, let me expand on that and look at what actually happened. A half-white Hispanic man killed a black teen at night, while he saw someone he saw as suspicious after the neighborhood had had a string of robberies. There were no witnesses, so we have to take the evidence we have available including Zimmerman’s statement, 911 calls, character references and whatever else may help. Zimmerman’s story was that he acted in self defense, which is something that the courts found to be consistent with evidence.

That’s pretty much why he walked. We won’t ever truly know what happened and if he is innocent or not. But in the American justice system, you have to prove a crime was committed beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a very good reason for that and a lot of history leading up to that principle being a cornerstone of the justice system. Sadly, it is something most Americans and even most of the world don’t understand.

Zimmerman walked because the evidence was consistent with his account of what happened, and because murder could not be proved. That’s it. That’s a good thing because it means the justice system is working as it was intended to. Is it a shame Trayvon Martin died? Undoubtedly. It’s very sad and the case brought a lot of attention, hopefully things will improve because of it and his death was not for anything.

But just because it was a tragic death does not mean someone should necessarily pay for it, and certainly not someone who *may* have been guilty of murder but we can’t prove. That equates to putting an innocent man in jail to satisfy the emotions of everyone affected by Trayvon Martin’s death, and I personally think that is far, far worse than the killing of Trayvon Martin. For those reasons, I’m glad Zimmerman got off and I’m glad the mob didn’t get their say.