I’m sure quite often the “suspicious” activity has good explanation. I’ve been on the wrong end of that more than once….I bought a vacant house and when I moved in, the cops got called because the neighbors didn’t expect people to be there. When I was a kid I forgot my house keys once, and hopped the fence. Cops got called. It happens. I would have been much happier if a neighbor had come to speak to me instead of calling the police. I probably would not have punched them.

Neighborhood Watch programs (and specfically in Sandford, FL) say that it is the job of the watchers to “be the eyes and ears of the police. so they can follow up on your leads. What you will not do is get physically involved with any activity you report or apprehension of any suspicious persons. This is the job of the law enforcement agency.”

While Martin may certainly have some responsibility for what happened, so did Zimmerman…

How do we know what Martin was doing? Since when is it a crime to walk your neighborhood? I walk my neighborhood all the time, hell, I walk other neighborhoods. Maybe Zimmerman was afraid that “they all get away.”

Much is made of Zimmerman’s impudence in getting out of his vehicle. First is said that had stayed in his vehicle, Martin would not have been killed. But that is sophistry as Martin was not going home, a 10 minute trip, he was taking 40 minutes to do something else. And we can back up causation to Zimmerman’s mother saying OK to his father – the same for Martin. The Son-of-Sam used to just shoot into cars. Martin could have done that to Zimmerman had Martin been armed.

Implicit in the complaint against Zimmerman is that he should have known black males to be exceedingly dangerous. Martin had some aggression that had to be released that night. That aggression lead to his being shot, and it was his misfortune that the shot was fatal. Most shots are not.