Dialogue alone, as suggested by many pundits and commentators including the first American black President and the first black Attorney-General, will not and cannot prevent the Trayvon Martin tragedies from occurring again especially in states where the stand-your-ground Laws, a replica of the Florida statute is already a “fait accompli”. I can tell you that minorities in those states have become endangered species in the hands of legal owners of concealed and deadly weapons who can first shoot to kill and then ask questions later.
Dialogue alone, as suggested by many pundits and commentators including the first American black President and the first black Attorney-General, will not and cannot prevent the Trayvon Martin tragedies from occurring again especially in states where the stand-your-ground Laws, a replica of the Florida statute is already a “fait accompli”. I can tell you that minorities in those states have become endangered species in the hands of legal owners of concealed and deadly weapons who can first shoot to kill and then ask questions later.
For such gun owners the obnoxious Law encourages them to not retreat if they can, but remain the bully and stand their ground and fight back even if their confrontation or lack of respect for human life could mean instant death to the person or persons they perceive as putting their lives in imminent danger or serious bodily harm just like George Zimmerman had thought of Trayvon Martin who also had as much right as Mr. Zimmerman to stand his ground against a bully or an intruder who just decided to take the Laws into his own hands because he knew he had a gun he could effectively use to once and for all silence Trayvon Martin as I pointed out in my first article..
Zimmerman has had cause to describe Trayvon to the 911 dispatcher as a “suspect and a punk” who was up to no good. He, Zimmerman, had criminally profiled the innocent and defenseless Trayvon whose only crime was just minding his own business talking over his cell phone and trying to get back home. Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin dead thru his heart and would not even consider a retreat or less intrusive options open to him as he made that fatal decision because he said his head was about to explode due to the beatings he was getting from Travon. I would submit that Zimmerman probably did not even bother to throw a punch in defense of himself because he knew he had a deadly weapon in his back pocket he was going to use to end the confrontation. He could easily have shot Trayvon anywhere else but the heart in the fracas that ensued. He did not shoot the boy on his foot or leg because in his own convoluted deposition which has now been upheld by the jurors, he knew the stand-your-ground Law in Florida has provided him sufficient cover to not just maim or wound Trayvon Martin but to shoot him dead and to claim self-defense to walk away free.
If such Laws were to be passed in any of the third world countries, America would be among the first countries to rush to judgment to condemn such Laws as barbaric but because the Law is now in the statute book in no less than 22 states with many more getting ready to copy or adopt the same Laws, the rest of the world is supposed to shout “Ranka Dede” "Long Live America" to the greatest country on Earth and the self-appointed Leader of the Free world where it is easier to buy a gun than a tin of milk in many of the urban or rural areas in America. The last time I checked there were more than 300 million guns circulating in America and the majority of them are bought without any background checks in pawn shops and Flea Market and Yard sales across America but more so in the South. Gun violence today has reached indefensible levels in America that many of us who still relish America as God's own country have to know we are not telling the truth.
Those guns pose a huge threat and will continue so to victimize and terrorize minorities and colored people all over America. I am not talking here about Law Enforcement agents, Police and Security personnel who need to carry such weapons for the purpose of carrying out their duties. I am not talking about cops who have had occasions to use their guns too quickly killing unarmed and innocent minorities like Ahmadu Diallo and so many victims who have been criminally or racially profiled by Police for being at the wrong place at the wrong time or just making a wrong move.
I can speak to this observation as a father, of a 29 year old, who once received a telephone call from a Police Precinct on Mott Avenue in Queens close to where I live. I picked up the phone to hear the police officer asking me if I was the father of “Muyiwa Adesina.” The only thing I could think in response before saying “yes” was to ask the officer “Is Muyiwa alright” but what I actually wanted to say was to ask if my son was dead or alive? Those of you who have never received such emergency Police calls can never imagine how the parents of Trayvon may have felt on getting the call from the Police that their son had been shot dead.
Most people will tell you they know how you feel but no, they don’t is the plain truth. Unless you have actually experienced what they went through or something similar, you are in no position to say you know how they feel. In the case of my son, the police office informed me Muyiwa was in their station. I then asked for what? The officer informed me Muyiwa driving a Mitzubishi sport car had taken the Police on a high speed chase for more than 32 blocks on the streets of New York before they finally caught up with him and got him arrested. You can well imagine how scared I was that the worse might have happened to my son. I was just lucky that day and my boy was lucky because the Police could easily have shot him, no questions asked and they would have gotten away with it. This story depicts the horrors that many parents black and white have to endure in this country. My response to the incident was to seriously counsel Muyiwa about the risk he was taking and how that risk impacts me as a father. I did not stop there. I went and bought for him a CD by country music idol, Brad Paisely titled "High Speed Chase- Catch me, if you can, Mr. Police man" I urge him to play the track as a constant reminder to why he must never again dare the Police on such a dangerous adventure and the move appeared to have worked.
I am recalling this story because if the Police had not exercised some restraint in drawing their gun, my son could easily have lost his life just like that. The stand-your-ground law in Florida does not appear to me to encourage or recommend such restraint or retreat on the part of somebody carrying a deadly weapon like the one Mr. Zimmerman was carrying when he confronted Trayvon Martin. The Law needs to be repealed or amended in defrence to public opinion and the ill feelings generated across the country by the Trayvon murder and Mr. Zimmerman's acquittal even though many including the jurors themselves agreed that he, Mr. Zimmerman was far from innocent.
I cannot help but agree with Attorney-General Eric Holder when he described the stand-your- ground Law in Florida as an overkill which is trying to fix a system that is not broken. The self- defense Law on the Statute book in all of the 50 states was sufficient to prevent or minimize the kind of tragedies we have now witnessed in the murder of Trayvon Martin. The Stand-your-ground Law in Florida and other states across the country is a bad Law and a very controversial one. It either has to be repealed or be substantially modified to reflect common sense and sufficient restraint to prevent future outrage and tragedies and the miscarriage of justice that a rigid interpretation of it as implied in the Judge’s instruction to the 6 jurors has unleashed on the nation. It is a worse violation of civil rights in the country as pointed out by Rev. Al Sharpton and many commentators on the tragedy.
America as described by Eric Holder is changing for the better in so many ways on civil right issues in general. The first black President and the first black Attorney-General are incontrovertible proofs of that. But the country still has a long way to go. Part of that long journey includes getting rid of Laws like the stand-your-ground Laws which presume you are up to no good or out to do harm just because of your skin color. That is a dangerous conclusion to draw in a multi-racial society that America has become. Stevie Wonder the blind mega superstar music idol was exactly right to have drawn the same conclusion. I cannot agree more with him. The Laws are made for men and not the other way round. I see a compelling reason to include a review of this Law all over America as part of the dialogue on race and racial discrimination in this country.
The last point I wish to comment upon before I end this piece is the presumption in some quarters that sequestration of Jurors always mean that the jurors are not influenced by any information or any dialogue or analysis going on in the country about the Zimmerman trial close to a year before Jury selection. I can tell from listening to Juror B37 that she already formed her own opinions on the case before she was picked. Part of the defects of the juror system in America as I see it is the assumption or the presumption that jurors are not influenced and should not be influenced by their prejudices and bias as the Judge Debra Nelson emphasized in her instructions, and as Defense Attorney Mark O’Mara took pains to explain to the jurors in his elaborate and professorial style without the Prosecution raising any objection.
I thought the case was won or lost with the picking of all-white jurors, 5 of them white and the sixth one being Black or Hispanic. The composition of the jurors should have reflected the value system of the mixed population in the neighborhood and the two individuals in the trial. Jurors are human beings like the rest of us and to pretend that they are something different or more is disingenuous. It needed not be all married women and mothers. The Judge’s admonition to the jurors they have to come up with a unanimous verdict is another bone of contention for me.
That admonition could easily have been misconstrued or misunderstood by the 2 jurors who initially settled for second degree murder and the one who settled for manslaughter. I also believed that fatigue had already set in and the jurors who had all been kept away from their families for so long were just about ready to throw in the towel and go home at that point in time. Their tolerance level for a hung jury at that material time was very low and understandably so since the judge had pressured them to return a unanimous verdict by all means.
I see a compelling reason for me to apologize now to some of the fans of this column that my calling the criminal justice in America the best in the world in my first article is a little bit of a stretch or hyperbole given the limitations I have just admitted in this write-up. The American system I will admit is unique but not flawless or perfect as I may have suggested or insinuated in my first article.
I think I now have a better understanding of why the Police dragged his feet in getting Zimmerman arrested and charged soon after the shooting. They were more retrained in that move arguably because of their understanding of the full implications and ramifications of the obnoxious stand-your-ground Law in Florida and not so much because of racial prejudice.
That position in my judgment seemed to have influenced or colored their predisposition to side more with the Defense than they did with the Prosecution during the whole trial. In retrospect I think the Chief of Police who was forced to resign under pressure was pleased that the jurors had returned a “not guilty” verdict meaning the case should first of all have gone to a Grand Jury than a full blown trial. The decision not to arrest or charge Zimmerman should have not have been left to the Police alone because they cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time.
How I wish I could still go back to study Law at my age! My fear is that I may not have enough time to practice it. I will just leave that to my children and grand kids.
I rest my case.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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