The Trayvon Martin case: What planet is Glenn Garvin living on, anyway?
If you, like me, watch news broadcasts, read newsmagazines and/or newspapers or surf the Web for up-to-date reporting and different viewpoints on the issues of the day, you probably have noticed that everyone has an opinion on those issues, especially "hot button" stories such as the Trayvon Martin tragedy which took place in February of 2012.
Trayvon Martin, as you may well be aware (unless you have been stranded on a desert island with no links to the outside world), was a 17-year-old Miami-Dade County resident who, while on a 10-day suspension from his high school, was spending some "away from all the bad influences" time with his father in Sanford (a small town near Orlando), where the elder Martin's girlfriend owns a house in a gated community.
Though the details are still murky and under investigation by several law enforcement agencies, Trayvon Martin left that house during a basketball game and walked several blocks to a nearby convenience store to buy a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. It was a bit rainy that day (February 26), so Trayvon put on a hoodie to protect himself from the elements.
While I do not claim to know all the details, this is what I do know:
On his way back to his father's girlfriend's home, Trayvon was walking slowly through the gated community and talking to his girlfriend on a cell phone. He wasn't aware at first that his appearance (a young black male wearing a hoodie) and his actions (walking at a leisurely pace) had caught the attention of 28-year-old volunteer community watch member George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman, apparently, was driving around on his SUV on "patrol" when he spotted Trayvon. There had been a spate of burglaries in the gated community, and Zimmerman was determined to spot any possible burglar and catch him (or her) before any more break ins occurred.
Zimmerman, who has a keen interest on becoming a law-enforcement agent, called 911 and reported that he had sighted a suspicious individual. He also told the dispatcher that he was going to follow the suspect. The 911 dispatcher told him not to, but Zimmerman ignored him and followed Trayvon.
What happened next is still not exactly known, but we do know that:
1. Trayvon noticed he was being followed by a man on a SUV.
2. Zimmerman drove up to Trayvon and apparently confronted him.
3. The confrontation got heated and someone (could have been Trayvon, could have been Zimmerman) got angry and started a physical altercation. Blows were exchanged. Someone, more than likely Trayvon (according to outside experts who have analyzed the existing recordings), screamed for help several times.
4. The scuffle ended when Zimmerman, allegedly struck severely by Trayvon, pulled a gun from its holster and shot the teen, killing him instantly.
5. Zimmerman is temporarily in custody and interrogated by Sanford police. He is released and not charged because Zimmerman has injuries of a "defensive nature" and claims self defense as allowed by Florida's Stand Your Ground law.
I do not pretend to know all the facts in this case, but I'd like to make a few relevant observations about the senseless death of Trayvon Martin and some of the reactions (or overreactions) that I have noticed in the media.
First, I think George Zimmerman should be arrested and charged at least with manslaughter. Personally, I'd prefer murder charges (second degree), based on the fact that Zimmerman was following Trayvon in his SUV and treating him like a criminal suspect based on his choice of clothing (a hoodie), his race (black) and his age (teenager). I don't think Zimmerman was acting primarily on race alone, but I also don't buy the story line that his family is putting out, i.e. that George is half-Latin himself and therefore is not a hard core racist. (I'm Hispanic and can readily attest that many Latins who consider themselves to be "white" are racists.)
Second, I think that Zimmerman acted stupidly. I can't stress this enough: if he called Sanford 911 and told them that there was a suspicious male walking around the condo where he lives and was asked by the dispatcher to not follow Trayvon, he should have stopped his tracking of the boy and let police handle the situation. He chose not to do this. Now a 17-year-old boy is dead.
Third, I think that some of the commentary out there regarding the case is most unhelpful. I don't care if it's liberals like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson (both showboaters who have a tendency to hurl racially-charged comments first and not asking relevant questions later) or conservative pundits who think that maybe Zimmerman is being unjustly vilified by the "mainstream liberal media."
The most enervating column I have read so far about the Trayvon Martin case has been Glenn Garvin's Don't rush to judgment in Trayvon Martin killing, which was posted on March 23.
Garvin is a former Latin America beat reporter for the Miami Herald, where he is now the newspaper's TV critic and one of its few conservative columnists.
Stylistically speaking, Garvin is almost as fun to read as, say, Carl Hiassen or Sports Editor emeritus Ed Pope; he's witty, uses language effectively to make his points and can even be self-deprecating at times.
That having been said, his political commentary is sometimes way too conservative for many readers; he tends to insert his political beliefs even in his TV show reviews. (For instance, he thought that Ken Burns' recent PBS documentary about national parks was essentially leftist-tinged propaganda with an exaggerated environmentalist agenda.)
Apparently, Garvin seems to be trying to connect the Trayvon Martin case with the infamous 2006 "Duke Lacrosse Team" incident, in which a black stripper falsely accused members of the Duke University lacrosse team of rape.
Now, while Garvin does point out that the Duke Lacrosse Team case was, indeed, a gross miscarriage of justice and names quite a few individuals as being incendiary and incompetent (Nancy Grace clearly deserved Garvin's fury in the column), he goes on to say:
Trayvon Martin, as you may well be aware (unless you have been stranded on a desert island with no links to the outside world), was a 17-year-old Miami-Dade County resident who, while on a 10-day suspension from his high school, was spending some "away from all the bad influences" time with his father in Sanford (a small town near Orlando), where the elder Martin's girlfriend owns a house in a gated community.
Though the details are still murky and under investigation by several law enforcement agencies, Trayvon Martin left that house during a basketball game and walked several blocks to a nearby convenience store to buy a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. It was a bit rainy that day (February 26), so Trayvon put on a hoodie to protect himself from the elements.
While I do not claim to know all the details, this is what I do know:
On his way back to his father's girlfriend's home, Trayvon was walking slowly through the gated community and talking to his girlfriend on a cell phone. He wasn't aware at first that his appearance (a young black male wearing a hoodie) and his actions (walking at a leisurely pace) had caught the attention of 28-year-old volunteer community watch member George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman, apparently, was driving around on his SUV on "patrol" when he spotted Trayvon. There had been a spate of burglaries in the gated community, and Zimmerman was determined to spot any possible burglar and catch him (or her) before any more break ins occurred.
Zimmerman, who has a keen interest on becoming a law-enforcement agent, called 911 and reported that he had sighted a suspicious individual. He also told the dispatcher that he was going to follow the suspect. The 911 dispatcher told him not to, but Zimmerman ignored him and followed Trayvon.
What happened next is still not exactly known, but we do know that:
1. Trayvon noticed he was being followed by a man on a SUV.
2. Zimmerman drove up to Trayvon and apparently confronted him.
3. The confrontation got heated and someone (could have been Trayvon, could have been Zimmerman) got angry and started a physical altercation. Blows were exchanged. Someone, more than likely Trayvon (according to outside experts who have analyzed the existing recordings), screamed for help several times.
4. The scuffle ended when Zimmerman, allegedly struck severely by Trayvon, pulled a gun from its holster and shot the teen, killing him instantly.
5. Zimmerman is temporarily in custody and interrogated by Sanford police. He is released and not charged because Zimmerman has injuries of a "defensive nature" and claims self defense as allowed by Florida's Stand Your Ground law.
I do not pretend to know all the facts in this case, but I'd like to make a few relevant observations about the senseless death of Trayvon Martin and some of the reactions (or overreactions) that I have noticed in the media.
First, I think George Zimmerman should be arrested and charged at least with manslaughter. Personally, I'd prefer murder charges (second degree), based on the fact that Zimmerman was following Trayvon in his SUV and treating him like a criminal suspect based on his choice of clothing (a hoodie), his race (black) and his age (teenager). I don't think Zimmerman was acting primarily on race alone, but I also don't buy the story line that his family is putting out, i.e. that George is half-Latin himself and therefore is not a hard core racist. (I'm Hispanic and can readily attest that many Latins who consider themselves to be "white" are racists.)
Second, I think that Zimmerman acted stupidly. I can't stress this enough: if he called Sanford 911 and told them that there was a suspicious male walking around the condo where he lives and was asked by the dispatcher to not follow Trayvon, he should have stopped his tracking of the boy and let police handle the situation. He chose not to do this. Now a 17-year-old boy is dead.
Third, I think that some of the commentary out there regarding the case is most unhelpful. I don't care if it's liberals like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson (both showboaters who have a tendency to hurl racially-charged comments first and not asking relevant questions later) or conservative pundits who think that maybe Zimmerman is being unjustly vilified by the "mainstream liberal media."
The most enervating column I have read so far about the Trayvon Martin case has been Glenn Garvin's Don't rush to judgment in Trayvon Martin killing, which was posted on March 23.
Garvin is a former Latin America beat reporter for the Miami Herald, where he is now the newspaper's TV critic and one of its few conservative columnists.
Stylistically speaking, Garvin is almost as fun to read as, say, Carl Hiassen or Sports Editor emeritus Ed Pope; he's witty, uses language effectively to make his points and can even be self-deprecating at times.
That having been said, his political commentary is sometimes way too conservative for many readers; he tends to insert his political beliefs even in his TV show reviews. (For instance, he thought that Ken Burns' recent PBS documentary about national parks was essentially leftist-tinged propaganda with an exaggerated environmentalist agenda.)
Apparently, Garvin seems to be trying to connect the Trayvon Martin case with the infamous 2006 "Duke Lacrosse Team" incident, in which a black stripper falsely accused members of the Duke University lacrosse team of rape.
Now, while Garvin does point out that the Duke Lacrosse Team case was, indeed, a gross miscarriage of justice and names quite a few individuals as being incendiary and incompetent (Nancy Grace clearly deserved Garvin's fury in the column), he goes on to say:
Six years later, we may be leading another tragic rush to accuse in the Trayvon Martin case. Race hucksters like Al Sharpton and the 28-year-old man who shot him, George Zimmerman, has already been convicted in public opinion inflamed by political quacks and hacks who see America as a seething mass of homicidal racism. "I only want one thing,” said U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., last week. “It’s real simple: I want an arrest."
Based on what? Not a single shred of evidence to surface publicly contradicts Zimmerman’s story — that he was trying to follow Martin, who confronted him, jumped him and then began banging his head on the ground. The only witness to their struggle who’s come forward supported Zimmerman’s account in a weekend interview with a Tampa TV station.
Now, to be fair, when Garvin wrote that, the recordings of the infamous scuffle had not yet been analyzed by outside experts, and there is still much that remains murky here. But lots of facts, such as the tidbit that Trayvon was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone and that he told her he was being followed, have come out since, and Garvin has not written a follow-up column to revisit his opinion.
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© 2012 Alex Diaz-Granados.
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