Quote:
Originally Posted by jms62
Exactly what should have been done. Zimmerman was looking for a conforntation and this is why the Fla law is so ****ed up. You can provoke someone and then kill them and with no witness easily get away with it. Zimmermans past arrest speaks alot to his character to me. He appears to be a tough guy looking for a fight.
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I think that is a serious problem with that law. As you said, I think you could conceivably provoke someone and then kill them and get away with it, if there were no witnesses. That could happen.
I don't think that is really what happened in this case, at least not intentionally. I don't think Zimmerman planned on killing the guy. I think he just wanted to be able to tell the police where the suspect was when they arrived.
I was reading about a case down there several years ago where a guy and his neighbor got into a dispute over garbage cans. The neighbor ended up shooting this guy twice. The guy survived even though he got shot twice in the stomach. The neighbor was an ex-cop and he was never charged. To me that case was much worse (worse in terms of arguing self-defense) than the Zimmerman case because there was no physical altercation. The guy was approaching his neighbor, but I think he was still a good 15 feet away when he got shot. I think the neighbor (the ex-cop) knew the law and basically provoked the guy on purpose.