re: #36 talon_262

Strictly a hypothesis here, but dig this:

Zimmerman gets out of his vehicle to “check the street signs” (in other words, to chase down and confront Martin), gets into some sort of scuffle with Martin, and winds up on top of Martin, with Martin face down, in an attempt to restrain him. Zimmerman, for whatever reason, had his gun out while on top of Martin in an attempt to command compliance and, because of nerves or getting bumped or whatever, ends up shooting Martin point-blank in the back.

That would go a long way to explain a lot of things: why the ME’s report hasn’t been released, why the state attorney themselves met straight away that night with Chief Lee and the lead homicide detective and determined that no charges would be filed (at the time), and a bunch of other hinkey shit that’s gone on since.

Anyone else got anything better? The more I look at this and what’s been trickling out, the more the whole thing stinks to high heaven.

I ran much the same scenario through my head, though I’m not sure it was accidental discharge. I think it more likely that Zimmerman had Martin pinned, causing the boy to cry out for help. Zimmerman panicked, perhaps out of fear that somebody would hear the cries and intervene in Martin’s favor, and shot him. I’ve heard of similar scenarios in other cases, particularly in kidnappings, where the fear that a child crying out would bring down retribution that the kidnapped killed the child to “silence” them.