To use the word Trayvon Martin’s female friend said he called the man who would take his life, there’s something downright “creepy” about this George Zimmerman trial.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a trial where the police officers involved in the investigation appear to side with the defendant. The lead investigator “understood” Zimmerman’s inconsistencies: Trayvon jumps from a bush to attack him even though there’re no bushes in that complex. Zimmerman didn’t follow Trayvon; he was merely walking in the same direction, this after a dispatcher told him to keep his funky ass in his truck. The prosecutor asks the cop who first interviewed Zimmerman whether the defendant gave any indication that he hated Trayvon. No, she said. Hey, Zimmy’s a standup guy, the officers more than intimated and often. He was polite, religious. They certainly believed his story. They were ostensibly witnesses for the prosecution but were actually character witnesses for Zimmerman.
Keep in mind that these are the same folks from the same Sanford, Fla., police department that didn’t charge Zimmerman for close to two months; he was charged with murder only after the state took over the investigation, after a huge public outcry. The first officer to arrive on the scene of the shooting that awful night put the cuffs on Zimmerman but only momentarily for the officer’s own protection. We see video of Zimmerman strolling un-cuffed through the police station. The investigators’ “grilling” of him was reminiscent of Fox News-er grilling a right-winger.
The attempts to trip him up were unusually mild, especially for authorities investigating a murder. Of an unarmed kid. So you didn’t know the name of the street and there’re only three streets, they asked. That’s right, Zimmerman said. Okey-dokey. It was the same thing when they took him out to the scene of the shooting. (Or did he take them? It was hard to tell who was in charge.) They may have asked him to repeat something, or to make a point clearer, but you wouldn’t have confused these folks with “Olivia” on “Law and Order” or “Frank” on “Homicide.” I see why the state took over. Hey, maybe that act prompted these officers to turn on the prosecution. That’s what a panel of lawyers on Anderson Cooper said last night. They called it “payback” But the two panelists speaking for the defense—-including Mark Geragos, who once represented Scott Peterson among other luminaries—- called defense lawyer Mark O’Mara brilliant and ballsy for getting the cops to testify for their man too.
There’s a basic rule of trial lawyers: You don’t ask questions you don’t know the answers to already. So I don’t know how brilliant or ballsy it is when you already know the answer.
I’ll be the first to say it. I smell collusion between the Sanford police officers and Zimmerman’s lawyers. I’m not talking about anything subtle here—a wink, a tacit understanding. I’m smelling meetings at a Sanford Holiday Inn or Motel 6, where the defense has prepped these imposters for what they were to say.
Yes, young lady. “Creepy,” indeed. And dangerous.
This has all the makings of those old Southern race trials when you already knew that the sociopath would be set free in spite of his heinous crime. I say shut down this sham of a proceeding and bring the feds in.
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