Via Dan Riehl at Breitbart:
Here’s what MSNBC staff and NBC News published.
“This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black,” Zimmerman told a police dispatcher from his car. His father has said that Zimmerman is Hispanic, grew up in a multiracial family, and is not racist.
The quote gives the impression Zimmerman was somehow equating the fact that Martin was black with his looking suspicious, or “up to no good.” Here is what MSNBC/NBC News left out thanks to a convenient ellipsis.
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he’s up to no good, [begin ellipsis] or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.
911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic? [end ellipsis]
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
The ellipses change the entire meaning of the exchange and why Zimmerman thought the man he was might be “up to no good.”
That MSNBC story went up a with the mangled quote few hours ago. Since that time, they have changed it without mentioning the edit. It now reads:
“This guy looks like he’s up to no good,” Zimmerman said in a 911 call. Asked by a dispatcher if he was white, Hispanic or black, he replied, “He looks black.” Zimmerman’s father has said that his son is Hispanic, grew up in a multiracial family, and is not racist.
That second sentence is accurate, and extremely important. It isn’t Zimmerman who brings up race, it’s the dispatcher, and there is no ill intent involved. The dispatcher is simply asking an informational question, which may be part of a script or checklist. The original MSNBC story was a classic case of mainstream media Dowdification.
What about the biased use of photos?
I had no idea, until I read VDH, that Martin is 6’2″. I still have no idea how tall Zimmerman is, but I’ll bet he’s a lot shorter than Martin.
In the Crown Heights disaster, the media was screaming ‘Black killed by a Jew” and made it sound like a murder. Actually, a Black man was ACCIDENTALLY killed when he was hit by an auto driven by someone who was Jewish. It was an auto accident and someone was accidentally killed — not murdered. But you wouldn’t know the facts because of the racist flames fanned by the media.
And, yes, in Crown Heights an Hasidic Jew was targeted and murdered by a Black (or Blacks). I hope Zimmerman remains safe and is able to receive a fair trial.
In fairness to MSNBC, if they had originally included the dispatcher’s question, it wouldn’t have made Zimmerman sound like a racist. Talk about not fitting the narrative.
If Mr. Martin wasn’t on drugs at the time, then I think it is very reasonable to speculate that he was bummed out from having been suspended again and was just walking about in the rain to walk and think, and talk to his girlfriend. That also means him throwing a first punch is also within the realm of the reasonable, in the sense that frustrated and tired of “everybody” ganging up on him, he started acting on those frustrations. And that when the time came to stop slamming Mr. Ziimmerman’s head into the ground, he didn’t.
PS: This doesn’t mean it happened this way. We will never know for exact certainty. But it is reasonable. And if Zimmerman in fact initiated verbal contact, I’d like to add that going up to someone and asking what they are doing is not a crime that I am aware of. Of course, if it was, I’d be more than delighted to see most reporters arrested. But I don’t think it is in fact a crime, or a tort. So I don’t think people are going to get Mr. Zimmerman on too terribly much. But that’s just me.
I wonder how Racist Dem Party Central would’ve changed this one around?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46885491/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.T3G0kWGP_NU
Bryan – MSNBC, along with the rest of the LSM has a bad case of, all the news that fits our views …
– Morn Joe. Everyone on that panel has something they wouldn’t want to be cross-examined about. Now switch between Imus on Fox and CNBC.
II think the lie that got this thing going was when martin’s parents said that they had listened to the 911 tapes they said that the dispatcher told him not chase after martin he kept going and that if he had stopped their son would still be alive. Some argued that he didn’t have to obey the dispatcher. The truth is that he did stop chasing martin. You can tell that from the tape. lt was martin who confronted zimmerman and then attacked him. Had martin not confronted and then attacked zimmerman he would still be alive.
Hmmm…walking and thinking in the rain made me think of King Lear a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1M2GukPthU
Bryan – Drudge has this report from ABC News which has Zimmerman in a police surveillance camera at the police station. Oddly, As ABC News note, there is no blood on Zimmerman. Do you think you could check this out and get back to us on it? Thanks. Here’s the link: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/trayvon-martin-case-exclusive-surveillance-video-george-zimmerman/story?id=16022897
There is a copy of the police report out, with the names of the witnesses redacted. According to the police report, Zimmerman was taken to the police station AFTER Sanford Fire Department (SFD in the report) rendered first aid and cleared him. That would, to me, explain why he wasn’t still bloody from the fight. Wouldn’t an ambulance have the necessary tools to stitch someone up on scene?
Link to the report: http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/86948628
Helen of Troy – Thank you very much for the link. If Zimmerman was cleaned up SPD, that of course would explain the lack of blood on him at the police department.
This is the exact quote from MSNBC:
“This guy looks like he’s up to no good,” Zimmerman said in a 911 call. Asked by a dispatcher if he was white, Hispanic or black, he replied, “He looks black.”
You left something out of your report too. Please correct this page.
I didn’t leave anything out. I’m the one who noticed MSNBC’s correction.
I thought MSNBC might change it, so I took a screenshot: http://prntscr.com/7glxa
You can also see the original article in Google’s cache of the page.
I have come back from the grave to take on George Zimmerman as a client and save him from “the devil”.
The first thing I would like to point out is that this matter hinges entirely upon not who pursued who, and not who first talked to whom, but on who threw the first punch. To which, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have only this to say: George Zimmerman had a gun. Why would he then throw the first punch? Or any punch? I mean, is that not logical and reasonable?
Now, it is possible that George Zimmerman flashed that gun before the first punch. But if he did, did Martin then attack? Is that logical? Would you charge a man with a gun if you were in you right mind? Or would you pause for *at least* a few seconds? Is that not reasonable? And consider that the witness heard Zimmerman cry for help, and saw the person on top punching the man on bottom. Not wrestling to control an object in a hand, but punching instead. So it is at least *reasonable* to assume that the gun was in fact still concealed when George Zimmerman was on the ground. And as I said before, if you are carrying a gun, do you *really* start a fist-fight? Or, in the unlikely case it was already out in the open, do you let it develop?
I thus leave it to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to entertain for yourselves your own reasonable doubts about who threw the first punch, which is when the criminal acts truly started, and is all the law allows for action against, and all the law should allow action for. Not who chased who, but who first hit who.
Finally, I would like to point out the following. Let’s say that the great state of Florida had no “stand your ground” law. What then? I’ll tell you–George Zimmerman does not carry a gun with him in that case. Or at least it is a reasonable argument. A man who is calling the cops regulalrly and had all his weapons permits in order, as he apparently did, would know the limits of the law–that he could carry, but use was made impractical by the duty to retreat. And in that case, here is what the outcome would have been–Trayvon Martin would be in jail right now, facing felony aggravated assault charges that he would be convcted on, because George Zimmerman would have been a bloody pulp by the time the witness or cops arrived to help, and Martin, with three school suspensions and a victim with massive head trauma requiring hospitilization and himself having no scratches on his body, would have had no hope of not being prosecuted, and once prosecuted, no hope of not being convicted.
And of course, it is very possible that absent that gun, it would be Martin facing possibilities of murder charges. Head injuries are not to be taken lightly.
A law abiding citizen does not have to risk death just because the attacker might be redeemable, or because doing so provides soeone else’s idea of the optimum outcome.
Z. Daniel W –
Nice exposition — all reasonable and probably true.
Three things you forgot: 1) I don’t think the media has said where Martin was shot. If shot in the back I think we would’ve heard it — but where the bullet entered might collaborate your reasoning (or prove it wrong); 2) Martin was talking or tweeting w/his girl friend a short time before being shot. I think this also collaborates what Zimmerman has said about what happened. Hope it doesn’t disappear; 3) Even with the video of Zimmerman at the Police Station, it’s not clear how tall he is. If Zimmerman is much shorter than Martin, that might explain why Martin attacked him — he didn’t know Zimmerman was armed and thought he was easy prey. BTW: Martin knew he was being followed in tweets w/girlfriend — but it’s still not clear if he was being followed by Zimmerman in his car or on foot.
“where the bullet entered”
Actually, at what angle the bullet entered is important because it might show if Zimmerman was on the ground when he fired. Also, how close the gun was to Martin. Forensics will be very important.
This happened a month ago. The autopsy is complete. Why do you think it’s not been released?
Somewhat off-topic.
This blog (that I have nothing to do with) has some good “scoops” regarding Martin and his gangstahood. http://www.mofopolitics.com/ On the front page right now is Trayvon’s dad looking like a Notorious B.I.G. knockoff.