Another Zimmerman's Lie. Had More Money Than Total Worth Of Bond.

A Florida judge refused to increase the bail for George Zimmerman, the town watch volunteer charged with murdering unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, after prosecutors revealed he had raised about $200,000 from supporters.

"I'm not going to make a snap decision," Florida Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. said during a hearing Friday in Sanford, where Martin, 17, was shot to death in late February. Lester said he needed more information about Zimmerman's fundraising before he could reconsider increasing the bond, according to reports.

Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder, was released from the John E. Polk correctional facility in Sanford on $150,000 bond earlier this week. He's currently at an undisclosed location. During an earlier bond hearing, Zimmerman and his family said they were cash-broke and unable to post substantial bond.

Zimmerman's money, according to reports, was raised from anonymous supporters through a website Zimmerman launched to pay for his defense. Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, told the judge on Friday that Zimmerman's family hadn't informed him about the money before Zimmerman was granted the $150,000 bond.

Prosecutor Bernardo de la Rionda asked the judge to reconsider the amount of Zimmerman’s bond in light of the money. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Martin's family, said he was surprised the prosecutor didn't seek to revoke Zimmerman's bail.

“For [Zimmerman] to sit there and deceive the court, we hope the judge is as offended by his deception as Trayvon Martin’s parents are,” Crump told HuffPost.

Crump said Zimmerman “lied to the court by omission when he listened to his father, his mother and his wife give testimony when they were questioned by the special prosecutor, by the judge as well as his own attorney as to how much money was raised on that website.”

Source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/trayvon-martin-case-george-zimmerman-bail_n_1460364.html

Zimmerman Was Only Arrested To keep Black People Quit, Now He is Free.

MIAMI — In a low-key event, George Zimmerman was released from a Florida jail on $150,000 bail as he awaits his second-degree murder trial in the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin.

The neighborhood watch volunteer was wearing a brown jacket and blue jeans and carrying a paper bag as he walked out of the jail around midnight Sunday. He was following another man and didn't look over at photographers gathered outside. The two then got into a white BMW car and drove away.

No questions were shouted at Zimmerman from members of the news media at the scene, and he gave no statement.

His ultimate destination is being kept secret for his safety and it could be outside Florida.

As with the July 2011 release of Casey Anthony, the Florida woman acquitted of murder in the death of her young daughter, Zimmerman was released around midnight. But the similarities end there. Anthony was quickly whisked away by deputy sheriffs armed with rifles as angry protesters jeered her. While news helicopters briefly tracked her SUV through Orlando before she slipped from public view, there was no such pursuit of Zimmerman, who will have to return for trial.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester said at a hearing Friday that Zimmerman cannot have any guns and must observe a 7 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew. Zimmerman also surrendered his passport.

Zimmerman had to put up 10 percent, or $15,000, to make bail. His father had indicated he might take out a second mortgage.

Zimmerman worked at a mortgage risk-management company at the time of the shooting and his wife is in nursing school. A website was set up to collect donations for Zimmerman's defense fund. It is unclear how much has been raised.

George Zimmerman, left, walks out of the intake building at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility with an unidentified man on Sunday, April 22, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco) 

Source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/george-zimmerman-trayvon-marting-out-of-jail_n_1444646.html

Zimmerman Wants New Judge After Her Husband Refused To Represent Him.

SANFORD, Florida — The neighborhood watch volunteer charged with killing an unarmed black teenager in Florida asked a judge in the case to step down Monday after she revealed a potential conflict of interest.

George Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, filed the request and said Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler revealed the potential conflict last week.

Zimmerman was charged last week with second-degree murder in Trayvon Martin's Feb. 26 death. The lack of an arrest in the shooting inspired weeks of protests nationwide.

Zimmerman is pleading not guilty, saying it was self-defense.

Recksiedler's potential conflict involves her husband, who works with attorney Mark NeJame. Zimmerman's family first approached NeJame about representing Zimmerman. He declined and referred them to O'Mara.

Also Monday, Florida's governor rejected any suggestions that charges were filed in the case because of public pressure. Rick Scott said he doesn't believe special prosecutor Angela Corey is influenced by anything but the facts.

News organizations in Florida, including The Associated Press, are challenging the sealing of records related to the case against Zimmerman.

O'Mara asked for the records to be sealed last week.

Records such as full police reports, autopsy reports and transcripts of witness interviews are normally public under Florida law. Zimmerman's case doesn't meet the standards that are typically used to create an exemption, according to the motion filed by the news organizations.

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Southern Baptist Goes back To Its KKK Roots.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- The head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm condemns the response of many black leaders to the Trayvon Martin case as "shameful." Some black pastors within the nation's largest Protestant denomination say Richard Land's comments are setting back an effort to broaden the faith's appeal beyond its traditional white, Southern base.

Land says he stands by his assertion that President Barack Obama "poured gasoline on the racialist fires" when he addressed Martin's slaying and that Obama, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton have used the case "to try to gin up the black vote for an African American president who is in deep, deep, deep trouble for re-election."

Land, who is white, said in an interview he has no regrets about his remarks. He said he understands why the case has touched a nerve among black leaders, but he also defended the idea that people are justified in seeing young black men as threatening: A black man is "statistically more likely to do you harm than a white man."

"Is it tragic that people react that way? Yes. Is it unfair? Yes? But it is understandable," he said.
The comments come as the Southern Baptist Convention is trying hard to diversify its membership and distance itself from a past that includes support of slavery and segregation.

Last year, the denomination for the first time elected a black pastor to its No. 2 position of first vice president, and the Rev. Fred Luter is expected to become the first black president of the Southern Baptist Convention at this year's annual meeting in June.

When asked about the concern that Land's comments hurt the effort to attract non-white members, Luter said, "It doesn't help. That's for sure."

While SBC presidents are elected for one-year terms, as the head of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for 23 years, the outspoken Land is arguably the most powerful person in the denomination and certainly its most visible spokesman.

"I think his (Land's) statements will reverse any gains from the rightful election of Fred Luter," said the Rev. Dwight McKissic, a black pastor at the SBC-affiliated Cornerstone Baptist Church is Arlington, Texas.
McKissic said he plans to submit a resolution at the SBC's annual meeting asking the convention to repudiate Land's remarks.

"If they don't, we're back to where we were 50 years ago," he said.

Land counters that he has been working for racial reconciliation for his entire ministry.

He was one of the chief architects of a 1995 resolution by the Southern Baptists apologizing for their role in supporting slavery and racism. Since that resolution, black membership in the SBC has tripled, Land said, going from about 350,000 in 1995 to about 1 million today.

While he recognizes that his comments may hurt black membership within the SBC, he said he was not setting back the quest for racial reconciliation.

"Part of racial reconciliation is being able to speak the truth in love without being called a racist and without having to bow down to the god of political correctness," he said.

Land told The Associated Press that he has also criticized white religious leaders, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, when they behaved in ways he considered irresponsible.

And he said he thinks McKissic's resolution will fail.

"I have no doubt, based on the emails I have received, that a vast majority of Southern Baptists agree with me," he said.

Land made the comments about Sharpton, Jackson and Obama during his weekly radio show. His broader point was that there has been a rush to judgment, with many people convinced that shooter George Zimmerman is guilty even before he goes to trial.

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, says he was defending himself when he fatally shot the 17-year-old Martin during a scuffle. Martin was unarmed as he walked from a convenience store, and the case has become a racial flashpoint with protesters speculating that Zimmerman singled out Martin because he was black.

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System Gave Zimmerman Enough Time To Run.

George Zimmerman's attorneys said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon that they will no longer be representing him. The attorneys claim that Zimmerman repeatedly rebuffed their legal advice, and that they have now lost contact with him.

"As of now we are withdrawing as counsel for Mr. Zimmerman," Craig Sonner, one of his attorneys, told reporters outside the Seminole County Courthhouse in Sanford, Fla. "We've lost contact with him. Up to this point, we've had contact with him everyday. He's gone on his own. I'm not sure what he's doing or who he's talking to, but at this point we're withdrawing as counsel. If he wants us to come back as counsel, he will contact us."

Sonner said that he had never met Zimmerman face to face, and that their conversations have all taken place via telephone.

Zimmerman said he killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, on Feb. 26 in the gated community where the girlfriend of the teenager's father lived in Sanford. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch member, called 911 and told a police dispatcher that Martin, who was returning from a trip to a nearby convenience store, "looked suspicious." After an altercation, Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest. He told the local police that he shot Martin in self defense, and he was not arrested or charged.

Protesters around the country have held rallies calling for Zimmerman's arrest, and the Sanford police department has been the focus of withering criticism for its handling of the initial investigation. The case has become a flashpoint in the national debates over racial profiling and gun control laws.

Sonner said that he still believed that Zimmerman was acting in self-defense, which Zimmerman and his surrogates have maintained since the shooting. "Nothing that I've said about him or this case has changed in any way," Sonner said.

Uhrig said that Zimmerman had stopped responding to their phone calls, and that they had a "pretty good idea" of where he was, while Sonner maintained that Zimmerman was "still in the United States." Last week, Zimmerman's lawyers said their client was ready to surrender if charged with a crime.

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Stanford Police Department Has A History Of Not Doing Their Job.

In the summer of 2010, a masked man gunned down Ikeem Ruffin, 17, in an apartment complex on this city's north side. When police arrived, they found Ruffin dead and another teenager beside the body calling for an ambulance. The next day, police charged the teen with robbery and murder.

Prosecutors dropped the murder charge last August and said another man, still unidentified, pulled the trigger. Teresa Ruffin, the victim’s mother, said the police overlooked important evidence -- including a witness who pointed to another suspect -- and allowed her son's killer to go free.

“They didn’t do their job,” Ruffin said of the police.

Ruffin, who is black, said she sees parallels between how Sanford police officers handled her son’s murder and how they investigated the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot to death Feb. 26 by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who told police he acted in self-defense.

Police said they couldn’t refute Zimmerman’s claim and haven't arrested him, unleashing withering criticism over perceived missteps and favoritism.

"All this with Trayvon is just bringing the light on the Sanford Police Department," Ruffin said. "This happened for a reason.”

Martin’s killing has sparked national outrage. But it is not the first criminal investigation to upset Sanford’s black community, whose leaders say police have repeatedly failed to properly investigate crimes involving black victims.

A string of recent scandals involving department personnel has added to community anger. In the past three years, officers have been caught demanding bribes from motorists, fabricating evidence and drawing weapons unlawfully.

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Zimmerman Is Coming Up With Any Reason To Defend Killing Trayvon. What's Next?

 "Shaken Baby Syndrome" was cited on Friday in the defense of George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Florida, man who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that has sparked a widespread public outcry.

Hal Uhrig, a lawyer and former Gainesville, Florida, police officer who recently joined Zimmerman's defense team, cited in a TV interview the brain damage that can seriously injure or kill an infant.

His point, which has been made before, was that Zimmerman contends he shot Martin in self defense and feared for his life after the 17-year-old attacked him and began pounding his head into the concrete pavement of a gated community on a rainy evening in Sanford on Feb. 26.

But Uhrig's choice of words, and use of a recognized sign of child abuse to defend a 28-year-old man who killed a kid, seemed likely to raise more than just a few eyebrows.

"We're familiar with the Shaken Baby Syndrome," said Uhrig on the CBS This Morning program. "You shake a baby, the brain shakes around inside the skull. You can die when someone's pounding your head into the ground."

Apart from saying his client suffered a broken nose, Uhrig did not elaborate on the extent of any injuries Zimmerman actually suffered. But characteristic injuries associated with SBS, as Shaken Baby Syndrome is known, include bleeding in the brain. There are often no visible external signs such injuries have occurred.

Police have not arrested Zimmerman because the use of lethal force in self defense is permitted under the Stand Your Ground law approved by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2005.

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Video Shows That Nothing Was Wrong With George Zimmerman, All Them Was In On The Lie.

Newly released video of George Zimmerman at the Sanford Police Department the night he shot Trayvon Martin to death show the neighborhood watch volunteer without blood on his clothing or bruises on his face or head. His clean-shaven picture seems to contrast with the violent beating he told police he endured at the hands of Martin, 17, who Zimmerman said attacked him from behind.

The video, obtained by ABC News, appears inconsistent with Zimmerman’s recently leaked statement to police that he was in a death struggle with Martin before Zimmerman shot him in the chest in self-defense. Zimmerman told investigators that Martin jumped him from behind, punched him in the nose and pounded his head into a sidewalk, according to a police report first described by the Orlando Sentinal.

In the video, apparently taken by surveillance cameras outside and inside the police station, Zimmerman’s face and head are clearly visible and show no injuries consistent with the kind of fight Zimmerman's statement described.

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Now The Story Is That The Cat Attacked The Dog.

Nearly a month after Trayvon Martin's killing, the account of what occurred the night of the teen's fatal confrontation with George Zimmerman is getting more complicated. As the public attempts to piece together what really happened on Feb. 26, more details have emerged telling Zimmerman's side of the story.

According to law enforcement authorities, Zimmerman, who maintained he shot the teen in self-defense, told local police that Martin punched him in the face, climbed on top of him and slammed his head into the sidewalk, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Martin, who was black, was walking back to his father's house after a trip to the convenience store in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26. George Zimmerman, who was identified by his father as Hispanic, called 911 and told the dispatchers that the teen "looked suspicious."

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Not Only Local, But The State Tried To Cover Up Trayvon's Murder.

The special prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case said that the Sanford Police Department asked the state attorney's office for an arrest warrant to charge George Zimmerman early in the investigation, but the state's attorney's office decided to wait.

The Miami Herald reported that the local police initially went to the Seminole State Attorney with a request to file charges and the police report labeled the case as "homicide/negligent manslaughter."

"The state attorney impaneled a grand jury, but before anything else could be done, the governor stepped in and asked us to pick it up in mid-stream," Angela Corey, the special prosecutor on the case said.

Chris Serino, the lead detective on the case, expressed doubts around Zimmerman's account of the shooting, according to ABC News. Serino filed an affidavit on the night of the shooting in which he said that he was unconvinced Zimmerman's version of events.

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Uncle Tom Comes Out To Defend His White Friend

George Zimmerman cried for days in remorse after shooting dead a black Florida teenager, a family friend of Zimmerman said on Sunday, offering a sympathetic portrayal of the man at the focal point of a national uproar.

Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic, shot Trayvon Martin, 17, in what he said was self defense during an altercation in the gated community Zimmerman was watching on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Florida. After barely going noticed for weeks, the case has since galvanized the country and renewed a national discussion about race.

"He couldn't stop crying. He's a caring human being," Joe Oliver, 53, a former television news reporter and anchor in Orlando who has known Zimmerman for several years, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"I mean, he took a man's life and he has no idea what to do about it. He's extremely remorseful about it," Oliver said, relating stories told to him by Zimmerman's mother-in-law, a close friend of Oliver's wife.

Read More http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/joe-oliver-george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin_n_1378390.html

The Talk All Black Men Must Have With Their Sons.

I thought my son would be much older before I had to tell him about the Black Male Code. He's only 12, still sleeping with stuffed animals, still afraid of the dark. But after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, I needed to explain to my child that soon people might be afraid of him.

We were in the car on the way to school when a story about Martin came on the radio. "The guy who killed him should get arrested. The dead guy was unarmed!" my son said after hearing that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman had claimed self-defense in the shooting in Sanford, Fla.

We listened to the rest of the story, describing how Zimmerman had spotted Martin, who was 17, walking home from the store on a rainy night, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head. When it was over, I turned off the radio and told my son about the rules he needs to follow to avoid becoming another Trayvon Martin – a black male who Zimmerman assumed was "suspicious" and "up to no good."
As I explained it, the Code goes like this:

Always pay close attention to your surroundings, son, especially if you are in an affluent neighborhood where black folks are few. Understand that even though you are not a criminal, some people might assume you are, especially if you are wearing certain clothes.

Never argue with police, but protect your dignity and take pride in humility. When confronted by someone with a badge or a gun, do not flee, fight, or put your hands anywhere other than up.

Please don't assume, son, that all white people view you as a threat. America is better than that. Suspicion and bitterness can imprison you. But as a black male, you must go above and beyond to show strangers what type of person you really are.

I was far from alone in laying out these instructions. Across the country this week, parents were talking to their children, especially their black sons, about the Code. It's a talk the black community has passed down for generations, an evolving oral tradition from the days when an errant remark could easily cost black people their job, their freedom, or sometimes their life.

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