A Rush to Judgment

As of Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The nation is rushing headlong toward a lynch law mentality in the Florida shooting case.

Even the president has unwisely injected himself into the controversy. A real leader would caution Americans to let the justice system investigate this tragic situation.

Obviously the president has not learned from his experience in the Harvard professor case when he said the police “acted stupidly.”

Now we have the spectacle of some Americans fanning the flames. Spike Lee has published George Zimmerman’s address, and the New Black Panthers have announced a million dollar bounty on the head of George Zimmerman, dead or alive.

Other rabble-rousers such as Farrakhan, Jackson and Sharpton are also fanning the flames of racism. One eyewitness has said that Zimmerman and Trayvon were fighting with Martin on top of Zimmerman, who was calling for help.

Zimmerman suffered a bloody and broken nose, a bloody gash on the back of his head, and had grass stains on the back of his shirt. Zimmerman is Hispanic-white, and he and his wife have tutored minority students.

No one who was not present can possibly know exactly what happened. I am not defending Zimmerman. If a fair and objective investigation shows he was not defending himself, and is eventually judged guilty after a fair trial, I would favor the death penalty for him.

If, however, the investigation shows he was indeed defending his life, then he should not be charged nor become a victim of black vigilantes. In either event, we need to let the justice system run its course.

Those clergy who are fomenting discord in cities across the nation should cease and desist and encourage a fair investigation.

Have we learned nothing from the Duke lacrosse and William Jewell Atlanta Olympic bombing cases?

Are we rushing to judgment again?

Dr. Walter T. Schoen

Pinehurst

More like this story

333maxwell 1 year, 1 month ago

For anyone that is interested…. I am an audio guy..

I took the 911 call with the most audio informatiion regarding screams, compressed it, ran it at half speed and pitch corected it 100 percent.. even though it runs slower (just a tenth over half speed) anyone with an ear for music can tell not a note has been changed.. Digital affords you this luxury. In the analog days we had to physically slow the tape/medium down and you lose pitch and clarity.

Anyway, what I find most interesting is the ghastly scream at about 1:12 right after the final shot..

THIS AUDIO IS NOT ENHANCED per sey.. not like enhancing a photo.. the only enhancing has been to adust volume levels so you don’t hurt your ear listening to everything at relative volume levels.

There are a few swirling artifacts in this copy because I had to compres the wav file to a 128 kbps mp3 to fit on my page so you had a player to hear it on.. These artifacts are slight and will not distract.

The 911 call as you have never heard it before, draw your own conclusions. Listen for the scream after the shot.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11548279

Again, draw your own conclusions, I am not here to change any minds tonight. This exercise is just a way to access the call and hear things you would not of just listening to the raw recording.

bufordsplay 1 year, 1 month ago

Yes we are. The Race Pimps on the left wait with baited breath for a Black to be murdered by a White so they can politicize it. If Zimmerman's name was Lopez you would have never heard a peep and they can't stand that Zimmerman isnt White. They call him a White Latino as if his White side fired the shot!

Thatcher 1 year, 1 month ago

333maxwell-- Just curious. What conclusions did you draw from the enhanced audio? Great job, by the way.

buskwon 1 year, 1 month ago

Innocent until proven guilty , why does everyone want to be the Judge Juror and executioner? The man could very well be innocent but the NAACP wants to hang him before it even goes to trial .

geoffcutler 1 year, 1 month ago

Thatcher...my question too. Listened to it...have no clue what I was listening to. 333maxwell, ditto?

AFCHIEF 1 year, 1 month ago

Maybe the NAACP can have a vigil for the Strait family as well

A week ago, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a black kid named Tyrone Woodfork severely beat an elderly couple, a Mr. & Mrs. Strait, who had been married for 65 years. Tyrone RAPED Mrs. Strait, and she died of injuries received at his hands. Mr. Strait served in the 101st Airborne during WWII. NO national media carried the story. Tyrone was arrested yesterday.

I supposed that if Mr. Strait had shot Tyrone, the whole country would know about the story. As it is, only Mrs. Strait died, so it's not of interest to Brian Williams and the rest of the main stream media media.

Think about it. After 65 years of marriage. After serving our country. After 90 years of life, Mr. Strait has lost his wife to a rapist/murderer. NO ONE in the national media gives a flip. They're interested in their wonderful hero, Trayvon Martin.

AFCHIEF 1 year, 1 month ago

Obama stepped in on the Trayvon Martin: ‘If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon" So Mr Obama does your son also look like Tyrone Woodfork?

geoffcutler 1 year, 1 month ago

Another breath of truth, not "poetic truth" from Shelby Steele in today's WSJ. Excerpts:

" The civil rights community and the liberal media live by the poetic truth that America is still a reflexively racist society and that this remains the great barrier to black equality.... and blacks today are nine times more likely to be killed by other blacks than they are whites. If Trayvon Maritn was a victim of white racism (hard to conceive since the shooter is apparently Hispanic), his murder would be an anomaly, not a commonplace....The absurdity of Messrs Jackson and Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teensagers, not whites."

Mr. Steele is a senior fellow at Standford University's Hoover Institution. Like Juan Williams, who wrote a similar piece last week, Mr. Steele is also black.

JustThinking 1 year, 1 month ago

PROPAGANDA ! That's what it's all about.

JimHeim 1 year, 1 month ago

The fact remains that the Sanford police had decided not to investigate this murder. It was only after the public outcry that investigations were started at multiple levels. Now maybe we'll learn what happened.

It hasn't been a rush to judgment. It's been a matter of preventing this case from being swept under the rug.

fugitiveguy 1 year, 1 month ago

"The fact remains that the Sanford police had decided not to investigate this murder."

Jim continues to confuse opinion with fact. In order to buy Jim (and the mob's) version of things, you'd have to believe the Sanford Police Dept is racist or incompetent or both. May this turn out to be the case, it could happen, we just don't know. And Jim, why do you continue to use the word murder, unless you have access to facts not made public then we have a shooting. A shooting and a murder are not one in the same. Since the SPD's investigation didn't show what Jim and the mob want that means there was no investigation. You have stated as fact that Zimmerman had no injuries since you could not see them on a video. Have you had a chance to look at the enhanced video?

Bflat 1 year, 1 month ago

The "reactions" of all this with outrage and outcries of that community along with the making it into a racial issue is exactly why it will continue like that. Yet, when it happens to the other it is not even heard about or published, Can't we all just get along? It sure doesn't look like it to me and I don't think it will ever be laid to rest as long as someone keeps coughing it up.l

MikeNC 1 year, 1 month ago

Hey Jimheim...What do you have to say about the media now concerning their behavior in this case...Mike

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/324402/20120405/nbc-apology-911-call-trayvon-martin-zimmerman.htm

NBC Issues Apology For Edited Zimmerman 911 Call by MaKaElectric

fugitiveguy 1 year, 1 month ago

Its was a production error, thats all. No way they were trying to portray Zimmerman as a racist. Just a production error.

kiki 1 year, 1 month ago

Mike, I am with you on this . . . To me it is obvious that there is a great deal of facts yet to be "discovered" and for any person to decide a verdict or place blame yet is irresponsible. I do hope it is not swept under the rug (JimH) and all the facts come out. My wish is also that whoever has incorrectly "convicted" Zimmerman or "blamed" Martin will be the first on this site to apologize to the others. Many here are still waiting for more details to make a decision and I respect that approach.

MikeNC 1 year, 1 month ago

These words are also reassuring that the error will never happen again...."We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers." However, the network declined to comment when asked whether people responsible for the error were reprimanded.

fugitiveguy 1 year, 1 month ago

What about apologizing to Zimmerman?

MikeNC 1 year, 1 month ago

kiki 0 minutes ago ... My wish is also that whoever has incorrectly "convicted" Zimmerman or "blamed" Martin will be the first on this site to apologize to the others. Many here are still waiting for more details to make a decision and I respect that approach.

Excellent comments kiki!! I hope that as well, although actual apology's are rare in real life. Martin is gone, his family is in anguish and Zimmerman's future has pretty well been sealed in a negative way regardless of where the truth leads to. Once it is not a news story worth exploiting, many of the characters will disappear over night and the bad portions of the media will skulk away as if they had no part in the rampant half truths or malicious lies which were spread; most likely with no consequence...Mike

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