Why George Zimmerman’s SYG Defense Won’t Stand

Irrespective of which of the myriad of versions George Zimmerman has given on the events that led to him shooting Trayvon Martin dead and which you want to hang your hat on, not a single one of them equates to a successful Stand Your Ground defense.  The reason I feel confident in saying that is that the Florida Stand Your Ground law is a DEFENSIVE law which allows both for the Castle Doctrine (protecting yourself and any other occupants of your house or vehicle from an intruder), and when not in your home allowing you, as long as you have an issued Conceal Carry License (CCL) to “stand your ground” (i.e. not have to flee) when someone threatens your life or someone else’s and deadly force is required.  Unfortunately, for every single one of George Zimmerman’s versions of what occurred the night he shot Trayvon Martin, not a single one of them fall within the DEFENSIVE envelope of the Florida Stand Your Ground law.

So let’s get straight where I stand so that I’m not labeled erroneously.  I’m a gun owner.  I’ve gone through CCL training for my state and am currently in the process of being issued my CCL.  I have no problem, once I’m allowed to, in carrying a weapon and I have no problem in using it if some freak goes postal on me.  As most know my house has been robbed and if someone breaks back into my house while I’m at home, the Castle Doctrine of both the Florida “Stand your Ground” law, as well as the Oklahoma “Make My Day” law allows me to shoot first and collect myself later.  Forced entry under the Castle Doctrine equates to intent to harm and I will defend myself and my family.  Included in the Castle Doctrine of both states is your occupied vehicle.  So just as if you were at home and someone threatened your life in your home; if they do the same when you are in your vehicle, you can shoot to defend yourself.

However, neither of these laws allows you to pursue a potentially dangerous situation that could result in you having to use lethal force when the pursuit could have been avoided.  So let’s go through some scenarios, as taught in self-defense classes, and delineated in the Florida “Stand Your Ground” statute.

1.  You’re sitting in your living room watching the Olympics and a man kicks in your front door and enters your home.  You can drop him.  You don’t need to see a weapon, you don’t need to ask “Hey, Buddy, are you up to no good?”, you can just drop him.  That he forcibly and unlawfully entered your home is equivalent to imminent danger under Castle Doctrine and you can immediately defend yourself.

2.  You’re in your car, you have a CCL and you are armed.  A man enters the passenger side car and says:  “Take me to the 7-11 or I’ll kill you.”  If he has any type weapon for sure you can shoot him.  If you’re a 110 lb woman and he’s a full-grown man, his statement and physical attributes for sure allow you to shoot him.  If you’re a full-grown man and he’s not armed you can shoot him and take your chances…don’t know, but the law seems to state you can shoot him.  Not going to interpret that one.

3.  You’ve put your baby in the car seat, got her buckled in the backseat and realize you don’t have your checkbook.  You hurry into the house to get it and upon exiting your home some dude is getting into the driver’s seat of the occupied car (your child occupies it).  You shoot him.

4.  Same scenario as No. 3, but there is no child involved.  You exit your home to find a man entering the driver’s seat of your car and attempting to steal your car (no baby in the backseat now).  Okay, I’ll tell you what our SDA instructor stated, and I’ll quote the law, and I’ll let you decide.   The SDA instructor said, “NO, don’t shoot him because the law was not written to protect property, but defend against imminent danger.  Retreat to your home and call the police.”  Here’s how the Florida law reads (and the Oklahoma law is similar in wording):

A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:

The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and

The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

Okay, so for the State of Florida it comes down to what are “forcible felonies”.  Here is Florida’s legal definition of “forcible felonies“:

776.08  Forcible felony.

“Forcible felony” means treason; murder; manslaughter; sexual battery; carjacking; home-invasion robbery; robbery; burglary; arson; kidnapping; aggravated assault; aggravated battery; aggravated stalking; aircraft piracy; unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb; and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.

5.  You have a CCL and you’re walking down the sidewalk and a dude jumps out and does any of the following: pulls a knife on you, pulls a gun on you, starts beating the puss out of you, puts a choke-hold on you, body slams you down or against something…anything that makes you fear for your life and you do not feel you can get out of.  You don’t have to retreat under the “stand your ground” law.  You don’t have to call the cops.  You can shoot the dude.  He was endangering your life, you can defend yourself with deadly force to save your own life.

6.  You are sitting at the park in your car and you see a guy on top of another guy beating the piss out of him.  You have a CCL and you are armed.  You get out of your car to break up the situation, and the dude turns on you and you shoot him.  According to my SDA instructor you could be in trouble.  In fact, the instructor stated that if you are going to be silly enough to engage the person beating up the other person, you need to disarm yourself (i.e. put your gun in your console) before getting out of your car and be darned sure you can handle the situation with your own hands and bodily strength.  The instructor stated that you should remain in your car and call the police.

7.  If you change 6 to the dude on top is repetitively stabbing someone in the chest, it’s a different story.  I’m not going to sit and say what you would be legally able to do.  I just know what I would do.  Pretty hard to eat a sammich and watch someone get stabbed to death while you’re waiting on the cops to come save him.

8.  You’re in your car and someone starts harassing you…hollering at you, calling you names, racial epithets, etc.  Sit there and take it homey.  Roll your window up, start your car and drive away.  You have a responsibility as a licensed gun owner to AVOID a situation that can lead to you using deadly force.  If you get pissed at the meanie and you decide you’re going to get out of your car and tell him to bring it on, you better lock your gun in your glove box first…and then hope you win the fist fight…and also hope he didn’t have a knife hidden some place.  You could have avoided the situation.  Sticks and stones may break my bones…but those words don’t really hurt me.

9.  You’re in your car going to the store one night and you see someone walking down a street in your neighborhood and for some unknown reason you decide the dude looks “suspicious”.  You pull over (in front of the club house of your neighborhood) and you call 911 to report that a suspicious dude is walking down the street and that they need to come check him out.  You have a CCL and you are armed.  You get out of your car to follow this person and you do so while carrying your weapon….
…and then stop right there.

Doesn’t matter what you insert past opening the door.  You just lost your right to stand your ground.  Your ground was in the most protective environment you start at.  YOUR ground is in your original position and your obligation as an armed CCL carrier is to AVOID any act that INCREASES the potential to put yourself in danger and result in you using lethal force.

From the Florida Stand your Ground statute:

The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:

(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or

(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:

(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or

(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

It doesn’t really matter which scenario you want to accept from George Zimmerman on what led to him shooting Trayvon Martin and resulted in Martin’s death.  When George Zimmerman left his vehicle, a vehicle he could have stayed within and kept law enforcement on the line, or he could have fled the scene (a scene which did not include imminent danger while in his vehicle!), he removed himself from a Stand Your Ground defense.

That’s the way I see it.

Valhall.

Oh boy! or girl?

LeeLu’s going to have a baby brother or sister!  O_O

😀

Valhall.

Tracking Oklahoma Fires Cleveland County

Okay, so I’ve given up on the local Oklahoma City news agencies for adequately tracking the Cleveland County fire.  When it got to within a half mile of my brother’s house and they were still focusing on Luther (and that town is getting decimated, so I want to be clear my heart goes out to those people, but there are two main fire fronts occurring, okay?), I gave up.  I’ve been following the Cleveland County fire scanner since I got home and learned of this horrific situation…that’s the only thing that has given me the ability to inform my brother, who was sitting blind as it swept toward him.
So I’ve started this thread to update people in Oklahoma who may want to know where the Cleveland County fire is.

It is currently north of Cedar Lane and running north up the path of 120th Avenue Southeast.  The firefighters are just getting out of the way and trying to find a safe location they hope will allow them to “take a stand”, but right now they are describing it as a firestorm that they can’t even attempt to put out.  The Thunderbird Wedding Chapel is in its path, as well as many unfortunate families’ homes.  It would have to jump Highway 9 to take the chapel.

I lost my home to fire over two decades ago.  My heart dies for these people, as well as the people in many western states who have already suffered this loss.  While this past year my husband and I endured the pain and anger of having most of our material goods (including things that can never be replaced) stolen from us, there is nothing that compares – not theft, not flood, not tornado…nothing – to the feeling of having absolutely everything in your life taken FOREVER by fire.  There is no hope of “getting it back”.
I will update in comments as I hear more via the scanner.

Valhall.

Andrew Scott’s death: Lake County Sheriff makes it all better

To be clear, yesterday I was almost certain I didn’t like how Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders was handling the situation where his deputies gunned down an innocent man when they banged on the wrong apartment door.  Today I’m certain I don’t and am now kicking around whether I even like the man at all.  He did nothing to help the situation.

Come to find out at 1:30 am Sunday morning when the Lake County popo came a banging on Andrew Scott’s apartment door, Andrew wasn’t alone.  He was at home with his girlfriend.  So this wasn’t a matter of a man being startled awake and just grabbing a gun, this was a case of man being jolted awake and having his girlfriend there with him and feeling like he needed to defend her.  Andrew Scott was shot dead with his girlfriend right there.  Lake County Sheriff Borders, who appears to be completely lacking in any form of empathy said:

She said she was OK, but you knew that she wasn’t.  I could tell she was upset.

Wow…wonder what tipped him off?  Maybe she let slip an “Oh bummer, you shot my bo…”

He then goes on to say this in defense of his deputy shooting an innocent man dead simply because he answered his door in the middle of the night and had the foresight to take his own defense weapon with him.

I support people to bear arms to defend themselves, but there was no imminent danger here.  We were knocking on the door.

Exactly how in the world was Andrew Scott supposed to know there was “no imminent danger”?  And stop lying, why don’t you.? You’ve already pushed out two statements in this deal that were either lies or intentional distortions.  I doubt seriously they were just doing a bit of polite “knocking”.

Scott’s family is not impressed.  They hired Mark Nejame’s law firm to represent them.  Scott’s friends aren’t too impressed either.  They continue to protest and speak out.  His friend Rebecca Menzie stated:

If it is was anyone else, it would be murder.”

Murder maybe not, but manslaughter…yeah.  I’m with you Rebecca.

Valhall.

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/calls-shed-light-night-deputies-knocked-wrong-door/nPx8Q/

Andrew Scott’s death: Why there needs to be charges

So you’re at home on Saturday night.  It’s 1:30 in the morning Sunday morning and you’re probably asleep.  There’s loud  banging on your door.  You grab your gun.  You head to the apartment door.  You open it and bang you’re dead.

That’s what happened to 26-year-old Andrew Scott.

Okay, the Sheriff’s deputies who were involved in this fiasco have lied.  The Sheriff’s office has put out intentionally misleading information to try to paint the whole situation in a different light.  Both those findings are pretty concerning, especially when you have an innocent citizen dead over the whole situation.

The story the Lake County Sheriff’s office had originally put out is that Andrew Scott was shot dead after opening his apartment door with a gun in his hand because the deputies, who were tracking a possible “attempted murder suspect”, had knocked on the wrong door.  They also put out that the officers HAD identified themselves prior to Scott opening the door.  Let’s see what has now come to light:

• The officers did NOT identify themselves.  It stated they did not do so because they didn’t not want the “attempted murder” suspect to flee.  If they didn’t identify themselves, they most likely also did not stand directly in front of the door.  In fact, it’s about guaranteed they weren’t standing right out in the open, but taking cover on either side of the front door.  Another indicator that they were not directly in front of the door is a statement that has been made by the Sheriff’s office that when the door opened all they saw “was the muzzle of a gun”.  Makes sense if you are standing in a protective stance on either side of the door.
• The officers were NOT pursuing an “attempted murder suspect”.  Not according to 90-something radio transmissions WFTV has now listened to.  They were looking for two guys for assault and battery with the worst possible charge stated during the transmission of “aggravated assault” with the statement “possibly more”.  The men (who were subsequently arrested and are in jail) had been involved in a street fight involving threatening the victim with a cinder block over the head.  One man, Rodriguez, has been charged with battery.  WFTV has now reported they have learned that the second man, Brown, had charges upgraded to attempted murder, AFTER Scott was shot dead.  Legal Analyst Bill Sheaffer feels the upgrade may have been done to “shift focus away from” the death of Scott.  I think so, too.

The other thing the Sheriff’s department did that is lower than a snake’s belly and shows they are trying to cover and distract was to release information on the innocent victim to try to paint him in a less than stellar light.  Apparently Scott liked to smoke the occasional spliffer.  The Sheriff’s department seems to be okay with releasing the fact that after they performed an illegal search and seizure on a dead man’s apartment they found marijuana – they like to state it this way “drugs and drug paraphernalia”…makes it sound more disturbing than “some pot and rolling papers” or “pot and a bong”.  I don’t think they realize there’s not the vast hoochaphobia they think exists out here in the listening audience.  Irrespective of how you view someone who hits the weed on occasion, it’s really bad form for them to be releasing this information considering they had no right to even search his apartment after they gunned him down.  I don’t believe for a second this poor guy’s last words were “Oh, and feel free to search my apartment guys!”

There needs to be a charge of manslaughter against the officer who gunned this man down and the rest of the deputies standing outside that door need to be fired for lying.  And it’s okay with me if whomever chose to release unwarranted information on a innocent dead man gets fired as well.  Enough with the police state.  YOU WERE WRONG.

Valhall.

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/deputy-involved-shooting-lake-county/nPtDq/

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/calls-shed-light-night-deputies-knocked-wrong-door/nPx8Q/

Okay, everybody apologize to Monica

Anyone who spent any time on The Hinky Meter knows the velociraptorous hatred Monica has for all things flip-floppish.  Some of you chastised her in the past as if she was a shoe snob, or un-American, or maybe being too picky.

Well, she’s been vindicated.  A new study has come out (as they do!) showing that 78% of adults over 21 have some form of foot pain and guess who the culprit is!?!  THE FLIP FLOP.

Monica will love this quote:

There’s no heel support and structural support … on that little slab of rubber.

Come to find out the old flip flop is really that.  They’ve been around since 1500 BC!  (And I think that means that some of them I’ve seen REALLY HAVE been around since 1500 BC!)

Now the flip-flop defenders are staunch supporters of their coveted slabs of rubber.  Brian Curin, president and co-founder of Flip Flop Shops, which makes him a flip flop lobbier doesn’t it!!?, states:

It promotes this good mental state of health.  It’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re wearing flip-flops.

I think that’s a bit of hyperbole, Brian.  Come now.  I can’t even achieve a “mood” if I try to wear flip-flops.  I’m too busy having to scrunch my toes to get a death grip on the rubber slab so I don’t have a blow out.  No, I do not achieve mentally healthy status in a flip flop, Brian.

So then the experts explain why the flip flop hurts our feet.  They do, indeed, refer to the “toe death grip” that drives me far from the flip flop, but they also point out that the darned things aren’t even a shoe (in any sense of the word short of being between your foot and the ground).

But Brian Curin, pimp-daddy for the flip flop, comes back by saying that you just need to abandon the cheap $2 flip flop and get one of (HIS???) the high dollar flip flops because they’ve got all those pieces parts that we consider a real shoe has, only they are still not a whole shoe.

Right…I get that.  I’m not wearing flip flops though.

Now, everybody apologize to Monica.  She was warning you this conspiracy was going to bust out soon and you just wouldn’t listen to her.  Like John the Baptist in the desert she just shouted her warnings and ate her locusts and nobody listened.  Well, kiss and make up now.

Valhall.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/health/flip-flops-hurting-feet/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Penn State Enters Hall of Shame

Hall of Shame and former coach Joe Paterno is complicit in  Jerry Sandusky’s sexual molestation of young vulnerable boys for decades. Paterno, along with top leaders in power at Penn State during that period in which these repetitive crimes against children and humanity were being committed, intentionally concealed “critical facts” that could have gotten a sexual predator and child molestor arrested and the abuse stopped.

Why?  Because they didn’t want the bad publicity it would bring to the university.

Well, pay now or pay later…problem is paying later usually has a lot of penalties and interest attached.  Looks like that bad press (contrary to statements made by current Penn State leaders that this wouldn’t tarnish the university’s reputation) has been heaped in orders of magnitude upon you all.

The 267-page report detailing who knew what and just what they hid has been released.  Named in the condemning conclusions as being complicit in the cover-up of ongoing criminal activity by Sandusky are:  Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz. 

So…the question is:  WHERE ARE THE INDICTMENTS?  These men covered up ongoing criminal activity and they as much as served as pimps in allowing their association with Sandusky and the facilities they were in charge of to be used by this predatory monster to find and abuse victim after victim.

Time to pay.

Valhall.

LeeLu’s Summer

LeeLu has had a very busy social life this summer and it’s not even near the end!

She went to a wedding with her beautiful mommy…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She went to a party and made new friends…

She went to the lake…

And, of course, she gave and got a lot of love!

Valhall.

 

 

 

Pink Sky

These are pictures I took off my side porch during a storm at the end of May.  The sky was an extraordinary pinkish-purple.

Valhall.

Kind of back and kind of not

I have created this temporary wordpress blog while waiting for the new server to be created and the old content of The Hinky Meter is uploaded.

I have enjoyed the time away and taken the opportunity to spend valuable time with my ever-expanding family and to start counseling concerning the issues surrounding my father’s Alzheimer’s, his death, and his mistreatment by my mother.  It is helping a great deal to work through the resentment and anger I have over the situation.  It has helped me to get back to where I can continue to assist my mother in her last years/months/weeks or days…whichever comes first.  She needs me and I need to be there for her, so I just needed help getting myself to where I COULD be there for her.

What’s helped is to accept she’s nucking futs.  And she is!  My mother has effectively isolated her entire family including grandchildren.  I have one brother who absolutely can’t get past his resentment and anger and he’s very honest about it.  We all have to deal with these issues the best we can.  His is to avoid Mom until his wife pushes him to go visit on a holiday.  That’s okay….believe me, I understand.

BUT, the counselor I’ve been going to has helped me to place this in the right category.  Mom is sick.  Basically it allows me to give her an out….if you know what I mean.  It becomes a mantra, sort of.  If I spend time with her and she gets off on the sick business that is her fantastical obsession I just roll the phrase over and over in my head “she’s sick, she’s sick, she’s sick”, and I can get through it.  Her behavior, and the past events still cause me to become angry at times, but I just start my little chant and get through it and avoid her until the ire diminishes.  I’ve gotten to where I can go back and have lunch with her a couple of times a week…so it’s going well.

Another thing that helped is that I planted and tend a flower garden at Dad’s grave.  Dad died in the middle of an 18 month drought in Oklahoma.  The grass never could take root over his grave and the only thing trying to encroach on the barren dead ground were stickers.  So right before his 1st death anniversary I went and bought a lot of flowers and potting soil and planted him a garden.  Dad thought things like butterflies landing on special places were so neat and those were the kind of things he would share when I’d drop by (before he got real bad and could still communicate to some extent).  He’d act like seeing a butterfly land on his knee was the neatest thing he’d seen in years.  I spent the whole afternoon/evening planting his garden and before I could finish butterflies and bees were coming to visit Dad’s flowers.  I just thought to myself….oh, my goodness, Dad would love this.

We’ve been lucky this year in that we had a long spring with some good rains.  Now it’s brutally brutally hot and dry so my hubby and I go out every few days and water the flowers to keep them alive.  This all makes me feel better because I’m dealing with guilt issues.  I didn’t stand up to my mother.  I didn’t take the hard road and extricate my father from her dementedness.  My older sister and I have had many talks.  She asked me…did we do what was best for Dad?  I didn’t even hesitate…NO, we did not.  Now we have to live with that and work through it.

It feels really good to have an outside objective person that I can just talk to.  I really like my counselor.  She has a great sense of humor and at times we both laugh at the situation because my Mom’s behavior is truly ludicrous and if you don’t laugh, well, you hit bottom, emotionally, the way I was doing.  I think I was kind of bouncing actually…lol.  I had a confluence of really aggravating things:  our home burglary, the total apathy of the police about that crime, being screwed over by our insurance company (that was the worst part of the whole deal actually), my son was dealing with a psychotic wife who he allowed to isolate him from absolutely EVERYBODY in his family (thank God he’s out of that mess), concerns about my grandson, the issues about my Dad and Mom, and then, of course, the typical everyday stressors like work, taxes, money…blah blah blah….BOUNCE! BOUNCE!

Anyway, I’m back sorta kinda.  Thehinkymeter.com site will be back up with all prior content reloaded, as promised.  Just can’t give you a date yet.  When you have to rely on someone who is doing everything for free, you kind of just get real grateful and patient.  So I’m not setting any timelines.

Until such time, I’ll just use this little wordpressy bloggity-blog.  I won’t be posting a lot…just when I feel like it.  The Hinky family has moved on and found homes and I’m glad for that.  I miss them, but there are so many awesome crime-following sites out there that I know they most likely all found a good home in some corner of the uni-net and are posting away at the worrisome crimes that continue to take place.

Speaking of which….yes, I snickered when George Zimmerman and his wife got tossed in the slammer for lying about funds.   And I laughed out loud when slimey-assed Bob Bashara finally got arrested.  Thank God and Greyhound…I had started worrying, but there appears to have never been any reason to worry.  The combination of God’s good graces and Bob’s utter stupidity fixed everything!

See you later…

Valhall.