Trayvon Martin and headphones

In the Zimmerman case, the woman who claims that she was the last person to speak with Trayvon Martin, claims that she heard the beginning of the altercation when Trayvon asked someone “Why are you following me?” and then a ‘breathy’ voice asked either (depending on which time she was asked) “What are you doing around here?” or “What are you talking about?” Then claims she heard an impact, as if the microphone hit Martin’s shirt, and then she heard someone that she thinks was Martin say “Get off, get off.”

The state has based a significant amount of weight on this testimony, but I believe that the facts show her version of events to be impossible. Let me explain:

Here are the headphones:

The headphones were not found on Martin. They were found and cataloged to be in his pocket:

This is corroborated by the label on the evidence bag:

and further corroborated by photos of the body, where the headphones are not visible:

Does anyone reading this believe that a person being attacked will take the time to place his headphones in his pocket while he is being attacked?

In short, this destroys any credibility that you can possibly give to Ms. Jeantel’s testimony.

Contingency planning

One thing that I learned from years of working as an emergency responder is that we do not plan to fail, we fail to plan. For that reason, I always try to have a plan for various likely scenarios. Because of the likelihood of violence that would be brought about by a not guilty verdict in the Zimmerman case, I have reviewed and modified my family disaster plan.
My sister lives in a neighborhood that has a high probability for being involved in any violence that will develop, so I told her that she is welcome to stay here at my home with her boyfriend and her two daughters (my nieces). I was reviewing my preparations, and made sure that I had enough supplies for the seven people that will likely be staying here.
If I need to shelter in place and cannot leave, I have enough food for seven people to last about two weeks. I do not, however, have enough water storage for that many people. Need to think about that.
Communications are adequate.
Security is adequate.
Shelter is fine.
If we need to evacuate, there may be a problem with evacuating, because the majority of routes out may be problematic.
While I was doing this, my girlfriend said that it seemed like I was preparing for the end of the world. I told her that if you are prepared for a worst case scenario, then anything less than that is a cakewalk. Then I showed her reports from the King riots of 1992.
We will most likely gather at my home when the case is given to the jury, and will hunker down until a day or two after the verdict, to ensure that there will be no violence.

Part time work

Breitbart says that only 47% of Americans have a full time job. According to the Department of Labor, there are 116 million Americans working full time. The actual picture is much bleaker than that. There are about 4.5 million Federal employees. There are also 19 million local and state full time government employees. Subtracting those from the employment, and we see that there are only 93 million Americans working full time in the private sector. That’s right- only about 1/3 of America is working to support the other 2/3.

This is being caused by the high cost of government mandated benefits for full time employees, in my opinion. A full time employee gets FMLA leave, free health insurance, and many other costly perks that part time employees do not. These benefits have pushed the cost of hiring full time employees past a critical tipping point, where the cost of hiring, training, and managing multiple part time employees is less than the cost of paying expensive perks and benefits. It is now cheaper to hire 2 people at 24 hours a week than it is to hire one person at 40 hours per week.

This will only accelerate the fall that I have been talking about for years. Hang on, this crash is going to hurt.

Mind your own business

I have been sitting here watching the Zimmerman trial for the past two weeks or so. There are some interesting things that I have noticed. The State Attorney has used the following facts against him:

1 After witnessing a crime, he formed a neighborhood watch in conjunction with police and neighbors
2 He called police several times when he saw suspicious people (Remember, if you see something, say something) One of those calls actually resulted in the arrest and conviction of a burglar. 5 of the 12 times he called was on a black person, thus proving he is a racist, despite the fact that he has a black grandparent.
3 He was carrying a gun while going to the store. Who does that?
4 The gun he was carrying had a round in the chamber, and was thus set up to fire without cocking.
5 The person he called in as suspiciously walking between houses and peeking in windows was bleack
6 He kept the suspicious person that he spotted and was calling 911 on in sight, while giving the dispatcher updates as to the person’s location.

All of the above facts, according to the state, made Zimmerman a racist wannabe cop.

7 When the dispatcher asked where the person went, he got out of his truck to see.
8 When the dispatcher realized what he was doing, he informed Zimmerman that he didn’t need to follow the guy, so Zimmerman said “OK” and was on the way back to his truck when he was confronted and attacked.
9 While being attacked, the only eyewitness reports that Martin was on top, and Zimmerman was screaming for help.
10 Multiple witnesses have testified that Zimmerman could have died or been seriously injured, if the beating continued.
(Each of the above 10 statements have been presented in court. There is more than enough here to establish reasonable doubt that Zimmerman was exercising his right to self defense.)

What do I take from this? If I see a person kick in a neighbor’s door and come out with a bloody butcher knife, I am not calling or doing a thing. Also, stay as far away from all minorities as possible. Mind your own business, and never call 911 on a person that is not of your race. or you will also be called a wannabe racist cop.

Foolish

My brother let his 12 year old son hang out with some of my brother’s friends from his high school days. Those friends thought that it would be funny to take this 12 year old into a very bad neighborhood and take a picture of my nephew standing under a street sign in the center of this area. My brother thought the picture was funny, and posted it to Facebook. His friends all had a great time joking about it.

This neighborhood has had 11 unsolved shootings in the last week. The last one was a 17 year old kid who was shot while waiting for a bus. I told my brother that this is not wise, but he doesn’t see the harm in it, and told me that I am being racist. He responded by saying that “I didn’t see any shootings on the news, the neighborhood can;t be any worse than it was when I was in high school, they had to get a haircut and there is a barber shop there, and besides, it was the middle of the day.”

I will let you judge for yourself. As for me, I carry a gun and I won’t set foot in that neighborhood. The cops don’t even go in there alone. That neighborhood used to be my first due area when I was with the fire department, and I saw more killings and attacks in that neighborhood than I care to remember. In fact, there was an episode of a cop show filmed in that neighborhood in the early 90s, and in one episode, an undercover cop was smashed in the face with a brick. The place has gotten much worse since then.

Shooting dogs

Following what seems to be standard police procedure nowadays, police in South Holland shot a dog that was not threatening anyone. They were caught on video standing there watching the dog for over 20 minutes, before shooting a dog three times that was not threatening them.

Also following what seems to be police standards, they didn’t even kill it. With this poor marksmanship, you have to wonder who the REAL threat to public safety is.