A COMPREHENSIVE list of GZ’s falsehoods and inconsistencies
(in progress, incomplete for now, check back for updates)
By establishing just how thorough George Zimmerman’s falsehoods and inconsistencies have been, we can establish just how thorough the failure of our social institutions were in this case. This page is meant to be a one stop resource for all the revelations about GZ’s credibility that are currently scattered in various spots over the web, to be used as a tool by researchers in academia, the media, and the general public.
I have made a page for text files of Zimmerman’s statements.
By my count, there are no less than 9 versions of Zimmerman’s story:
A. NEN call
B. Written statement
C. Initial interview with Singleton
D. Initial interview with Serino
E. Walk-through “re-enactment”
F. CVSA recording
G. ‘Challenge’ interview with Serino and Singleton
H. Hannity interview
I. As told to Mark Osterman
I think it makes sense to divide this into two sections: the first for the falsehoods and gross improbabilities GZ has presented again and again across his statements, and the second for falsehoods and inconsistencies that pop up in the different accounts.
The lower case letters below are temporary placeholders for reference as we go. When the document is ‘complete’ I will replace them with numbers sequenced from top to bottom, not restarting in each category. Thus each falsehood/inconsistency/etc. will have it’s own unique number, and the page will mark the total number of credibility problems that GZ has offered from his own mouth.
—
PART 1: THE FALSEHOODS AND IMPROBABILITIES REPEATED AD NAUSEUM
a.
FALSE: GZ says he saw a real suspicious guy walking around looking at the houses.
TRUE: The security videos, Rachel’s statement, and the phone records establish that TM was already stationary under the mailbox awning before GZ spotted him.
NOTE: GZ was lying about this even in the NEN call.
b.
FALSE: GZ says he passed TM on RVC, then drove to the clubhouse and parked, and it was there that he called NEN.
TRUE: The clubhouse videos prove GZ never parked in front of the clubhouse, and that GZ’s truck was on TTL when he dialed NEN, after having cruised past the mailbox awning where TM was taking shelter.
c.
OMISSION: GZ never mentions that he parked near the first curve of TTL, facing the mailboxes, and it was from there that he described TM approaching and passing his truck in the NEN call.
TRUE: The clubhouse videos clearly show GZ parked on the first curve facing the mailboxes. He also initially marked this spot on the map he drew for Singleton before crossing it out. It is only from this position that his description of TM’s actions in the NEN call can be reconciled in time and space.
d.
OMISSION: GZ does not mention that TM ran away from him, (apparently unwilling to admit the possibility he scared TM).
TRUE: Both the NEN call and Rachel Jenatel’s statements indicate that TM broke inot a run at some point after he passed Zimmerman’s truck.
e.
FALSE: GZ claims TM, still walking, disappeared behind the row of townhomes on TTL (containing the Lauer/Weinberg unit on the North end), then re-appeared, still walking, came back, circled the truck, then headed back toward the dog-walk again.
TRUE: GZ’s own words on the NEN call establish that TM approached the truck from the direction of the clubhouse.
TRUE: It would have been physically impossible for TM to cover anywhere near that distance within the time parameters established by the NEN call.
f.
FALSE: GZ claims Sean Noffke asked him to identify his location by address before he left his truck.
TRUE: The NEN recording establishes that Noffke did no such thing. Rather, GZ was in the process of giving directions to his location when he interrupts himself by observing that TM has started to run: “you turnandmakealeft… Shit! He’s running!”
g.
FALSE: GZ claims he left he left his truck to walk over to RVC to get an identifying address to give to Noffke.
TRUE: It is apparent from the NEN call that TM’s running was the motive for GZ to exit his truck. He could not only have readily seen the address on Lauer’s townhome, but also those of several even closer homes on the South side of TTL. Though he’s supposedly going for address, he repeatedly describes looking for Martin: “didn’t see him…at all” banging on his flashlight as he reached the T, “I told non-emergency…’You know what? He’s gone’.” “He’s not even here…” and so on. Furthermore, the whole premise is nonsensical, as an address on RVC would hardly help officers find the location of the truck on TTL.
h.
FALSE: GZ says the phrase he uttered under his breath on the NEN call was “Fucking Punks!”
TRUTH: A phonetic breakdown of the section of the NEN call in question demonstrates that GZ clearly said “Fucking Coons!”
i.
FALSE: GZ claims he walked from TTL over to RVC, specifically denying the suggestion that he was running at any time.
TRUE: Labored breathing and mic-handling noise on the NEN, which begin and end together, suggest GZ was running for about 20 seconds. (While the background sound does resemble ‘wind noise’, for it to have actually been caused by wind, one would need to posit that a gust came up exactly at the moment after left his truck, and not before, that it blew steadily for the next 20 seconds or so, then stopped exactly at the point GZ stopped to tell Noffke he had lost sight of TM, and remained dead calm for the duration of his NEN call.)
j.
OMISSION: Until confronted with the recording of his NEN call, GZ never acknowledges that he told Noffke NOT to have the arriving officer meet him by his truck.
TRUE: “Actually could you have them call me and I’ll tell them where I’m at?”
k.
FALSE: GZ claims he began walking back to his truck while still on the phone with NEN, after Noffke arranged a meeting point with the arriving officer, and TM confronted him as he was on his way back to the truck.
TRUE: The “re-enactment” establishes that the walk from RVC back to the point where GZ says he was confronted takes about 20 seconds. The confrontation began no sooner than 2 minutes after GZ hung up with NEN.
l.
FALSE: GZ claims he was walking back down the cut-through sidewalk to meet the arriving officer at his truck.
TRUE: GZ initially agreed to Noffke’s suggestion to meet the officer at THE MAILBOXES. He then changed his mind and asked Noffke, “Actually could you have them call me and I’ll tell them where I’m at?” To which Noffke agreed.
m.
HIGHLY IMPROBABLE: GZ claims that as he squirmed/shimmied away from the sidewalk, contact with the ground pulled his jacket up, revealing his gun to TM, who then told him, “You’re going to die tonight, motherfucker!” and reached for the gun.
TRUE: The Kel-Tec PF-9 is a very small gun. In the “challenge” interview, GZ told Serino, “I walk around WalMart all the time and no one has ever seen it.” Tucked into GZ’s waistband, in the darkness, had TM noticed the bulge in GZ’s pants he would almost certainly not have known what it was. Furthermore, GZ indicates in the “re-enactment” that the gun holster was attached to his rear, under the right rear pocket of his jeans. It would have been physically impossible for TM to see it there if the two were facing each other, or even if GZ had been turned 45° to his right.
n.
HIGHLY IMPROBABLE: GZ claims that after he shot TM, Martin sat up and said, “You got me!”
TRUE: GZ’s bullet pierced TM’s right lung, causing the lung to collapse immediately. Regardless of what Dr. Bao or Dr. DiMaio said about how long someone might remain alive after being shot through the heart, it is virtually impossible to speak with a collapsed lung.
o.
CONTRADICTION: GZ claims that after he shot Martin, he got on top of Martin’s back and spread the youth’s arms apart. He also claims he believed that Martin was still alive and cursing st him as he did this.
PROBLEM: GZ is unclear as to where his gun was at this point. In more than one of his accounts, he says he had not yet returned it to its holster. Thus, in order to spread both of Martin’s arms, which would have required the use of both of his hands, GZ would have had to either set the gun down momentarily, or spread Martin’s right arm with his gun still in his right hand. Either case would have allowed a still-alive Martina ready opportunity to grab the gun, something GZ would seem to have been careful to avoid if Martin had indeed reached for the gun only moments previously. And, of course, Martin’s hands were under his body when the first witnesses arrived on the scene.
—
PART TWO: SPECIFIC CREDIBILITY ISSUES FROM STATEMENT TO STATEMENT
B. Written Statement
a.
FALSE: “I told the dispatcher I did not know but I was out of my vehicle looking for a street sign and the direction the suspect went.”
TRUE: GZ never told NEN operator Noffke that he was out of the vehicle, or that he was looking for a street sign.
C. Singleton Interview
a.
FALSE: When GZ was asked why he found TM suspicious, he replied, “I’d never seen him in the neighborhood. I know all the residents… I know all the kids in my neighborhood, all the adults in my neighborhood.”
TRUE: Not only did GZ not know the Green family, but several of the witnesses at his trial mentioned that they had never met him.
b.
CONTRADICTION: “So, I was walking back through to where my car was and he jumped out from the bushes and he said, What the fuck’s your problem, homie? And I got my cell phone out to call 911 this time.”
PROBLEMS: There are no bushes capable of concealing a person anywhere near the T. Nor did GZ mean “out from the bushes” as a figure of speech, as Singleton later asked him where the bushes were, and he noted the hedges lining the North walls of the buildings along the North end of the dogwalk. These hedges are right up against the buildings, with no room for a person to get behind them and are no more than 3 ft. tall. Later in the interview, Singleton queries GZ about what happened to the cell phone when TM (allegedly) hit him, whether he dropped it or not. GZ initially repeats that he had the phone in his hand, then changes his mind and says, “I saw him coming at me and I went to grab my phone…I don’t remember if I had time to pull it out or not.” In the “re-enactment”, GZ says he reached for cell phone, but couldn’t find it, as he had put it in a different pocket.
c.
CONTRADICTION: “And he punched me in the nose. At that point I fell down…” “I fell to the ground when he punched me the first time.” “As soon as he punched me, I fell backwards, um, into the grass.”
PROBLEM: GZ and TM were struggling on the ground about 45 ft. South of where GZ says TM confronted him. In the “re-enactment”, GZ says TM approached him from the South. If TM had hit him coming from that direction, and had Zimmerman fallen backwards, he would have landed on the North side of the cut-through sidewalk. In the “re-enactment”, GZ says that did not fall immediately after being hit, but rather staggered to the South, trying to push Martin away from him, and then, after traveling that distance, “Somehow, he got on top of me.” In other words, in the “re-enactment” GZ claims not to have fallen directly from the punch at all.
d.
CONTRADICTION: “I thought he was going for my firearm. So I grabbed it immediately, and as he banged my head again, I just pulled out my firearm and shot him.”
PROBLEM: In his other accounts, TM does not resume head-banging after he supposedly begins smothering GZ.
e.
CONTRADICTION: “So I remember I, once I shot him, I holstered my firearm and I got on top of him and I held his hands down because he was still talking.”
PROBLEM: In the “re-enactment,” GZ says he was still holding his unholstered firearm away from his body when Jon Manalo arrived on the scene.
f.
CONTRADICTION: GZ told Singleton and Serino that TM continued to speak after GZ got on top of him.
PROBLEM: In the “re-enactment”, the only speech post-gunshot GZ attributes to TM is “You got me.” That is improbable enough, given TM’s collapsed right lung, but the notion that he continued to speak for some time after falling over, and being flipped face down by GZ, is even more of a stretch.
D. Serino Interview
a.
FALSE: GZ told Serino he had an Associates Degree in Criminal Justice.
TRUE: GZ had not completed his course requirements for an AA.
E. “Re-enactment”
a.
CONTRADICTION: GZ says he first spotted TM by Taaffe’s.
PROBLEM: He had told Singleton he spotted TM further up RVC at the next bend in the road, and had marked that spot on his map.
b.
FALSE: GZ says he passed TM by Taaffe’s, drove to the clubhouse, parked, dialed NEN, and Trayvon walked past his truck as he was doing so.
TRUE: It would have taken TM several more minutes to travel the distance from Taaffe’s to the clubhouse by foot, than for GZ to cover that distance in his truck
c.
FALSE: In the re-enactment video, GZ claims while parked in front of the clubhouse, the NEN operator asked him what direction TM went AFTER TM had made a right onto TTL out of sight. GZ claims to have responded “I don’t know I can’t see him”, and after which the NEN operator asked him “Well, can you get to where you can see him.”
TRUE: The NEN operator never asked GZ to go anywhere.
TRUE: The NEN operator only asked GZ what direction TM went AFTER GZ had reported TM running. The security videos and the NEN audio establish that GZ was parked on TTL at the time.
d.
FALSE: GZ says TM walked around the corner of the clubhouse, and headed East on TTL. He then says he followed in his truck, staying behind TM the whole time, until parking on the wrong side of the road just West of the cut-through sidewalk.
TRUE: This sequence of events is impossible to correlate with the NEN call.
TRUE: The clubhouse videos prove that before GZ parked where he said he did, he had parked near the first turn of TTL, facing West, toward the mailboxes. He initially marked this spot on the map he drew for Singleton, then crossed it out.
e.
FALSE: GZ claims Noffke said “We need an address,” and then told GZ, ““Give us directions to get to you” before he left his truck.
TRUE: Noffke said nothing of the sort, and volunteered the directions to his truck without being asked.
f.
FALSE: “they asked me where he went, what direction he went in, and I said ‘I don’t know.’ And then I thought to get out and look for a street sign.”
TRUE: From the NEN call — SN: He’s running? Which way is he running? / GZ: Down towards the other entrance to the neighborhood. / SN: Which entrance is that that he’s heading towards? / GZ: The back entrance.
g.
FALSE: GZ places the struggle and gunshot as happening directly in back of the Lauer/Weinberg home at 1211 TTL
TRUE: All witnesses place the struggle and shot as occuring some 30 ft. to the South, directly behind the Good residence at 1221 TTL
h.
CONTRADICTION: It takes GZ only 20 seconds to walk from the point where he says the NEN call ended to the point where he says TM accosted him.
PROBLEM: Over two minutes passed between the end of the NEN call and the beginning of the struggle
i.
IMPROBABLE: GZ claims he became aware of John Good exiting his home while Martin was beating him in the face, and began crying “Help me!” to Good before Good spoke to say he was calling 911.
PROBLEM: If GZ was getting his pummeled as bad as he claims, with his head feeling like it was about to explode, how would be able to become aware of a man opening a door (not a particularly loud noise, nor a distinct change in his visual field, assuming he could see anything at all while being beaten in the face)? It’s also questionable that someone receiving a severe beating in the face would be able to yell for help coherently. On the other hand, if GZ was NOT being hit at the time, he would have been much more able to notice Good, and to speak to him. This is also consistent with Good’s statement that while he saw arms flailing about he heard no sounds of impacts.
j.
CONTRADICTION: GZ says, “After I shot him, he like sat up… I shot him and I didn’t think I hit him because he sat up and said, ‘okay, you got me. You got it, you got it’…something like that.”
PROBLEM: Why would GZ say “I shot him,” twice, language that clearly indicates the bullet was on target, if he didn’t think he had hit him, as opposed to saying something like “I fired”, or “I shot AT him” that would properly indicate he did not know at the time where the bullet had gone?
k.
FALSE: GZ claims he was still sitting on top of TM when Jonathan Manalo came onto the scene, and that he only stood up for the furst time when he saw Officer Smith approach.
TRUE: In his 911 call, John Good reported two men walking around in his backyard well before Smith arrived. Jayne Surdyka and Selma Mora saw GZ get up and walk around before Manalo arrived. The testimony of Mora, Surdyka and Manalo all indicate that GZ met Manalo near the T. Before Smith arrived, Manalo and GZ had enough time to discuss what type of ammunition GZ used, walk back to the body, where Manalo took a photo with a cell phone, and walk back toward the T, where GZ surrendered to Smith. GZ himself told Singleton, “And then when the police got there…I was already standing up.”
l.
FALSE: GZ claims Manalo said “I’m calling the police” and he replied “Don’t call the police, help me restrain this guy!” and “I already called, and they’re on their way. They’re coming. I need your help!”
TRUE: Manalo testified that he asked GZ, “Should I call 911?” and GZ, already up and walking around with his phone to his ear replied “I already called them.” Manalo said nothing about GZ asking for help in restraining Martin, who was well dead by the time Manalo arrived.
G. “Challenge Interview” with Serino and Singleton
GZ actually says very little in this interview. The police officers do most of the talking, and GZ says “Yes sir” a lot. Serino and Singleton confront him with a variety of problems in his statements and the “re-enactment.” In response, GZ either mumbles unintelligibly, says he doesn’t remember, or repeats parts of his story as he has told it previously, whether they address the questions or not (they usually don’t). So most of what he says falls under the heading of Part 1 above. I noted three interesting new moments, though, where GZ attempts to elaborate on three of his mainstay falsehoods — 1. that he was parked in front of the clubhouse when TM approached his truck, hand in waistband etc.; 2. that he started walking back to his truck after NEN operator Noffke arranged for him to meet the arriving officer there; 3. why he said “Actually could you have them call me and I’ll tell them where I’m at? ” I can only describe each of these elaborations as ludicrous. I have written a post looking at these moments in detail, and pondering the Prosecutions failure to make a point of them during the trial.
H. Hannity Interview
a.
QUESTIONABLE: GZ tells Hannity he had never heard of Stand Your Ground before the shooting.
PROBLEM: SYG had been covered in the coursework GZ took in his community college program, and it’s hard to imagine his friends and family in law enforcement (Osterman, Mesa, et. al.) would never have mentioned it to him. In GZ’s first interview with Chris Serino, after GZ told him he had an Associates degree in Criminal Justice, Serino asked him “Um, the difference between statutes and homicide and justifiable homicide and use of force, they’re, you’re aware of them, you have a degree, you’re familiar with what we’re talking about here, right?” And GZ replied, “Yes, sir.”
b.
CONTRADICTION: GZ said, TM was “cutting in-between houses, and he was walking very leisurely for the weather”
PROBLEM: In his earlier statements, GZ said TM was standing by Taaffe’s house. This is the first time he mentions “cutting in between houses” (plural). Additionally, if TM had been walking “leisurely” this only adds to the impossibility of TM covering the distance between Taaffe’s and the clubhouse by foot in only a few more seconds than GZ covered the same distance by truck.
c.
SLIP?: GZ said of TM, “it didn’t look like he was a resident that went to check their mail and got caught in the rain.”ISSUE: Why would GZ mention the mail? In the ‘re-enactment’, GZ indicates that he was parked in front of the clubhouse when TM rounded the corner onto TTL. He could not have seen the mailbox area from this position. GZ further indicates that TM was already walking down TTL by the time he got his truck around the corner. Thus, his account indicates that TM was never sheltering under the mailbox awning. Rachel Jeantel testified that TM was taking refuge from the rain under the mail awning for some time. In addition, the security videos show Zimmerman’s truck crawling past the mailbox area, then making a u-turn on TTL, and parking facing the mailboxes. GZ initally marked this position on the map he drew for Inspector Singleton, but then crossed it out.
d.
CONTRADICTION:
Hannity: You said he came towards you, and he seemed to reach for something in his waistband. Did you think that was a gun?
Zimmerman: I thought he was just trying to intimidate me.
Hannity: To make you think that there is a gun?
Zimmerman: A weapon.
PROBLEM: GZ never mentioned any suspicion that TM might be armed to the NEN operator, nor did he say the TM REACHED into his waistband. He said, “He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male. He’s got a button on his shirt, late teens. Somethings wrong with him. Yup, he’s coming to check me out. He’s got something in his hands, I don’t know what his deal is.” Unless he thought the photo button was a weapon…
e.
FALSE: GZ says he uttered the word “punks” under his breath.
Hannity: Punks. It was not a racial epithet of any type?
Zimmerman: No. And I can tell you that when the police played it for me in the station, it was clear as day.
TRUE: A phonetic breakdown of the scetion of the NEN call in question demonstrates that GZ clearly said “Fucking Coons!”
f.
CONTRADICTION:
Hannity: Why do you think that he was running then?
Zimmerman: Maybe I said running, but he was more —
Hannity: You said he’s running.
Zimmerman: Yes. He was like skipping, going away quickly. But he wasn’t running out of fear.
Hannity: You could tell the difference?
Zimmerman: He wasn’t running.
PROBLEM: GZ’s exclamation, “Shit! He’s running!” on the NEN call would seem to be unequivoval. Rachel Jeantel stated that TM ran hard enough to become short of breath. Yet, as we’ve already noted, GZ had avoided any mention of TM running in his earlier statements, and here, when pressed by Hannity, he comes up with a rather ridiculous equivocation.
g.
CONTRADICTION:
Hannity: The dispatcher asked you, “are you following him?” And you said yes. Explain that.
Zimmerman: I meant that I was going in the same direction as him, to keep an eye on him so that I could tell the police where he was going. I didn’t mean that I was actually pursuing him.
PROBLEM: Again, GZ’s response on the NEN call would seem to have been unequivocal. And of course, in previous statements GZ claimed he only left his truck to look for an address.
h.
FALSE:
Hannity: So this moment where someone suggested you were out of breath on that tape, you yourself were not running?
Zimmerman: No, sir.
Hannity: And you I think made a statement to the police that it was the wind as you were getting out of the car and moving, and that was the sound we hear, not you out of breath?
Zimmerman: Yes, sir.
TRUE: Regardless of what causes the background noise, GZ’s breath is clearly labored as he pursues TM. The utter improbably of the background noise being caused by wind has already been discussed above.
i.
FALSE:
Hannity: When the dispatch said “we don’t need you to follow him?” What did you do next?
Zimmerman: I walked across the sidewalk on to my street, Retreat View Circle, where I thought I would meet a police officer that I had called.
TRUE: GZ never mentioned Retreat View Circle to NEN operator Noffke, but instead had given Noffke directions to the location of the truck on TTL (though, of course he had not mentioned that street by name…)
j.
FALSE:
Zimmerman: I was walking through to my street, Retreat View Circle, and I was going to give them the actual street number and name.
Hannity: How long was it, George, after that, that you saw Trayvon again? Because you said you stopped, that you did not continue pursuing him. When did you next see Trayvon Martin?
Zimmerman: Less than 30 seconds.
TRUE: GZ’s NEN call ended at 7:13:38. His verbal confrontation with TM began at approximately 7:15:45.
(I will keep adding to this document over time until I have a reasonably thorough compilation. Please chip in with anything I’ve missed or haven’t gotten to yet.)
whonoze 
The DOJ is solliciting tips for the Zimmerman case.
They’ve got an email address set up, for this purpose Sanford.florida@usdoj.gov.
Article is here.
http://touch.orlandosentinel.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76680163/
Concerning the NEN call,
1) GZ claims Sean told him 2x to look for TM, the 1st time being made him drive to TTL, the 2nd time made him exit his vehicle.
2) GZ claims he parked in front of the clubhouse. CCTV show no such event.
3) GZ claims TM circled his car. Per my recollection, with Singleton on Feb 26th he said he fully circled. But, by Feb 29th, he did just a half one as he could not come up with a way to make that happen when confronted with a map and the nen call.
FALSE: In the re-enactment video, GZ claims while parked in front of the clubhouse, the NEN operator asked him what direction TM went AFTER TM had made a right onto TTL out of sight. GZ claims to have responded “I don’t know I can’t see him”, and after which the NEN operator asked him “Well, can you get to where you can see him.”
TRUE: The NEN operator never asked GZ to go anywhere.
ADDED
See it from GZ’s perspective and it’s clear.
This lie was necessary because of the sequence in which GZ told Singleton his false narrative. At first he wanted to simplify the story to, “I pulled over (once, and never moved) and called NEN and then got out of the car at the behest of the dispatcher (paraphrased) .”
He wanted to gloss over the initial encounter and get to the “I was jumped” part.
She made him back up and tell the story from an earlier place and so he told the story of stopping at the clubhouse parking lot, to avoid the real events of trolling the mail kiosk and doubling back. This meant he needed a reason to LEAVE the clubhouse lot since the teen walked out of sight according to this version. So he doubled down on the “I moved at the behest of dispatch” part and pretended that was here. It’s an obvious lie if you see it from his POV
In the end it left him with TWO times of needing to say he HAD to follow in order to do what the NEN wanted. Gently he switched the second instance to needing to “find a steeet sign/ address” but he’s lying. It makes me sick to think that THESE silly lies are ones that the jurors bought and the state failed to highlight.
I have more problems with this part admittedly. I couldn’t believe how easy Mantei surrendered to O’Mara challenge to the video camera surveillance man: Could the time have been 1 to 2 plus minus minutes off instead of 18. You should sent the basis of your no car ever parked in front of the clubhouse statistics or the basis thereof to the above email address. Had Mantei had your work, he could have let the man go subject to recall.
As much as I like the video, I am not sure about if that should be sent but, why not?
The question is really if he provably did not park were he said he did, where was he then. But there is of course the problem that that lights do not mean specific car but no lights at a point were he claimed he was scream.
I find this external very important as reality anchors related to his contradictions.
Tchoubi, I am not too fond of the imgur format, it was always very, very difficult to link to specifics overs there.
Did you notice by the way that O’Mara stopped himself and claimed he had troubles with his PC when he discussed Serino,, alluding to GZ’s knowledge that the clubhouse video camera’s may not work to well or at all? Had I been on the jury this passage would have drawn my attention. I am pretty sure.
correction: Could the time have been 1 to 2 plus minus minutes off instead of 18? You should sent the basis of your no-car-ever-parked-in-front-of-the-clubhouse-statistics or the basis thereof to the above email address.
Also whoever knows people who were confronted and bothered by Fogen in RTL should alert them to the email address.
i feel so empty and so unable to simple move on.
Each and every statement post NEN call:
GZ fails to tell anyone the teen ran away. A clear lie of omission, often compounded with a lie of substitution where the teen “doubles back” instead of George.
ADDED
this is THE lie, and it accounts for his contradictory statements elsewhere. It’s the reason he says he was instructed TWICE to move his car. It’s the reason he gives incomprehensible answers like “skipping away” and is unable to tell Serino in the “mild challenge interview” (this is the term Serino used) anything at all about HOW TM ran. It’s the moment he’s caught in a HUGE lie and he’s got NOTHING to say for himself.
This lie of omission is to cover the car to pedestrian chase. It leads to other lies, and it established a PATTERN of lies.
I’ll participate in this exercise but to me this is THE LIE that he got away with. The SPD seems to have missed it. The FDLE missed it. BDLR missed it when he spoke to RJ in his original deposition. RJ did NOT miss it when she spoke to Crump/ABC but they first spoke to it on a section that seems to be missing, possibly. Don West, the fool, did NOT miss it when he cross examined her on the issue. But the prosecution missed it AGAIN when it was right there in open court.
It’s the elephant in the room as far as I am concerned. Everything branches off from this lie. He’s altered his original position to obfuscate it, and the likely tipoff. He’s obfuscated and omitted the running when speaking to SPD for obvious reasons – it makes him the clear aggressor and shows the child in obvious fear. And once he fooled them, or they accepted his lies, more like it, the investigation never went back there.
Yes John Guy speaks of a following by car but he’s still buying into this having occurred in the ludicrous manner GZ presented it – so as to have happened in a way that GZ never moved behind the teen while they both were in sight of one another and moving with GZ in the rear.
It is very powerful in combination with the clubhouse videos, and the Google map drawing. GZ’s actions were intended to intimidate. No person, who is afraid or just wants to observe, would behave the way GZ did.
What GZ also is trying to hide, is the fact that Trayvon was taking cover from the rain under the shade, and not walking around, looking inside the houses.
Damn, I am so pissed at the prosecution.
I still think the 6:48-6:51 call is the tipoff from Shellie. She could have been passing the shortcut around the time TM entered the complex.
Cellibrite HER phone.
I remember I was puzzled at the club house passage, when I saw the reenactment after having listened to his NEN call a multitude of times. And I think this may be similar to what you have in mind.
The claims at the clubhouse–were he never ever parked–that Trayvon disappeared around the corner into TTL. This felt could have been the passage were he claimed he ran. In any case he claims he lost eye contact already there, which does not make much sense considering his later narrative. Is this what you have in mind?
Strictly much of what he said on the call would fall into line. if Trayvon went there and he had indeed been at the clubhouse, he would assume he was heading towards the back entrance considering the route of TTL. The problem is, it cannot have happened that way.
But strictly I remember I wondered if at that point that cut-through would make sense for TTL too.
Am I completely off on a tangent or do I get a glimpse of what is on your mind?
I wish the Martin family lawyers would sue the NSA for the calls Shellie made, and also for RJ’s calls to TM. They have them, Snowden proved it.
I’d certainly like to hear for myself the recordings of Trayvon’s last call and the one before that (not counting the incoming one from Chad), instead of having to rely on Rachel’s various versions.
I’d rather hear the 6:48 call myself. Rachel Jentel has been consistent enough about the at to pedestrian chase for my tastes.
Wheras GZ and SZ have never even admitted there was a call and related texts at that time, the time TM would have been entering the complex presumably.
unitron wrote, “…instead of having to rely on Rachel’s various versions.” I can’t let that go without a response.
Despite being bullied and insulted for some six hours on the stand, Rachel’s testimony corresponded to everything she’d told before. None of her previous ‘lies’ were materially relevant
In the end, Rachel Jeantel and, to a much greater degree, Trayvon Martin were on trial. Why you and others persist in believing that she was less credible that Zimmerman with all his evident lies and omissions is beyond me.
unitron – I suggest you meet Rachel Jeantel outside the courtroom:
Piers Morgan interview
Al Sharpton interview
Huh? You’re joking, right? Or are you seriously suggesting the NSA records every cell-phone conversation that takes place in the U.S. and archives them all on some mega-massive top secret nanotech server? I mean it’s just as likely they have the whole incident on spy-satellite video. (Maybe Ed Snowden can pull of a hack that will download everything to Unitron’s Tivo…)
Folks, I REALLY want you to contribute to building this ‘database.’ I think it’s important, and here’s why:
It’s clear now that many people (especially white people) are inclined to give GZ the benefit of the doubt on his statements. While his BS is old news to US, thousands and thousands of people have only started paying real attention to this case since the trial and verdict. Each of US may have all we need to condemn GZ’s veracity on the basis one one signal falsehood that speaks most strongly to us — e.g. willis’ focusing on the fact GZ never admits the car-to-pedestrian chase, and never admits Trayvon ran away from him in fear. The prosecution attempted to establish “GZ is a liar” by focusing on a couple of his juiciest fabrications — ‘I was going to find an address’ and ‘he was straddled on top of me when I went for the gun.’ IT DIDN’T WORK!
What the State failed to do was establish the vast extent and consistency of GZ’s mendacity. Each falsehood may be small in and of itself, but collectively they paint an undeniable and indelible picture — like gathering enough drops of water together yields a monsoon. Put them all together, and no fair reader could any longer hold to the Defense claim of ‘well of course anyone would mix up a few things after experiencing a traumatic event.
What I want this page to be is, first of all, a graphic demonstration of how thoroughly full of shit GZ’s stories are — power in the form of sheer volume. Second, as I said, this is all old news, but it’s scattered hither, thither and yon all over the Internet. It would be a great service to the people who are just now starting to dig into this case to have everything on this subject all in one place, and placed in some kind of logical structure.
So PLEASE, help out the cause here!
Apologies for getting off-track with the purpose of this thread. But to me it’s important to also note why he’s lying and how his lies pile up on one another. He’s hiding a possible tipoff (hasn’t been proved BARD) and he’s hiding a car to pedestrian chase which CAN and should have been proven BARD. And many of his preposterous statements relate directly to this, such as getting out of his car first because he was directed to, and then later to get an address/ look for a street sign. IMO it was a chargeable criminal offense and he clearly successfully lied his way out of it and made the case about what happened AFTER he’d already broken the law!!
@whonoze. It is also important to see what GZ omits from his statements. For instance, in his statements and re-enactment, he omitted that he asked Sean to have the cop call him for his location.
On that issue, when his NEN call was played for him, GZ told Singleton and Serino that when he was told “We don’t need you to do that” that he was on “the other side” on Retreat View Circle. Thus, his need for an address would have been accomplished since he was still on the phone with dispatch. GZ didn’t give Sean the address.
I am not trying to be a Debby Downer but it’s over guys.
The Child Molesting Child Murderer is free and Obama is too chickensh!t to have George tried on federal charges.
No jury in Seminole county would have ever convicted him. No way, no how!!
But karma will get George and it will be sweeter than any type of vigilante justice we could imagine.
roderick as a German I am very hesitant about Karma. I’ve seen too many Nazis living up to a rather impressive age without apparent problems or karma weighing in.
Yes it is over and no it cannot be over yet. Maybe now it is about something else, something beyond pure retribution.
One thing would be keeping Trayvon’s name and his story in people’s minds.
“Don’t mourn. Organize!”
George Zimmerman is not and has never been very important in the larger scheme of things. What matters are the social issues this case raises. The specific outcome of GZ’s case itself is all but irrelevant to the bigger picture. How that outcome is interpreted, what meanings and actions stem from those interpretations matter very much. ‘History’ will be the judge, and that history is now very much under construction, very much a “contested terrain.” In fact, our work has now passed from the relatively trivial to a much more significant level.
That is why this page is not a meaningless post-mortem exercise. By establishing just how thorough GZ’s BS has been, we establish just how thorough the failure of our social institutions were in this case.
How did the case come to be presented by prosecutors who failed to present a thorough picture of a central claim of their case (“GZ is a liar!’)?
How did GZ come to be tried by a panel filled with jurors prepared to take GZ at his word, and to consider TM as a thug, and “one of them”?
Why did Judge Nelson feel compelled to issue jury instructions that all but negated any possibility of conviction?
How, most importantly, did the laws leading to those jury instructions get placed on the books?
What is most definitely NOT over is the struggle over gun legislation in general, and ‘Castle Doctrine’ laws in particular. The NRA and ALEC want to EXTEND SYG into even more states, and will fight tooth and nail to keep those laws from being repealed or cut-back in the states that have them now…
What is NOT over is the question of how many more Travons and Zimmermans are going to have tragic meetings in the future. And how THIS case is understood as we move forward is going to matter very much.
“In the name of Trayvon Martin, we are trying to make sure that kids feel safe and this does not happen to somebody else’s teenager, or somebody else’s child, and somebody else gets away with murder. We want to make sure that these laws are changed, We want to make sure that people are listening to what happened during the trial, and even now, and we make positive change.”
— Sabrina Fulton on ‘Politics Nation’ 7/18/2013
Amen, Whonoze.
But I think George Zimmerman still matters as a hero of a special mindset. And he matters in this context:
In this context your work would make sense. if the Martin family succeeds against Fogen in a civil lawsuit then and only then I wouldn’t mind if Fogen wins his case against NBC. 😉
It could be support for the Martin family and the Trayvon Martin foundation who then will have enough funds to do something for the better of Florida and the US.
The singleton interview should be separated into two parts. She halted the interview to go an print out a map. Before the map was produced, he was attempting to tell one story, and after being shown the map he told a different one.
He also drew a map on paper that was not preserved as evidence, in yet another failing or “police misstep.”
I liked your video, but I wonder if this can be proven completely, car lights have no specific relation to one specific car. But it sure would be worth a test. On the other hand no lights at all were a car was supposedly parked are enormously significant:
Note to black teens always set up GPS tracing while walking in the dark in a place with which you aren’t completely familiar. If you didn’t use it at least as a bluff, a similar bluff once saved my life.
The video by whonoze is validated as far as the timeline goes because it tracks back from the arrival of the first responders to show that the only car in the vicinity at the time of the NEN call recording is a car that trolls the mail kiosk and drives all the way down past the cut thru bend in TTL. Then A CAR (impossible to say what car but likely the same) returns and seemingly stops facing the mail kiosk and does NOT continue out past the mail kiosk. There is no way to say GZ is inside to a moral certainty but there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, for unless that is his car, he was never in the vicinity at all in a car. Either way, he’s telling a false narrative to police.
Short version, if that ain’t george, then george was never there at all.
And since no car ever stops at the clubhouse lot out front, he’s lied.
And since the car that is there at the time of the NEN call trolls the mail kiosk, he’s lying about how he moved and probably where he first saw the teen.
And since he seems to have doubled back to face the mail kiosk, he’s putting his actions onto those of the teen regarding “doubling back” from the T to circle his car.
It’s vital to view the evidence in the order that GZ presented his statements and drew maps and was questioned. He’s told some semi-clever lies but they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
I can’t stress enough the point that GZ never told the SPD that the teen ran – AT ALL. Were it not for the NEN call recording, the only people that would know about the running away would be Rachel Jeantel and GZ.
–
If she had tipped him of, how would he have found Trayvon so easily at the mail shed?
But do you have his phone records? I have never seen them. All I know there was a defense motion about both his and her phone.
Willis can you give me a link to the google map drawing you mentioned over at Fred’s blog?
The map GZ drew on with and for Doris Singleton is part of the evidence included as discovery. Originally the prosecution submitted a B+W copy there the lines and markings were hard to discern. Eventually, shortly before trial and around a year later, a color version was introduced into the public realm.
this “set” of photos are part of a series of notes I made many many months ago from just having the B+W version of the map.
At the end I have added the color version. If you care to look at all the photos in the set, be sure to read the accompanying notes.
His phone records and Shellie’s were finally released right before the trial began.
What was sealed were the contents of some texts or emails that were said to be prejudicial since they occurred after the killing. What was released was the call times and numbers, much like a phone bill is listed. Also the time and numbers for when he sent text messages.
hat tip to Bill Moyers.
whonoze – I’ll help in any way I can.
First, add Zimmerman’s written statement.
Second, resources:
Axiom Amnesia
Sling Trebuchet
analysis site
and, of course,
Your Youtube site (Treeslaw)
Tchoupi’s Imgur site
Third, transcripts:
txantimedia
This site has transcripts of all police interviews, but not the reenactment.
Videos and transcript of Hannity interview Didn’t want to link to Hannity’s page on Fox News.
Lastly, the following link takes you to crime scene and autopsy photos. Some of these have long been available, but there are somewhat graphic photographs of Trayvon at the scene. The autopsy photos show the stippling/powder.
Crime and Courts News
I’m sorry – I forgot that it isn’t wise to put a whole slew of links in one post. I hope I haven’t screwed up the comment section
And I apologize again to willisnewton –
photo and image sets
willisnewton wrote a wonderful letter for the DOJ on the previous thread. Below is a letter I wrote; I kept editing it to make it as short as possible (sorry, willisnewton!). I just wanted it to show how Zimmerman’s actions that night were based on race, and how his subsequent statements were designed to both justify his acts and portray Trayvon as a fearful stereotype. Something like this could then introduce the evidence we provide.
———————
On Sunday, 26 February 2012, at the gated community of Retreat at Twin Lakes, Sanford FL, George Michael Zimmerman, 28, committed a series of acts that led to the murder of Trayvon Benjamin Martin, a 17-year-old African-American.
Trayvon Martin was returning home from a walk to a nearby 7-11 store where he’d purchased a bag of candy and a large can of fruit beverage. He was dressed in a dark gray hooded sweatshirt, khaki pants, and white sneakers. He was carrying a beige plastic 7-11 bag which held the beverage can. It was around 7:00 pm in the evening, and there were intermittent rain showers. When Zimmerman spotted him, he was walking “leisurely” along one of the two main streets in the community, “looking about” and “looking at all the houses” while doing so. He soon sought shelter from a sudden downpour under a roofed mailbox kiosk, before proceeding to his destination. Trayvon was not committing, nor had committed, a crime. Nor was he behaving in a manner that any reasonable person would determine to be suspicious.
Because of a spate of burglaries over the previous year, a few of which involved black male suspects, Zimmerman perceived African-American males in the area as criminals or suspected criminals. Zimmerman continued to report black males despite recent arrests for those incidents when a suspect was identified and despite the arrest and closure for the most recent burglary less than three weeks before the night of February 26th.
Trayvon Martin had the right to walk in a community in which he was a guest, unmolested and without threat or intimidation. He had the right to be perceived and treated as an individual, to not be demonized both before and after his death because of his race.
But, because Trayvon was black and male, Zimmerman instantly perceived him as a person who did not belong in “his neighborhood.” Trayvon became one of “those who victimized the neighborhood.” Zimmerman identified him as one of those “assholes who always get away.” He was a “fucking punk.”(Please note that many people hear the word “coons” instead of “punks,” with the long ‘oo’ and final ‘z’ phonemes).
Because Trayvon was black and male, Zimmerman saw himself as rightfully empowered to pursue, to hunt, to restrain, and to murder with impunity.
Evidence will show that Zimmerman intentionally lied to law enforcement, constructing and amending his statements to hide or misrepresent his own actions; to present Trayvon Martin as the ‘thuggish black man’ stereotype who would violently assault another person simply because he felt ‘dissed;’ and to provide the necessary ‘bullet points’ to support his claim of self-defense with justifiable use of force, the statutes for which Zimmerman was well familiar, from the training course required for his concealed-carry license, and from a criminal justice course at the Seminole State College in Florida in Sanford.
Trayvon Martin was deprived of his liberty, his life, and his right to equal protection under law because he was an African-American male. George Zimmerman must be held to account.
i am trying to follow this case and i’m wondering if anyone knows the answer to my question. Zimmerman said he shot him because he was getting his head slammed into the concrete, but trayvon’s body and where the witnesses saw the struggle was no where near the concrete, it was in the grass, away from the concrete, so i am confused. if someone can explain this it would be helpful. i gave zimmerman the benefit of the doubt and felt self defense is reasonable, but after looking into this more, his story is filled with lies that are not insignificant. i think this case did need to got to trial because it is unusual and his stories don’t make any sense. Im not sure if this is helpful but it was something that i noticed, and someone else might have information that i missed.
Zimmerman’s explanations would be:
1. He squirmed away from the concrete onto the grass
2. Trayvon sat up and then flopped-over after being shot, these post-shredded-ventricle movements possibly taking him further away from the sidewalk.
Of course, Jayne Surdyka testified the two men were on the grass the whole time, there was no blood on the concrete, the wounds on GZ’s head were not consistent with it being repeatedly forcibly slammed against anything…
But actually the sidewalk-grass problem is among the more plausible aspects of GZ’s story, though that’s not saying much.
It’s true that the body in death was photographed away from the sidewalk so far that the struggle was very unlikely to have ended on the sidewalk. GZ himself claims he was moving off the sidewalk at the time but his stories are not consistent, nor are they consistent with what witnesses saw on this point.
John Good claims he saw the two struggling on the sidewalk perpendicular to his view the second time he looked at them. The first and last times however, he saw them
There were hard plastic sprinkler control boxes off the sidewalk but again it appears that these were not where his head was supposedly hit. Resident Jon Manalo took three iphone photos after being the first person on the scene post-shooting. A google search will fond them. What’s available to orient the photos are the sidewalk itself and the small tactical flashlight that GZ was carrying and that ended up in the grass close to the body.
Please explore all this and make up your own opinion and don’t take my word for it, but in my opinion a likelier explanation for the events of the physical struggle would be that GZ tried to detain the youth somehow, most likely by grabbing his “hoodie” jacket and also using his superior weight to pull the two to the ground. Whatever TM’s efforts after that were, the idea of a justifiable homicide occurring are off the table, as it is against the law to detain someone. This is essentially the start of a kidnapping, legally speaking.
Were GZ holding on to TM, the injuries he sustained to the back of his head and to his face are understandable as the results of being dragged and bumped and likely hit with open palms and who knows even being head-butted. The lack of GZ’s DNA or blood on Martin’s hands or under his fingernails seems fairly damning evidence to me in opposition to a tale where the teen supposedly struck GZ in the face over 25 times. . At the very least George exaggerated, and it seems more likely than no he outright lied.
The fact that we know for CERTAIN that he lied about how he first came to see the teen, and how they moved from near the clubhouse to near the cut thru means he simply is not a credible person. His tales regarding this activity are impossible to align with the events described and the overall timing of his NEN call as recorded.
Also keep in mind that GZ’s tale of being near the T and returning to(wards) his vehicle is highly suspect and self-serving. In each account he gave prior to returning to the scene, he claims an initial “sucker punch” drove him to the ground where the teen immediately mounted him. In one account he is quite specific about falling “backwards into the grass” and never does he mention stumbling anywhere.
Yet when taken to the scene the next day, his story suddenly becomes that “must have stumbled” to the south, which he pantomimes somewhat by walking immediately thru the space he just claimed the teen was standing in, and continuing for a short distance without any clear explanation of what he did with his hands, or a coherent explanation of how he came to eventually be on the ground. GZ’s “re-eneactment” only moves slightly less than half the actual distance to where the bullet and body were recovered, and so seems slightly more plausible for this reason, but keep in mind the actual distance is more like the distance from home plate to the base of a pitcher’s mound in major league baseball. According to GZ, no more significant blows were struck during this time, and he has no real story of what he did with his own hands, either. It’s also telling that George has no story of what he did with his hands EVER during the entire struggle save to draw his weapon and fire. It’s as though for the entire fight he kept his hands completely limp for no real reason, which strains credulity given the length of the struggle. He clearly was not so stunned as to either be unable to cry for help (or for help in detaining the teen) or to inflict some sort of pain that would cause the teen to be the one heard crying out on the 911 call. Nor did he claim that his arms were pinned by the teen’s knees. In fact he told his fiend Mark Osterman allegedly that the teen’s knees were up at his armpits.
It seems odd that when GZ claims he was being smothered that the cries on the 911 call don’t seem to reflect this. Were the teen hoping to smother his cries, none were recorded that are clear instances of a stifled yell. Also of course again we learned that there was no blood found on the teen’s hands, nor any DNA under his nails.
Keep in mind GZ told his whole tale before knowing about this 911 call.
Also according to John Good, the closest witness he saw them initially lying in what, for a lack of a better term, would be called the missionary position, one atop the other. This seems a curious position to take up if GZ never used his hands for anything other than to draw his gun and fire. Were he, as he claims, struck to the ground and mounted, why is this stage taking place? It seems more likely to me to be an act that goes along with trying to use his weight as an advantage and bring the struggle to the ground by tackling the teen in some fashion. It’s possible they both had hands holding one another. We don’t know. Many things are possible. What GZ claims here, seems hardly possible IMO. (What he claimed elsewhere, earlier, is physically impossible.)
IMO there was no “fight,” period. There was one person attempting to detain the other and that person was trying to get away. Whichever called for help, it was to accomplish those goals.
unfinished paragraph above should read
John Good claims he saw the two struggling on the sidewalk perpendicular to his view the second time he looked at them. The first and last times however, he saw them they were more or less feet closest to him and in a line facing with his view. How can two people in a struggle move between these orientations best? This needs to be considered. Also consider that GZ never claimed to block any blows with his hands or arms, or to use his hands to aid him in “squirming.” Where were his hands? He never really says.
I have made a page for text files of Zimmerman’s statements.
Well, for what it’s worth I posted a diary at DailyKos about this. Not sure if I wrote it the wrong way or whether I am just not radical enough for DailyKos, but they were less than impressed and somewhat hostile.
At any rate, here is the link. The bottom half has inconsistencies I think I have found in Zimmerman’s story.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/24/1226337/-George-Zimmerman-meets-Trayvon-Martin-Call-for-Comments
Best regards.
You make a good point about GZ reaching into his pocket vs. TM’s “hand in his waistband”. What’s telling, I think, is that I haven’t heard any pundits mention this, which testifies to a kind of hypocrisy, borne of the cultural prejudices against Trayvon. Martin has his hand on his phone, or his can of Arizona, and GZ gets to be afraid of him, but GZ — who actually IS armed with a 9mm loaded with a full clip and one in the chamber — gets to reach into his pocket, without identifying himself or offering any explanation, and TM does NOT get to be afraid or take any sort of defensive action. I note, too, that in the re-enactment, the left-handed Zimmerman gestures to his RIGHT pocket as the location where he “went for his phone.” Thus, if he did actually reach for his phone, he was reaching quite close to where he did have his gun. One could even imagine his claimed statement there, “No I don’t have a problem,” as a Dirty Harry-esque quip: “No, I don’t have a problem, punk. I’ve got a Kel-Tec PF-9!.”
But this begs the question of why Zimmerman would have been reaching for his phone to call 911 anyway. BY HIS OWN ACCOUNT, Martin had done nothing wrong at this point. He had “emerged from the darkness” — by the “re-enactment”, GZ has dropped the ‘he came out of the bushes’ bit, since he can see there are no bushes that could conceal anyone anywhere near the T. The whole T area was dark, and by GZs own account his flashlight was not working, so if TM did approach GZ, where could he come from except the darkness? Again, BY GZ’S OWN ACCOUNT, he had walked past the T, and realized that Martin was behind him only when Martin spoke, at which point he turned to see Martin approaching from the South. When GZ tells Randy Smith “he was right about where you are”, identifying the point at which TM allegedly issued his “You got a problem?” query, Smith is standing 8 or 9 feet from GZ. If 911 calls are for crimes in progress, How is someone you have been following, without identifying yourself in any way, asking you if you have a problem while standing 8 feet away from you a crime?
(If TM had been Dick Cheney, Zimmerman would certainly be dead, a Cheney would have concluded that he MIGHT be a terrorist, and MIGHT be armed, and that’s enough to declare war.)
I take the point of your DailyKos article to be that EVEN IF WE WERE TO GRANT CREDIBILITY TO ZIMMERMAN’S ACCOUNT he would still be guilty of manslaughter. This strikes me as a valid intellectual exercise, especially from a trial-strategy perspective, even though I do not grant its premise (GZ is lying out of his ass). However, in the context of GZ’s utterances on the NEN call — “assholes… fucking coons” — the assumption that a young man standing 8 feet away asking him a question is necessarily a dangerous criminal just adds to the malice, spite, depraved mind, yada yada that defines Murder 2.
Anyway, this blog likes reasoned argument and analysis of evidence, and I think you’ll find a less irrationally hostile response here than at DailyKos (though perhaps even more radical, at least intellectually…).
the cleanliness of his jacket shows he was never on his back.