Zimmerman Case....do you have armed non-professionals "patroling"

Closing arguements in the Zimmerman murder trial have concluded.

As you may know, Mr. Zimmerman was touted as the "go to guy" for security issues in his HOA newsletter.

He shot and killed an unarmed 17 year old, shortly after calling police to report him as "suspicious".

How would you find with regard to Mr. Zimmerman if you were on the jury?

Guilty of Murder?

Or acting in self defense?

I agree with everything you said.

Who is really to say what happened.

A verdict of Not Guilty is not only possible, but also possibly just.

That said....

I have a Class A Large Capacity, No Restrictions License to carry firearms here in MA.

Rule #1 of carrying a concealed weapon is that you NEVER go looking for trouble.

Mr. Zimmerman obviously did just that, and found it with some kid who had no problem beating the daylights out of him for

"following him around".

So personally, I would find that idiot guilty of at least manslaughter.

But we will see what a jury of his peers decides.

Despite the subject line, Mike15, your real question has nothing to do with HOAs, but opinions about Zimmerman. Is there nowhere else to discuss this online? Really!!??

To answer your bogus question: we have professional unarmed "access control officers" at our urban high rise HOA. We also have 26 cameras which they can monitor from two sites.

Herein lies the problem. We do not know whether Zimmerman challenged Martin or, as I recall the story he told to the police, if Martin jumped him from the bushes. Without a witness or other evidence we will never know.

I'm not on the jury. Therefore, what I think is not relevant.

As Carol pointed out, the subject line and the actual content of the message are not the same topic.

The topic of neighborhood patrols have been discussed previously. If your interested, I'd suggest looking at those threads. Do a search for "neighborhood watch" by clicking the search icon and you will find 330 threads on the topic.

I am not nor do I play a lawyer.

Zimmerman per se is not the issue. Sorry I posted as such.

The issue of the Zimmerman case for all HOA's should be that if you need security, then hire them as an outside agency/contractor with their own liability. There might be other ways of doing it, but the bottom line for the association is do not become responsible for their actions in any way shape nor form.

Like signing a contract for say a landscaping service that says all employees of the service will be legal aliens, bonded, insured, etc. This basically relieves the association of the responsibility if they are not such. Action to be taken will be against the contractor, not the association.

Now let me add one thing. The only difference between your scumbag lawyer and my scumbag lawyer, is one of them scumbags is mine.......LOL

This sounds nice but it is wrong. Whenever you hire a contractor, whether for security or for mowing the lawn, you may be held liable for their actions. HOA's that assume security functions assume the risk that goes along with it, regardless of who is doing the actual patrol.

My advice to any HOA that hires/sponsors/allows security patrols of any type is to discontinue it. Even though Zimmerman was found not guilty in his criminal trial, his HOA shelled out a bundle. The way to avoid that liability is to not get involved in security in the first place.

I would have found him builty of manslaughter. There are a number of things people tend to overlook in this matter:

Trayvon wasn't doing anything "suspicious" - since when is walking down the street "suspicious"? If one is hell bent on commiting a crime, one would expect he/she to do something like things like looking into windows to see if someone was home or fooling around with a door knob or a window, all the while looking around to make sure no one sees him.

Since when is it illegal to wear a hoodie? Lots of people of various races, nationalities, religions, ages and even gender preference wear them. Of course he had the hoodie up - it was raining outside!

If you're up to no good, wouldn't you be carrying something to commit a crime - baseball bat, gun, a brick to break open a window??? Trayvon had a bag of Skittles and a bottle of Snapple iced tea - maybe it's just me, but I fail to see how anyone could do any sort of damage with that.

ANYONE would be concerned if a strange car was following him/her - why was it so wrong for Trayvon to do this?

Zimmerman wasn't a cop so if one is going to say the dispatcher didn't have a right to tell him not to follow Trayvon, then that also means that Trayvon had every right to ask Zimmerman why he was following him.

(By the way the line about the dispatcher not having a right to tell Zimmerman not to follow him is really dumb, in my opinion. You're concerned enough about this guy to call the cops - don't you think that if you continue to follow the guy you just might run into trouble?)

Trayvon was six houses away from home - SIX! If Zimmerman hadn't decided to make all types of assumptions and did what the dispatcher said, he might have gotten home safe and sound, and if the police had shown up, it might have been reolved quickly and we'd be talking about something else. Instead, a 16 year old is dead.

Finally, Zimmerman's the one with the gun - that automatically puts him at an advantage. How can it be self defense when HE's the one who got out of the car? I

In the end, I'm sorry to say the police AND prosecution blew this case would really like to hear the jury's side of this. That said, I'll accept their decision - and I hope the family files a civil lawsuit.

This case concerns me because I have two nephews who live in a community similar to where Trayvon was at (17 and 14 - and yes, I'm African American). Everyone knows my sister and her family (and my brother in law has served in their homeowner association) and while I'm pleased they've never had any trouble and they're good kids (the older one's a budding track star and the younger is a music and computer genius), who's to say the same thing wouldn't happen to them? Some cop wanna-be or some other kook with itchy trigger finger who knows nothing about them could easily be inclined to make the same assumption or want to shoot them because they hate N-words anyway (sorry for the language, but it has to be said)

I also believe that Zimmerman was the instigator and aggressor in this situation. He was playing cop. There was no problem until Zimmerman decided to create one.

I believe he deserved some punishment but the prosecution went with those charges. I do not think the jury is saying Zimmerman is not guilty. I believe what they are saying is the prosecution did not prove its case.

So fistfight with someone armed should cost your life!?! Scary society we live in.

No of course not.

Zimmerman strapped on a gun and went looking for trouble..

As a gun owner, I would have thrown him in jail for as long as I could for this incredibly irresponsible act.

Was he really surprised when he found it?

And....ooopppps...sorry about that, but the kid I was harassing got mad so I shot him?

He should have taken a beating like a man...

What he did was pure chicken@#%^ that cost the life of an unarmed kid.

Mike,

Having compared your recitation of the facts to those presented by the state and the defense during the trial I now understand why the veterans on this site laugh at you.

Actually, per the timeline provided by CNN, Zimmerman lost sight of Martin when following him. It was only later when they met again that the altercation happened.

Additionally, per that timeline, Zimmerman wasn't told to quit following he was told that "We don't need you to do that." Per the 911 transcript Zimmerman was initially told to "just let me know if the guy does anything else."

I agree that the shooting was tragic and could have been avoided.

I agree that Zimmerman should not have had his weapon on him while performing a patrol for the neighborhood watch (as this is contrary to the program guidelines).

I know that the public was provided more information than those who sat on the jury.

Zimmerman lost sight of Martin because Martin concealed himself in the bushes waiting to pounce on Zimmerman when he walked past. Martin initiated the attack. Martin was also the only one known to have used racial epithets, describing Zimmerman to his girlfriend on the cell phone as a "Cracker."


If Martin would have kept on walking it would not have happened. Martin decided to play Mr. Machoman and attack a stranger who was armed with a concealed weapon. That was a stupid decision.


The public has been provided with a lot of opinion before, during, and after the trial. Few opinions were based on the facts; most were generated by the speakers' political agenda.

The jury was provided with only the facts and asked to render a decision based on the facts.

Since when did police dispatchers become annointed by God to tell us all what to do?

Well, duh! Isn't that the way it works? You call the cops; they don't call you.


Which part of the question did you not understand? Where does a police operator get the authority to order someone to refrain from doing something legal? Everything Zimmerman did was legal. He legally drove his car. He legally parked his car. He legally walked down a sidewalk. He legally carried a concealed weapon.

The "fatal results" came about because a not-too-bright gang-banger criminally assaulted a person lawfully walking down a sidewalk carrying a lawfully concealed firearm. Martin made the decision to commit a crime and paid a high price for his stupidity.

Right wrong or indifferent?

An unarmed 17 year old was shot to death by an idiot who provoked him after the police told him to back off.

He was emboldened by the fact that he had a gun and the kid was armed with candy!

This is not shades of grey, this is a crime.

Only in Florida, if the kid you shoot happens to be black, you don't go to jail.

Pathetic

Not to mention that only in HOA land would this guy be elevated to anything beyond the village idiot.

They actually encouraged him to act out his fantasy of super cop.

I meant that regardless if our personal opinions were right, wrong or indifferent.