Thanks to all who sent links to their Facebook page:
Trayvon Martin D.C. Rally for Justice
Freedom Plaza – 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Saturday
2:00pm until 4:00pm*****Attire: All black or wear a hoodie*****
We are not an organization. We are not a business. We are just a group of friends – students, volunteers, teachers, engineers – who want to rally in the name of Trayvon Martin. We thank you for standing in solidarity with us! Please share this event with your friends and family, and let’s work together to make our DC Justice Rally a success!
Maybe we should get all the facts before politicizing this with “justice rallys”. Oh, wait: people don’t care about the facts, they just want to score political points.
Zimmerman pursued him, scared him, and killed him. He should be in jail for at least manslaughter. Self defense doesn’t make any sense at all when he was already safe in the car and decided to get out to chase the child! Skittles? Come on!!
Wow, you were there? I hope you’ve given your statement to the cops.
I agree. What happened was terrible. We can all agree on that. But what really happened, we don’t know. Some people are too quick to rush to judgement. It appears that the police department didn’t properly investigate the case, and that deserves more scrutiny (and perhaps legal actions), but the fact that an unarmed black juvenile was killed should not provoke a justice rally. Why then, aren’t there rallies every weekend when some kid gets shot in DC and everyone knows who the shooter was? I bet 90 percent of the murder cases in this city would be solved tomorrow if people were willing to talk.
sure, we weren’t there. we don’t know what really went down. none of us know the killer or the victim. BUT, i bet nearly every single one of us thinks that there should be a trial. that’s not a far fetched thing to ask for.
If it were your child you wouldn’t say that. They clearly told him to stop following him and he didn’t . He stalked him and murdered him.
“He stalked him and murdered him.”
You may know a lot, but you most certainly do not know that.
Listening the 911 calls from Zimmerman, the neighbors, and Trayvon’s girlfriend, should be enough ground to arrest Zimmerman, but no you want the facts to come out. The only other scenario that could come out of this is that after being pursued and confronted by Zimmerman, Trayvon defended himself from getting hurt by Zimmerman, but Zimmerman ended up killed the kid. Mind you the kid is walking in the dark and this creep is following him in his car first then on foot and despite Trayvon’s attempt to shake Zimmerman off his back he caught up with him. Zimmerman is not in uniform, not a police; he is just some guy who Trayvon doesn’t know. Won’t you want your kid to avoid trouble as Trayvon did and when he wasn’t able to escape a potential danger to fight back?
Coming back to the USA today from overseas. So embarrassed by our country. Racism is a horrible plague for us. We need to solve this problem if we are to be a great country. Soul searching time indeed.
How about a candlelight vigil with hands held around both Grant and Sherman Circles?
The ignorance in your statement is pretty astounding. I don’t know where you were, but racism is worse in just about every other country. Either that, or they’re actively at war. But yeah, the rest of the world is so much better.
Listen to the 911 tape
We never “get all the facts” on shootings – jeez, there is more available on this one than 99% of all shootings! But if a person follows someone and then kill them, and was told to stop when they call 911 … yes, that person should be charged with something. If you hit and kill someone with your car by accident you’ll be charged with something, no?? “Making a mistake” by killing someone who was running because they were afraid of you does not mean you avoid being charged and tried for it.
Something is wrong with our society if it takes a month to get a reaction from people. If it is news to people that President Obama’s son would be (gasp) black like Trayvon.
“If it is news to people that President Obama’s son would be (gasp) black like Trayvon.”
I don’t think that’s news to anyone. What are you talking about? The “(gasp)” was especially irritating.
When I heard about this rally I thought about asking to have the info included on PoP… then I (sadly) realized that such a movement would likely not be supported here. People around here have vigils for animals that are shot and find support, but the idea of a rally insisting on justice for an African-American male isn’t deemed worthy of a rally. I wish I could find the strength to be upset about it, but really, it’s just how things are here.
Strange how we have a rally for a kid shot in Florida but no rallies for all the kids shot here in DC.
Exactly. We could have a vigil every weekend for an unarmed kid shot to death, while the killer is still on the loose a month later. The Florida case is pretty bad, apparently, but let’s not make this a racial issue. I am sooooo tired of the racial sensitivities we have to tiptoe around all the time. I happen to be in a mixed marriage, and we are both tired of the alarmist hyperbole and overreaction that accompanies these types of events. A kid got shot by an overzealous, self-appointed neighborhood custodian, and the police haven’t arrested him yet. Let’s leave it at that…….making it into a national discussion about race (which, let’s be honest, won’t be a real discussion about race, because Americans are incapable of it) will just be another sideshow, a distraction that gets people riled up.
The police arrested him and released him. They decided not to charge him and this happened a month ago.
The fact that this happens a lot is not a reason to not care about this case. The face that racism exists everywhere doesn’t mean it’s fine. There are definitely differences in the US in states, cities, etc as far as how open people are to interracial relationships and people of other races generally – people acknowledging racism when people from the “other” groups are its victims is important.
This is a local issue. I don’t believe it represents the way law enforcement operates in most of the country. Let’s not make a local issue (and perhaps it is an isolated, anecdotal issue even in the town in which it occurred) into a national-level screed about race, the police, etc. Personally, I’m at a point in my life where I don’t really care about much that happens beyond my neighborhood or, on a good day, DC in general….I’ve only got so much sympathy and concern to give, and I’m gonna keep it local.
” I don’t believe it represents the way law enforcement operates in most of the country.”
I disagree. The problem with cases like this is that the victims and their families usually lack the money, knowledge, and connections to obtain justice. Realize that when one of these victims does manage to get their case nationally recognized it represents thousands of unheard voices.
who do you want a rally for?
I’m not sure if this question is directed at me or cabellero. I am not personally proposing a rally, but I think it’s petty and argumentative that so many people want to crap on this one and do so by posting here.
For example, while I agree with the general idea behind the Occupy movement, I don’t think the rallies or whatever they do are particularly effective…but because I don’t feel strongly I can’t really be bothered to share that opinion on it!
I don’t know that rallies themselves are a driver of social change, but raising people’s awareness is, and rallies are one way of doing that. The cause in general of not just tolerance but a society where interracial relationships or harmony (or however you want to phrase the idea behind all this) is not necessarily something that pulls people together. Sometimes it does take a specific incident. I mean I guess discussion at PoP blog is another way because we can tell each other how we think the others are all wrong, so good for that at least.
The aftermath of this incident isn’t about Trayvon Martin. His death was tragic, and I am sorry for his family’s loss. But it was his death that has become a rallying cry for justice in the black community, just as the death of Matthew Shepard galvanized the gay community to demand an end to violence against LGBTpeople. These types of rallies serve a purpose — they allow people to vent their anger, to seek justice, to demand change, and to remind all of us that we are one human race. None of these marches will bring Trayvon Martin back to life. But hopefully they will raise our awareness and bring us together to end the senseless loss of life.
Let’s hope it stays positive.
http://news.yahoo.com/10-000-reward-offered-us-black-teens-killer-201659364.html
In your wildest dreams, what could a 17 year old kid have done to this armed man that would have made it necessary for him to murder him at point blank range? Really…think about it. Trayvon had no weapons on him. This is a fact. My point is that there is NOTHING this kid was capable of, in this situation, to warrant KILLING HIM IN COLD BLOOD. NOTHING.
And please people, if you really care this young man, after the rally…work to eliminate the NRA. Their lobbyists and the insane legislators they own have this blood on their hands.
Zimmerman has blood on his hands. Not me, not you, not PoP commenters, not racists in other parts of the country, not the government, and not the NRA.
I agree. The actions of an individual should not be made into a larger issue, especially one that turns into a diatribe about race relations. The discussion should be about Zimmerman and the police department. I suppose some well-meaning white folks will feel guilty about what happened, and some black folks will make this into a bigger issue than it deserves to be, but really, this episode has nothing at all to do with me or my family, so I’m not going to lose much sleep over it.
Caballero you said: “…I suppose some well-meaning white folks will feel guilty about what happened, and some black folks will make this into a bigger issue than it deserves to be, …”
I have a problem with your statement and how you choose to divide people and how they feel. I get it you don’t care, but really wouldn’t you want people to care and work toward solving the problem should this happen to someone you care about?
First, I don’t think attending a vigil or a rally in DC or elsewhere will help “solve the problem” in Sanford, Florida.
Second, my point is that I’m not burdened with guilt, like a lot liberals are, for being born a certain way. When I was younger, I was more inclined to fret over whatever advantages I had (although I hadn’t many, college taught me that I needed to geel guility about them). Now that I’ve been around a while, I don’t engage in hand-wringing over stuff I can’t change, and I don’t apologize for what I have or who I am. Life is too short to lose sleep over incidents that happen far away and have nothing to do with me.
What happened was terrible, but I don’t want it to turn into some divisive racial issue. But it’s probably too late to stop that from happening.
This is disgusting and you should be ashamed of promoting this nonsense. With all the calls for extrajudicial action and threats from the community, fomenting further fury is irresponsible.
And since commenters are using media snippets to have their own trial-by-blog, have a read:
====================
But one man’s testimony could be key for the police.
“The guy on the bottom who had a red sweater on was yelling to me: ‘help, help…and I told him to stop and I was calling 911,” he said.
Trayvon Martin was in a hoodie; Zimmerman was in red.
The witness only wanted to be identified as “John,” and didn’t not want to be shown on camera.
His statements to police were instrumental, because police backed up Zimmerman’s claims, saying those screams on the 911 call are those of Zimmerman.
“When I got upstairs and looked down, the guy who was on top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point,” John said.
Zimmerman says the shooting was self defense. According to information released on the Sanford city website, Zimmerman said he was going back to his SUV when he was attacked by the teen.
Sanford police say Zimmerman was bloody in his face and head, and the back of his shirt was wet and had grass stains, indicating a struggle took place before the shooting.
So he admittedly followed a teen who he “suspected” of being up to no good, but had no real reason for that suspicion. Then he ignored dispatcher orders not to follow because “they always get away”. Then the teen runs from him and he pursues. Then when the teen finally turns to stand *his* ground and winds up getting the best of Mr. Zimmerman, Zimmerman applies deadly force… and this is ok with you? I agree the media reports have been slow to shed light on Zimmerman’s side, but you should not be able to disregard dispatcher warnings, harass an individual and provoke them to fight, then use deadly force when they respond to your initiation of force.
So in Florida and other states with this awful law, If you want to kill someone you don’t care for all you have to do is get yourself a loaded gun, follow and annoy them and fight with them, then kill them and claim self defense.
If this law stays, don’t be surprised if the victim ends up being your extended family.