{"id":18456,"date":"2013-06-25T22:25:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T02:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18456"},"modified":"2026-04-21T22:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:13:08","slug":"the-quote-that-should-end-the-trayvon-martin-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/06\/the-quote-that-should-end-the-trayvon-martin-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quote That Should End the Trayvon Martin Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Getty<\/a>
Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By<\/span>\u00a0John H. Richardson<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

George Zimmerman is going to be found guilty.<\/b>\u00a0All the evidence you need \u2014 all the evidence the cops needed \u2014 is right there in the interrogation they did with him three days after the shooting. The only thing more shocking than what Zimmerman says in the clip, which was released on the internet one year ago, is how little it has impressed the bloviating jerks who dominate the coverage of this trial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did he follow Martin, a police officer asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese assholes, they always get away,\u201d Zimmerman answers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The officer asks, \u201cWhat\u2019s behind that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese people who victimize the neighborhood,\u201d Zimmerman answers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Zimmerman\u2019s angry mind, without trial or jury,\u00a0even after he killed him and learned he was a 17-year-old who was legitimately staying in the complex,\u00a0<\/em>Martin was an asshole victimizing the neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

The officer gets a little defensive at this point. \u201cThere was an arrest a week ago,\u201d he points out, though it is also a gentle reminder that Zimmerman\u2019s fear might be a tad misplaced. He continues, skeptically. “How was he running?” Zimmerman describes it and the officer says, \u201cSounds like he was running to get away… you jumped out of car to see which way he was running? That\u2019s not fear \u2026 it\u2019s going to be a problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then Zimmerman whispers something. \u201cWhat is that you whispered?\u201d the officer asks. \u201cFucking what?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPunks,\u201d Zimmerman says.<\/span><\/p>\n

This time, the officer seems genuinely taken aback. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t a fucking punk,\u201d he responds.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few moments later, he asks Zimmerman why he kept following Martin even after the police dispatcher told him not to. Zimmerman\u2019s answer is staggering.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to give them an address.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An address?<\/em>\u00a0This may be the moment that will convict him. It means that even he suspected that Martin was a legitimate visitor to the complex, staying in an apartment and legally on the property, Zimmerman continued to pursue him. And it makes sense that Martin was staying there because of the terrain, the complex being isolated from other complexes and a mile distant from the nearest shopping center. A professional thief would be moving intentionally, not wandering down the middle of the street in the full light of the streetlamps. Although Zimmerman\u2019s fear supposedly hinges on the series of robberies that the police believed had been addressed already with an arrest, it seems clear that even Zimmerman didn\u2019t really believe his own alibi. More likely, even in his mind, Martin was a kid from the neighborhood out smoking a joint and at the worst, looking for a little illicit excitement \u2014 a \u201cfking punk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, the officer asks again why he was following Martin \u2014 and Zimmerman flat-out lies. \u201cI wasn\u2019t following him, I was just going in the same direction he was.\u201d The cop just laughs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next moment reveals another aspect of Zimmerman\u2019s state of mind, complete paranoia. The officer plays the tape of him with the police dispatcher, when he refuses to give his address to the dispatcher \u201cout loud\u201d \u2014 the embattled neighborhood watch volunteer so afraid of the fking punks in his neighborhood that he\u2019s afraid of giving\u00a0the police<\/em>\u00a0his address, despite the complete lack of evidence that any of those punks had ever attacked him before. Like these fearsome criminals are tapping the public airwaves and listening to cell phone conversations just to get him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, the officer asks why he didn\u2019t get back in his car after being told to, why he was so determined to get Martin that he stood in the rain. \u201cYou wanted to catch him, you wanted to catch the bad guy, fking punk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Zimmerman goes silent. Prodded again, he says, \u201cI felt like I didn\u2019t give them an adequate description.\u201d There\u2019s an edge in his voice at this point like he\u2019s starting to get offended. The officer tries to reassure him: \u201cWe\u2019re working for you here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But they persist. How could Martin have been smothering Zimmerman at the same time Zimmerman was, as he claimed, screaming his head off for help? (This question will not be settled by the testimony of voice experts, thanks to the judge’s ruling, though the jury will hear the tape.) This was just before the fatal gunshot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s continuous screaming,\u201d another officer asks, \u201chow can you be smothered?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Damn good question.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou think he might have seen you had a gun before he punched you?\u201d the first officer asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another damn good question.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was the provocation for punching you other than you were following him?\u201d another officer asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

By this time, Zimmerman is losing his patience. \u201cI\u2019ve gone through it a million times.\u201d Despite his passion for justice, repeated questions about the death of a 17-year-old boy at his own hands\u00a0annoys<\/em>\u00a0him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after, the interview devolved into pleasantries. Zimmerman says he\u2019s taking his wife to the beach for the weekend, and the lead officer asks, \u201cWhich beach?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then they let him go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0John H. Richardson George Zimmerman is going to be found guilty.\u00a0All the evidence you need \u2014 all the evidence the cops needed \u2014 is right..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,43,84,97],"tags":[357,345,355],"class_list":["post-18456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-media-culture","category-statements","category-us-news","tag-racism","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-videos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/esq-062413-zimmermantrayvon.jpg?fit=614%2C399&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39446,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18456\/revisions\/39446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}