Following someone is not illegal. If Trayvon felt threatened he should have called the police. It is never ok to throw a punch at someone or even put your hands on them. Whoever made the first physical contact is in the wrong.
not exactly.
the florida justifiable use of force law does not work that way.
although following someone is not illegal, it is not "standing your ground".
once you start following someone like zimmerman did, especially after being told it was not necessary, that makes him the aggressor under florida law.
776.041 Use of force by aggressor.—The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself
notice how the law does not say "initially provoked the
justifiable use of force against himself or herself"?
so, by actively pursuing someone else, you are no longer covered under florida's justifiable use of force law (aka "stand your ground" law), unless....
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.
we can already rule out (b) because we have the 911 tapes, and no where do we he hear zimmerman "indicate clearly that he desires to withdraw", all we heard were screams for help followed by a gunshot.
the part in question is (a). now, since we have no witnesses that saw what happened immediately before the gunshot, it is tough to say. but we do have a witness who saw what happened maybe 1-3 seconds after the gunshot, and she says that zimmerman was on top of martin, straddling him. i would hesitate to say that someone who is on top of his victim mere seconds after shooting him had "exhausted every reasonable means of escape", not to mention there is zero physical evidence of zimmerman's injuries.
zimmerman has a history of anger and violence. he had to take anger management classes after he was arrested for assaulting a police officer. his ex put a restraining order on him after he assaulted her (once again, he claims she hit him first). the 911 tapes clearly indicate his aggressive nature that night (these assholes always get away, fucking coons).
and the interrogator whose job it is to sniff out bullshit stories said his was "unconvincing" and "did not add up".
this is going to be one hell of a show when it goes to trial, might even be better than the OJ case.