6. A Tragedy

On this April 1^st, this thread became hot on Google Plus. What's more interesting are the comments that follow: Many say that the truth may never be known. Others blame media for manipulating the tragic case.

We may not know the truth, yet, but from news reports and the published policy reports, audio and video recordings so far, we can get very close to imagining it: A rainy evening, a black teenager walking to his residence from a store, talking on the phone, with his hoodie up, saw a guy in white T-shirt following him. As any reasonable person in this situation would do, he started running away from the follower. He saw the guy starting to pursue him. He hid between houses, but then he was found by the follower. What happened next, happened fast -- People in the surroundings heard screaming and what could be the pursuer yelling help -- which ended with a gunshot and a dead teenager. The entire tragedy completed in less then 20 minutes. But the story obviously could not and should not end there.

At this point, I would not label the shooter a racist as that would deflect the discussion. But I could say, he obviously has strong opinions about those he perceived as bad guys. He probably thought that his life was in danger when he yelled help and then pulled out his gun. All that is not completely unreasonable.

But there are other things that people who defend the shooter seem to miss: He carries a gun in a residential neighborhood. I assume that he has thought about that and he is ready to use it when necessary. I can buy the argument that a law abiding citizen has the right to bear arms and all that. But to use it in a residential neighborhood anytime they perceive danger? I thought the police system is setup to do that, and in this case, the police was in the process of taking care of the situation as reported by the shooter. When the shooter decided to pursue the bad guy who looked like was running away, he obviously put all others in that same neighborhood as secondary to whatever he wanted to do. Listening to the lady on the phone with police with a voice shaken out of her control, I can not imagine the area as a war zone that requires people to carry guns to protect themselves. Neither do I understand the logic (if there is any) that the shooter has to pursue the teenager rather than letting the police handling the situation.

Those who say anything about the hoodie in their arguments, I have to assume that they are not serious or they do not think before they post their opinions. I myself have a few of them and I do see high school students wearing them all the time. I do not buy the argument that, from now on, I should be watching my back when I wear a particular piece of clothing.

I understand that law has no power against stupidity, but we should not have laws encouraging stupidity. The Florida stand your ground law seems to be one of those.

As for media manipulating the case, I would say that hey have not done enough in this case as they seem to have only found out about it almost a month after. This case is one tragedy too many already. But if we do not learn anything from it, more are bound to come.