DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Trayvon Martin's family settles wrongful death claim: report

'Trayvon Martin's family settles wrongful death claim: report'

By Barbara Liston | Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/05/us-usa-florida-shooting-idUSBRE9340ZR20130405

(Reuters) - The family of black teenager Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death last year by a neighborhood watch captain, has settled a wrongful death claim against the homeowners association of the Florida gated community where he was killed, a Florida newspaper reported on Friday.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the Martin family, filed paperwork outlining the settlement, which is thought to be more than $1 million, at a courthouse in Sanford, Florida, according to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. Crump did not return calls for comment.

A spokesman for the lawyer of homeowners association told Reuters he had no comment.

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain, goes on trial June 10 for second-degree murder for Martin's killing.

Representatives of The Retreat at Twin Lakes subdivision at one point in the negotiations offered the Martin family a $1 million settlement, Shawn Vincent, a spokesman for Zimmerman's defense team, told Reuters.

The Sentinel reported on Friday that the settlement amount was crossed out of paperwork filed at the Seminole County Courthouse. Later in the day, the document appeared to have been withdrawn from public view.

Although a cover page indicated copies of the settlement were given to Zimmerman's lawyer and the judge presiding over the criminal trial, Vincent told Reuters that the defense team did not receive its copy.

Martin died on his way back to a townhouse where he was spending the week with his father. Prosecutors contend Zimmerman profiled Martin, a black 17-year-old, then pursued Martin against the advice of police and shot him during an altercation.

Zimmerman claims he shot Martin in self-defense.


(end)


One more for ya:

'What the Media Choose Not to Know about Trayvon'

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/what_the_media_choose_not_to_know_about_trayvon.html

June 7, 2012

By Jack Cashill

Unnerved by an unspoken mix of political bias and racial queasiness, the major media have chosen to know as little about Trayvon Martin as they know about Barack Obama.

As a case in point, consider this boy vs. man fable spun by the New York Times' Charles Blow:

A boy's blood had been spilled on a rain-soaked patch of grass behind a row of mustard-colored condominiums by a man who had pursued him against the advice of 911 dispatchers. That man carried a 9-millimeter handgun. The boy carried a bag of candy.

Blow was writing seven weeks after Trayvon's death. He had no excuse for missing the actual story. Worse, since he is a writer for the Times, his reporting has helped set the media tone worldwide.

The media's willful ignorance was on display again this past week. In reporting this news of George Zimmerman's return to jail, more than a few media outlets showed the dangerously deceptive image of Trayvon as 11-year-old cherub. They did so in the assumption that the narrative was still theirs to control. It is not. The blogs, which have been doing the real detective work on this case, have long since taken control away from them.

The sites I have found most useful are the Daily Caller and theconservativetreehouse.com. What follows is largely culled from those sites and their independent contributors. By probing Trayon's background and parsing his social media chatter, they have put together a picture of a disturbed young man that begins to makes sense of the events that unfolded on that fateful rainy night of February 26.


6:21

Trayvon Martin is seen on the security video through the 7-11 window approaching the store from the direction of the Retreat at Twin Lakes. He had been staying there at the townhouse of his father's girlfriend, Brandy Green. In major media accounts, the helpful Trayvon ventured out in the rain in a mile-plus round trip to buy Brandy's 14-year-old son, Chad, some Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea. Not likely.

6:22

Trayvon, with his hoodie up, grabs two items from the shelves of 7-11. One is the Skittles. The other is Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail. The media avoid the name of the real drink -- possibly because of the racial implications of the word "watermelon," but possibly to avoid probing the real reason for Trayon's trip.

Trayvon, in fact, had become a devotee of the druggy concoction known as "Lean," also known in southern hip-hop culture as "Sizzurp" and "Purple Drank." Lean consists of three basic ingredients -- codeine, a soft drink, and candy. If his Facebook postings are to be believed, Trayvon had been using Lean since at least June 2011.

On June 27, 2011, Trayvon asks a friend online, "unow a connect for codien?" He tells the friend that "robitussin nd soda" could make "some fire ass lean." He says, "I had it before" and that he wants "to make some more." On the night of February 26, if Brandy had some Robitussin at home, Trayvon had just bought the mixings for one "fire ass lean" cocktail.

6:23

Trayvon pays for his purchases. He then appears to point to an item behind the counter, but the clerk seems to reject that option. Trayvon turns from the counter with a couple of dollar bills still in his hand.

6:24

Trayvon leaves the 7-11, but we do not see him walk in front of the store window back towards Brandy's home.

6:25

Three squirrely young men enter the 7-11, all of them with their faces concealed in part or in full. The clerk had to have been nervous. One of the three (Curly) takes off his hat and shakes out his long, curly dark hair. He is likely either white or Hispanic, or, like Zimmerman, a "white Hispanic."

6:27

Curly appears to be holding the two bills Trayvon walked out with. He approaches the clerk and buys two cheap cigars from behind the counter and then a third one as an afterthought.

6:28

Curly is the first of three to exit. The others will follow in a minute.

6:29

Trayvon, turning as he walks, can be seen through the window heading back towards the Retreat at Twin Lakes and Brandy's house.

7:09

Zimmerman calls police while watching Trayvon near the gated community's clubhouse, less than a half-mile from the 7-11. According to "Dee-Dee," the girl Trayvon was periodically talking to on his cell phone, he was ducking in out of the rain. She also said he put his hoodie up for the same reason. In fact, though, Trayvon had his hoodie up inside the 7-11, and he was walking in the rain when Zimmerman spotted him. The walk to this point should have taken 10 minutes.

It took 40 minutes. Some background may help explain why. Earlier that same month, Trayvon had been caught at school holding a bag with marijuana residue and a marijuana pipe. He was suspended for the third time that school year, this time for ten days. Trayvon may have been dealing as well. As one online friend had communicated earlier, "Damn were u at a . need a plant."

Trayvon was partial to "blunts," street slang for cannabis rolled with the tobacco-leaf wrapper from an inexpensive cigar called a "blunt." As a tribute after his death, one friend posted online a photo of a homemade badge honoring Trayvon positioned next to a blunt.

It seems altogether possible that Curly bought at least one of those cigars for the under-aged Trayvon and took those visible dollar bills as payment. Trayvon waited five minutes outside the 7-11 and did not leave until after Curly came out. In the 40 minutes before Zimmerman spotted him, Trayvon could have scraped the tobacco out of the cigar, replaced it with marijuana, and smoked his blunt.

"This guy looks like he's up to no good," Zimmerman tells the police. "Or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about." Trayvon was on drugs or had been recently. His autopsy showed the presence of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in both his blood and his urine.

It is possible too that Trayvon was up to no good. "He's just staring, looking at all the houses," says Zimmerman. Trayvon had a history. On October 21, 2011, he received his second suspension that school year. A security guard at his school saw Trayvon writing "WTF" on a hallway locker. In looking through his bag for the marker, the guard found 12 pieces of jewelry, a watch, and a "burglary tool."

Zimmerman did the prudent thing by reporting Trayvon to the police. Ever since the Florida real estate bust, the Retreat at Twin Lakes had been troubled by vacancies, foreclosures, and renters of dubious repute. The community had suffered numerous break-ins and home invasions, the perpetrators of which were all young men, most of them black. "We report all suspicious persons & activities to the Sanford Police Department," reads the standard neighborhood watch sign at the community's gated entrance. If Trayvon did not fit the bill, no one did.

7:10

"He's coming towards me," Zimmerman tells the police about Trayvon, who is now walking towards his truck. He makes his first firm identification of Trayvon as "a black male." Adds Zimmerman, "He's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands." Zimmerman sounds a little anxious: "Please, get an officer over here."

7:11

After Trayvon passes his truck, Zimmerman says, "., he's running." He is heading towards "the back entrance," says Zimmerman. That entrance is in the same general direction as Brandy's townhouse. A question that goes unasked is why Trayvon was running.

7:12

When asked by the dispatcher, Zimmerman agrees not to follow Trayvon, and his heavy breathing ends. "He ran," says Zimmerman. Even if running slowly, Trayvon could have made it to Brandy's house in a half a minute. It was only 100 yards from the truck.

7:13

Zimmerman is hesitant to give out his address. "I don't know where this kid is." He looks around to see where Trayvon has gone, fails to spot him, terminates his call, and heads back to the truck.

7:14 - 7:16

These are the missing two minutes. After receiving a call from Dee-Dee, Trayvon has come back to confront Zimmerman. Their final confrontation takes place 70 yards from Brandy's townhouse and only 30 yards from Zimmerman's truck. No one hunted Trayvon down. Although he has kept the drink and candy on his person, Trayvon does not have a blunt with him.

According to the autopsy report, Trayvon was 5'11" tall and weighed 158 pounds, the "ideal healthy weight" at that height being 160 pounds. He was not the skinny little boy with the Skittles that half of America still believes him to be. He was at least three inches taller than Zimmerman and only about 20 pounds lighter.

His home life a wreck, his school life in disarray, Trayvon had fallen victim to urban America's lost boy culture.

This culture, which the media also choose not to see, has been shockingly destructive. Citing Bureau of Justice statistics, black economist Walter Williams in a recent column notes that "between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims." Of these, Williams estimates that roughly "262,621 were murdered by other blacks."

Trayvon had "statistic" written all over him. In the past year or so, his social media sites showed a growing interest in drugs, in mixed martial arts-style street fighting, in a profoundly vulgar exploitation of "bitches."

Trayvon posed for one photo with raised middle fingers, another with wads of cash held in an out-stretched arm. One YouTube video shows him refereeing a fight club-style street fight. A cousin had recently tweeted him, "Yu ain't tell me yu swung on a bus driver," meaning, if true, that Trayvon had punched out a bus driver.

Zimmerman never saw the cute little boy that the TV audience did. He saw a full-grown man, a druggy, a wannabe street fighter, the tattooed, gold-grilled, self-dubbed "No_Limit_N."

Media obfuscation may still work in the court of public opinion -- it got Obama elected in 2008 -- but it will not work in a court of law. The truth will out. When it does, the major media will lose a good chunk of whatever credibility they have left, and our nation may lose a good chunk of its urban real estate.


(end)

So he made bad choices. I still don't think this justifies him being killed, though. The pathos being trotted out by the right is despicable. Let the facts fall and stop the whole "He was a no good gangsta thug who did drugs and deserved to die" rhetoric.

Not getting into anything except for the wrongful death aspect ...... why would the homeowners association be at fault? Did they formally select Zimmerman to patrol their neighborhood or something? Was Zimmerman an employee?

It just seems kind of strange to me.

The threat of Al Sharpton and the NAACP will continue to have teeth until someone has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to their rhetoric and insist "NO. I have done nothing wrong, you are misrepresenting the truth, and I won't pay you a dime. Further, I will hold you and your organization responsible for any damages you inflict upon me, and will hound you thru the gates of Hell until you make good my losses that you have unjustly caused."

The NAACP bothered my family business just once, and only briefly. The above works.

Tort reform that includes "loser pays all court and legal fees" would go a long way towards stopping frivolous lawsuits.

If I'm not mistaken Mr. Zimmerman presented himself as a "Neighborhood Watch" volunteer for the Homeowner's Association. So his behavior is endorsed by the homeowners' association.

The National Neighborhood Watch association quickly stated that Mr. Zimmerman did many things they specifically request not be done.

So I think that protects them from lawsuit.

I'm not sure how this lawsuit is in anyway frivolous. If Martin was walking home and not causing any trouble or reason for suspicion then he shouldn't have been approached, even if he was hopped up on codeine, candy, and soda. There may or may not also have been a request from the police for Zimmerman to NOT approach. Approaching Martin set the course of actions to follow.

Bottom line Mr. Zimmerman had no legal standing, "even with the stand your ground law" (which must have been legislated by the brain-washed liberals trying to ruin this country) to approach Martin and set in to motion the course of actions.

The Homeowners Association will likely sue Mr. Zimmerman to recoup their losses and from what I understand he's been making a pretty penny from donations by various conservative organizations and individuals living under the thumb of liberal oppression.

The article is full of speculation and hypothesis, written in a manner to provide justification for the incident.

If this were the circumstance, we would have killings every day.

No, he may not have been an angel, but death was not justified.

It's not that Charger's wrong, it's that he's never actually met a conservative. They were hunted to extinction decades ago in California.

Quote:

---

I'm told over and over again that it's liberals and only liberals who are bringing this great nation to its knees.

---

Maybe on the other forum....but here most of the conservatives hold the republicans accountable for their share of the mess we're in and the crap they pull. Maybe that liberal victimhood smarminess worked over on dogchat or whatever it was called, but things aren't so black and white here.

Quote:

---

Well I might not be familiar with everyone over here, but if you think it's not happening on this forum I would say your wrong.

The only thing conservatives hold republicans responsible is for not being conservative enough.

---

That's a load of crap. Take your lib hate blinders off and just look at the current threads running here....there are more than a few conservatives taking the side of gay marriage, background checks, cutting the military, etc.

Quote:

---

But I am always learning as I go along and I may discover that you are not wrong, but if you know anything about punditry it's that conservatives are always the victims. Especially when they are working toward limiting someone's liberties.

---

Holy Shiite, I think you actually believe that. Would it be pointless to point out how liberals claim that the poor, the sick, the minorities and the elderly are or will be victims of conservative policy?

Quote:

---

As far as smarminess; without it there's no way to speak directly to any conservative that I know. That's pretty much where I picked it up from.

---

Well, if you stick around here you'll find that most of the conservatives will engage intelligently.....unless you're just here to provoke and push buttons. Which by the tone of your posts is a distinct possibility.

Quote:

---

No it wouldn't, but it might be pointless to state that the difference is those you call liberals are often speaking up for actual victims and on occasion themselves

Where as self-declared conservatives very often manufacture their victimization. You know, war on the constitution, war on Christmas, war on creationism as an actual science, war on everybody by environmentalists, war on doing whatever they damn well please without somebody calling them on it.

---

Quote:

---

No it wouldn't, but it might be pointless to state that the difference is those you call liberals are often speaking up for actual victims and on occasion themselves

Where as self-declared conservatives very often manufacture their victimization. You know, war on the constitution, war on Christmas, war on creationism as an actual science, war on everybody by environmentalists, war on doing whatever they damn well please without somebody calling them on it.

---

Wow....you sure are drinking that liberal Kool-Aid. The crap's being flung both ways, my friend. The difference is that the conservatives here actually see it and will call their own out when it happens. I have no problem doing it, and I won't vote for someone that I think is full of BS. I've also voted for dems when I think they support my interests.

You appear to think that the dems can do no wrong and the republicans can do no right. I'm of the mindset the neither are doing much right....and to take sides in this two party fiasco is foolish.

j/c

"Ah think whut we have heayah, gennilmun... is a fayliuh to cumminicate."

After re-reading the exchange, it would seem that Rock and Charger are actually more politically simpatico than the conversation would suggest. Near the end of his post, rock missed a perfect opportunity to use the recently-adopted purple font to indicate sarcasm or irony. Charger's reaction was to call out what he perceived as a slight to liberals, without intuiting what I gathered from rock's statement.

Anything that transpires after that falls outside the confines of my narrowly-focused observation, and won't be comment upon by me.

I ask each of you to go back, re-read the initial exchange between rock and Charger... and correct me if I'm wrong (or if you read it differently from my characterization).


Typed words on a message board are always a poor substitute for face-to-face conversation.*


As I've read it, something got 'lost in treanslation' between 2 posters of essentially like-mind.

.02,
Clem


*It's why some of my posts are so bloody long- the only time I seem to get into trouble is when I attempt to take verbally-based 'shortcuts,' instead of writing the way Mrs Short taught me to, back in Jr. Hi...

I'm not so sure I follow you here. Although I don't often agree with Charger, he usually presents his case well without being insulting or inciting. The way I read it, Charger made the liberal point sarcastically as you said, and rock supported this in his usual provocative manner.

Quote:

---

Typed words on a message board are always a poor substitute for face-to-face conversation.*

---

You've got that right. Although compared to other forums I frequent, the interactions here are much closer to the real deal. They just seem more respectful and there aren't nearly as many "internet tough guys".

Quote:

---

*It's why some of my posts are so bloody long- the only time I seem to get into trouble is when I attempt to take verbally-based 'shortcuts,' instead of writing the way Mrs Short taught me to, back in Jr. Hi...

---

Don't worry, you're certainly making Mrs. Short proud here.

I generally admit that I lean left, but do not have blinders on. On monetary policy, the balanced budget stuff makes sense to me, even if it means tax increases, as I do not like paying on debt.

I consider myself a pragmatist and do not buy in to ideology from either side.

This board leans right, sometimes way right, and that tends to irk me. But I try to have a bit of restraint.

I am to the right of you on most things but I enjoy reading your point of view.

That's the way I read you much of the time, too.

No worries here, mate. We actually see many issues from the same (or similar) pov... I just don't always weigh in on these types of threads.

As for THIS particular issue: I think that it was right and proper for the family of Trayvon Martin to prevail in a wrongful death case. I also always find it sad, tragic... and just a bit lame that monetary compensation seems to be the only way we can find to settle such actions. Money. For a Life. It makes me shake my head every time.

As for who should pay that money, now that it's been decided that there should be a cash payout? About that, I have no clue, since I don't know the 'intimates' of the case.

Bottom line: the kid died from circumstances that could (and probably should) have unfolded differently. In the most basic sense of social justice, this constitutes "wrongful death." This kid should be eating Skittles and drinking 7-11 bought sodas today.

_______________________

Any articles that engage in the shades of gray surrounding the character of either Trayvon Martin OR George Zimmerman are strictly stoking the emotions of their selected audiences for their own sociopolitical agenda, and should be disregarded outright as yellow journalism. Whether Trayvon Martin liked to burn blunts or George Zimmerman had a "thing" for Black teens is immaterial... a person's death needn't have been the outcome of this encounter.

Man... this kind of tragic, lurid story shows us all just how messy Human Interaction can really be... and why laws (and their changes) are always reactive and after-the-fact in nature. No canon of Law, no matter how inclusive and all-encompassing, can be ready for something like this. It's why we're seeing the discourse we're seeing in the "Gun Thread" right now- and why states that have seen the kind of mass-murder travesties like Aurora and Sandy Hook are reacting as they are. It's just people being people- and to an extent, should be expected in extreme cases such as these. NONE of us a prepared to handle stuff like this.

Taking a step back from the emotional, ALL OF IT is a fascinating study about who and what we are. I confess that I have no answers- only questions... and a part of me is envious of the poster who is certain of his rightness and is firm in his convictions. To live a life that unconflicted on such philosophical issues must make for a very comfortable existence.

Some nights- I don't sleep so well.

my bast, Dawg,
Clemmy

Quote:

---

You've got that right. Although compared to other forums I frequent, the interactions here are much closer to the real deal. They just seem more respectful and there aren't nearly as many "internet tough guys".

---

Dawg- sometimes, I'll wander into a site that make me want to take a shower... in Clorox!

And as I read some of the things they write, I wonder to myself: "Which of our neighbors is writing this stuff?"

(Quick seque to the "Gun Thread" that's ongoing- and Daman's query about "deep background checks"... posts such as the ones you and I seem to agree on might give one a reason to at least consider them.... just sayin')

Thanks on the props about Mrs. Short. I really didn't think much about words until she took an interest in me. I'm glad she did... words helped to create a bridge from my station in life to the possibilities that I could attain. I owe her a lot for helping to become who I am.

That would seem to back up his self defense claims.

Quote:

---

The only thing conservatives hold republicans responsible for is not being conservative enough.

---

Statements like these are always bound to fail. Especially in this case. For instance, I am conservative (in the original sense of the word, not in the sense of modern day Republicans), and I hold the Republicans responsible for a poop load of stuff.

One of the biggest reasons I think our society is so messed up right now is that the voting populace has become captive to the parties and not the ideals. Too many people automatically side with one party because that's the party they were raised with or believed in years ago. People have stopped thinking critically in terms of the issues and blindly follow their party's stance.

One thing that really chaps me is often seeing an article posted (not necessarily on this site) that criticizes what one person/party is doing. Then the first comment is something along the lines of "Well, this wouldn't have happened if X person didn't screw up the economy." Then you see the commentary inevitably spiral into things like "Yeah, well Obama is friends with Kim Jong-un." "Oh yeah? Well Bush had an affair with a rabbit!"

Both sides suck bad, but we keep playing their stupid game.

Quote:

---

Statements like these are always bound to fail. Especially in this case. For instance, I am conservative (in the original sense of the word, not in the sense of modern day Republicans), and I hold the Republicans responsible for a poop load of stuff.

---

Exactly. I think your description applies to most conservatives here. There are a few of the newer members that continue to say that everything dem is good and everything rep is bad or vice versa. It's funny, because it's kind of how this board was years ago, and I was willing combatant.

I should have clarified arch, thought about that too.

Yes the first instinct is to move on, the second is to turn and fight (e.g. when backed into a corner and threatened, you may believe it to be the only/best course of action).

The bullet works from the back, simply means that running does not always end the confrontation, the other party can still pursue you and/or shoot you.

My inclination is that Zimmerman may had been the aggressor early on in the sequence of events, and then things went awry. But he had the gun.

Lyric reference... My Hometown..

In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown

No firearm, perhaps Zimmerman is less bold, and nothing happens... We will likely never know the exact words and actions including when Zimmerman pulled the gun.

The only thing for sure is that one person is dead, the other on trial, and many lives forever altered for something that probably should have never occurred.

Got it. I do believe shooting someone in the back (if they were running, or leaving) is illegal. Well, perhaps not illegal, but it complicates things quite a bit. A shot in the back indicates to the police, and more importantly, the prosecutor - that one individual was trying to escape the situation.

Even if totally justified, it completely muddies the water, more often than not leading to charges against the shooter.

Regardless, I am now going to listen to Bruce - My Hometown.

Just clicking Arch.

I am not saying who was right or wrong either way. Trayvon or Zimmerman. Its pretty much all speculation and a lot of sensationalism by both sides. Just from what I have hear of the actual facts, as I know them I tend to legally side with Zimmerman.

But this article is basically an attempt to justify Zimmermans racial profiling of Trayvon. Its basically an attempt to say " yeah Zimmerman racially profiles Martin, but he was justified" and then they proceeded to try to attach every racial stereotype of a young black man to Trayvon that they could. Holy crap, they even made mention of the fact that Trayvon bought a watermelon flavored Arizona Iced Tea. Blunts, weed, syzurp, hoody over your head. Just a ridiculous racial piece of trash article.

And before someone points The Black Panther Party said, it doesn't justify,excuse, or make it any better. Race baiting is race baiting, no matter who is doing it.

A lot of this case will rest with the evidence determined to be admissible as part of the case.