I didn't weigh in on the Trayvon Martin shooting and Zimmerman trial because I read the reports early on and I knew that Zimmerman would not be convicted of the crimes of which he was accused. He didn't break the law.
Yes, he was grossly unqualified for the task at hand. Yes, he was inept. Yes, he had a history of being a complete fucking moron and dialing 911 repeatedly for no good reason. Yes, he really wanted to be a police officer.
Most importantly: Yes, he instigated a conflict with a young man and then shot him dead, but that's not illegal in Florida. The cops knew it, and the DA knew it when he read the report. It was all perfectly legal, or at least set up in such a way that it would be impossible to prove it was illegal, which: close enough.
The good news is that, depending on where you live, the profit motive has infected law enforcement and if you live in a state that has generous civil forfeiture laws the state can take whatever they want and fuck you if you don't like it. Guilty, innocent, doesn't matter. Don't believe me? It's worse than you imagine:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman?currentPage=all
I read through and hoped for a happy ending but there isn't one. Sooo, that's something.
For search purposes, the article is by Sarah Stillman. She does some interesting work here too:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/08/swat-team-nation.html?intcid=obnetwork
I'll come back to some of this later on.
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