Florida’s Right to Murder Law and the Trayvon Martin Case

The killing of Tray Martin has taken center stage in the news media.  His killer, a self-appointed neighborhood watch “captain,” violated the instructions of police and chased down, attacked, and shot to death a young black man who was minding his own business because he could and likely wanted to.

Unfortunately, because of Florida’s outrageous “Stand Your Ground” law, Martin’s attacker, George Zimmerman may never be arrested.  The following case highlights why:

(Newser) – As Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law finds itself in the spotlight after the shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, another controversial case, a judge yesterday threw out the murder charge against Greyston Garcia, who chased down a would-be burglar and stabbed him to death, because she determined Garcia was defending himself. She cited “Stand Your Ground” in her decision to declare Garcia immune from prosecution; the 2005 law says citizens no longer have a duty to retreat when faced with danger. Police have also cited it in their decision not to arrest George Zimmerman, who shot Martin.

In this case, Garcia, 25, was alerted by a roommate that Pedro Roteta, 26, was behind his apartment with another person attempting to steal the radio in Garcia’s truck. Garcia grabbed a knife and chased Roteta more than a block before killing him, the Miami Herald reports. Roteta was unarmed other than an unopened pocketknife that never left his pocket, and Garcia admitted that though he “never saw a weapon,” he thought Roteta was about to stab him so he struck first. The police sergeant who supervised the case calls the judge’s decision a “travesty of justice,” and prosecutors argued that once Roteta ran away from the truck, Garcia no longer had justification to use deadly force.

Sadly, everyone loses here.  The parents of Tray Martin, a young man who had his whole life in front of him.  The police who are stuck with Florida’s wrong-headed law enacted with the help of NRA lobbyists and Republican legislators, and the community at large for allowing such a law to stand in the first place.

America has become a land of racists, bigots, bible thumpers and gun toters.  Its politics are based on taking away a woman’s right to choose, keeping Big Oil and Wall Street happy, sacrificing the environment because they can, and enacting reckless laws that allow children to die at the hands of legally accepted psychopaths like George Zimmerman.

The republicans are trying to convince us that the enemy is around every corner, under every bed, and is aided and abetted by Barack Obama.  A multimillionaire with a TV show, and a goofy Arizona sheriff continue to accuse the president of not being an American Citizen, but rather a citizen of Kenya, and a Muslim, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  The list of insanity in a neighborhood near you gets longer every day.  We are truly fucked!