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Dear older readers,

You might look at Florida and think, what a lovely place to retire! Maybe I'll buy a condo there and spend my time among palm trees, mingling with fellow Jews... Play shuffleboard, enjoy early bird specials (steak AND shrimp for $12.95! You can't go wrong!), maybe even go to the beach now and then (must remember to always wear sunscreen!)... And then the kids can visit every winter, and it would be ever so terrific!

Here is our advice for you, older Jews. If you do move to Florida, STAY CLOSE TO THE COAST. Because once you venture inland, that idyllic paradise you picture will soon be lost.

Most of Florida is not exactly of your postcard variety. Swamps, alligators, and, how should we put it... people missing many front teeth. And, apparently, some of the most fucked-up laws anywhere.

Yes, somehow in Florida, a man can kill another in cold blood and get away with it. A man can call it self-defense, even though there is clear evidence that it's not the case. A man can roam free while his victim rots in the ground.

And no, don't worry, despite the possibly Jewy last name, George Zimmerman isn't Jewish. Hispanic and Catholic, if you care. He lives inland, after all. No Jews in Florida's inland.

Remember that, older readers.

Verdict: Not a Jew.

April 12, 2012

Read the original:
Jew or Not Jew: George Zimmerman

The Trayvon Martin case was built on a fraud, with a key witness being swapped out with an imposter when the real witness wouldnt testify, George Zimmerman said in a lawsuit Wednesday.

The lawsuit says Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend, a vivacious 16-year-old named Brittany Diamond Eugene, when Zimmerman killed him on Feb. 26, 2012. At trial, prosecutors produced the plump, slow-spoken 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel as the girl who had crucial insight into his final moments by being on the phone with him.

The lawsuit says Eugene refused to provide the version of events used to build a narrative of racism at trial, so Jeantel, who reads at a fourth-grade level, was pressured into pretending to be Diamond.

The lawsuit seeks $100 million and names both young women as defendants, plus Martins parents, who it says were well aware of the swap.

Zimmermans lawyer filed the lawsuit in state court in Florida and it also targets the state of Florida and its prosecutors, who allegedly initially falsely told the defense that Martins cellphone was too damaged to extract its data, when it actually contained evidence damaging to their case. That includes not only evidence of the witness swap, but also texts showing Martin previously discussing gun sales and bragging of beating up a snitch and saying, He aint bleed nuff 4 me, only his nosez. Prosecutors also ran out the clock by repeatedly ignoring the defenses entitlement to exculpatory evidence, the suit says.

It additionally names Benjamin Crump, the civil attorney for Martins parents, who rode the case to fame and wrote a book about genocide of colored people despite allegedly playing a key role in a hoax.

The suit says:

Each and every one of them instituted, ordered, commanded, conspired, and covered up the illegal substitution of Defendant Eugene, a legitimate phone witness to the days, hours and minutes before the death of Trayvon Martin with Defendant Jeantel, an imposter and fake witness, who told a made to order false storyline to prosecutors in order to cause Zimmerman to be arrested, tried, and convicted for second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in a case that had already been investigated and closed by the Sanford, Florida police department, and after they had already exonerated Zimmerman, having concluded Zimmerman had acted in self-defense with no probable cause for arrest based on eye-witness testimony, physical evidence, and 911 audio recordings.

Rachel Jeantel, who testified in the Trayvon Martin case, is pictured along with a comparison of her signature with that on a letter she says she signed. (Joel Gilbert/The Trayvon Hoax book)

Trayvon Martins alleged actual girlfriend Brittany Diamond Eugene is pictured. (Photo from The Trayvon Hoax book)

In the weeks after Zimmerman shot Martin, the death was met with little outcry because neighbor Jonathan Good told police he saw Martinmercilessly pummeling Zimmerman in his backyard. (RELATED: Jesse Jackson says Trayvon Martin murdered and martyred)

That changed March 19, 2012, when Crump recorded an audio interview in which Martins 16-year old girlfriend, Diamond, provided a contradictory tale based on her being on the phone with him at the time of the incident. The tape precipitated the arrest of Zimmerman on April 11, 2012.

Phone records show Eugene and Martinspent hours on the phone with each other on a daily basis and exchanged loving and sexual texts, the lawsuit says.

After the shooting, Martins girlfriend came to the home of Martins mother, Sybrina Fulton, and provided a short letter memorializing her knowledge as the person on the phone at the time of his death. The letter was signed Diamond Eugene. Fulton did not tell prosecutors or the defense about the letter for nearly a year.

The lawsuit says Crump pressured Eugene to provide the audio statement that supported a narrative of racism, but that she refused to do the same in court.

Prosecutors initially had no contact with Eugene except through Fulton, but on April 2, 2012, they insisted on meeting her, so Fulton led them to her residence, it says. They knocked on the door and were referred to a different house, where Jeantel answered and claimed to be Diamond Eugene.

Defendant Eugene could in no way be mistaken for Defendant Jeantel, who was 2 years older, 5 inches taller, and about 120 pounds heavier than Defendant Eugene. Defendant Fulton was alarmed and immediately called Defendant Eugene, who tweeted at about that same time at 6:27 PM Trayvon Martin Mom just called me and at 6:32 PM She thought I was Trayvon Girlfriend, Asking Me Hella Questions,' the lawsuit said, citing phone records and social media records.

Nevertheless, Fulton went back inside and sat next to Jeantel as she was interviewed, without telling prosecutors what she knew, that Defendant Jeantel was not Defendant Eugene, that Defendant Jeantel was not Trayvons girlfriend, that Defendant Jeantel was not the girl she had met with in her home on March 19, had spoken with 7 times, had texted with some 30 times, had driven back to her home at 2648 Flamingo Drive on March 19, it continued.

Jeantel was an 18-year-old ninth grader who read at a fourth-grade level, it says.

Martins parents both lied repeatedly to cover up the swap, the lawsuit says.

Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda ignored the repeated false statements by Defendant Jeantel that he both knew and should have known to be false, including those which contradicted Defendant Eugenes phone records he had already obtained, and including Defendant Jeantels statement that she was 18, even though Defendant de la Rionda knew from Defendant Crumps public statements that Defendant Eugene was 16, it said, adding:

Almost every time Defendant Jeantel made a statement he knew to be false, Defendant de la Rionda asked the question again and again in different ways until Defendant Jeantels answer fit his narrative. By the end of the interview, Defendant Jeantel was emotionally exhausted and feeling guilty from her lying and told Defendant de la Rionda six times, almost shouting I feel guilty and real guilty. When asked why she felt real guilty, Defendant Jeantel then stated twice, shouting the second time I aint know about it!

To explain the name on the letter and the changing age of the girlfriend, Jeantel testified that she initially gave a fake name and fake age and lied about why she wasnt at Martinsfuneral.

The difference in the voices is stark between the initial call Crump released and the testimony provided by Jeantel, who spoke in a deep, slow mumble.

Rachel Jeantel, who said she was on the phone with Trayvon Martin, is pictured. (Screenshot from The Trayvon Hoax)

The lawsuit is based on the investigative work in a book and movie called the The Trayvon Hoax by Joel Gilbert, a Hollywood director who has made entertainment films as well as conspiratorial conservative films.

The Trayvon Hoax, however, attributes its conclusions almost entirely to specific contents of cellphone data related to the criminal case, which Gilbert obtained under Floridas expansive open-records law, as well as copious social media postings by the young people involved.

Martins dad Tracy Martin who fathered six children with five women and spent time in prison for trafficking $1 million in cocaine admitted to police that the cries of help on a 911 call came from Zimmerman, not his son, but later changed his story, the suit says.

Crump issued a statement on behalf of himself and the parents. I have every confidence that this unfounded and reckless lawsuit will be revealed for what it is another failed attempt to defend the indefensible and a shameless attempt to profit off the lives and grief of others, he said.

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Central Witness In Trayvon Martin Trial Was Imposter, George ...

Read Slates complete coverage of theTrayvon Martin case.

The story of Trayvon Martins death is heartbreaking. If you have missed the facts: The 17-year-old, who is black, was walking to a friends home in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., when a neighborhood-watch volunteer*, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, spotted him. Zimmerman, whose father says identifies as Hispanic,called the cops to report a suspicious person. They told him not to follow. They always get away, Zimmerman told dispatch in a 911 call released Friday, and he kept tracking Martin. Zimmerman had a gun. Martin was carrying only an ice tea and the Skittles hed just bought at the store. The two had a struggle that no one saw. Hearing shots, neighbors called 911. In one call thats hard to listen to, a woman anxiously says she can hear someone calling for help while in the background, a terrified, wailing voice pleads, No! No!

Zimmerman shot and killed Martin, but he said he did so in self-defense. The shocker of this case so far is that the Sanford police say they dont have enough evidence to dispute Zimmermans claim and arrest him. Martins mother told the Today show Monday morning that her son was killed because of the color of his skin, and his parents want the FBI to investigate. With these facts, you can see why. UPDATE, March 20, 2012: On Monday evening, the Justice Department announced it will investigate Martins killing.

How did we get to a place where Zimmermans claim of self-defense, which seems barely plausible, could prevent his arrest? The answer starts with the Stand Your Ground law that Florida passed in 2005. The idea was to give people who think they are being threatened the right to use force: They can protect themselves without first trying to retreat. The history behind that controversial idea is actually about gender, not race. It involves the intersection between the fight against domestic violence and the agenda of the National Rifle Association.

Lets back up, with the help of Jeannie Suk, a Harvard law professor who wrote an article in 2008 that Ill rely on for the next few paragraphs. In the 17th century, English common law held that people whose lives were threatened in a public place could use deadly force to defend themselves only after retreating as far as possible. It was up to the king and his men to keep the peace, and everyone else was supposed to stand aside. There was only one exception: If someone broke into your house, you could kill him without retreating.

This is called the Castle Doctrine, after the old saying that a mans house is his castle. It makes intuitive sensea limited exception to the duty to retreat that leaves the rule in place. But when the Castle Doctrine made its way to America, Suk says, some courts expanded it. Now someone under attack could repel force by force if he was attacked in a place where he has a right to be. Thats how the Supreme Court put it in 1895. This is amazingly called the true man doctrine, from a line in an 1876 case: A true man, who is without fault, is not obliged to fly from an assailant, who by violence or surprise, maliciously seeks to take his life or do him enormous bodily harm.

Not all the states adopted the true man doctrine. And 100 years later, courts and legislatures faced a new problem: What to do with women who said they were victims of domestic violence and had killed their husbands to save themselves? Did you have a right not to retreat if the person coming after you lived under the same roof? At first, the answer was no, to the fury of feminists. Then in 1999, the Florida Supreme Court said a woman who shot and killed her husband during a violent fight at home could successfully call on the Castle Doctrine to argue self-defense. It is now widely recognized that domestic violence attacks are often repeated over time, and escape from the home is rarely possible without the threat of great personal violence or death, the court wrote.

Suk calls this revision of the true-man rule to encompass domestic violence transformative, and you can see why. The new rules made for more shooting and less retreating. And they set the stage for Florida to ditch the duty to retreat entirely, which the legislature did in passing the nations first Stand Your Ground law in 2005.

Floridas new law did three things: It further loosened the restrictions on using deadly force at home. It scrapped the duty to retreat in public places. And it gave people who use self-defense civil and criminal immunity. Pushing for these changes, NRA President Marion Hammer focused on women and their need to protect themselves. You cant expect a victim to wait and ask, Excuse me, Mr. Criminal, are you going to rape me and kill me, or are you just going to beat me up and steal my television? she said.

Prosecutors opposed the Stand Your Ground law, and they still complain about it. It is an abomination, former Broward County Prosecutor David Frankel told the Sun Sentinel in January. The ultimate intent might be good, but in practice, people take the opportunity to shoot first and say later they had a justification. It almost gives them a free pass to shoot. The quote comes from a story about a former sheriffs deputy, Maury Hernandez, who killed an unarmed homeless man in a Haagen-Dazs shop on a Saturday afternoon. Hernandez, who was with his children, said the man aggressively asked for money and then tried to assault him. Witnesses said Hernandez warned the man several times before taking out his gun and firing multiple times. The police said they wouldnt charge Hernandez for the shooting because he claimed he was under attack.

Its that decision not to press charges that makes Stand Your Ground laws, which a bunch of other states have adopted, a crazy departure from the past. Its one thing to raise self-defense at trial. Its another to have what the Florida Supreme Court calls true immunity. True immunity, the court said, means a trial judge can dismiss a prosecution, based on a Stand Your Ground assertion, before trial begins.

At least theres supposed to be a hearing before that happens, at which the defendant has the burden of proof. And yet as the Hernandez and Martins case shows, Stand Your Ground laws often lead prosecutors to decide against so much as bringing charges. According to the Sun Sentinel, In case after case during the past six years, Floridians who shot and killed unarmed opponents have not been prosecuted.

Now the death of Trayvon Martin is the latest in that line. Maybe this is the kind of case that is so sad and so tinged with racism that Florida will think hard about the very scary place where their self-defense laws have taken them. Maybe.

Read Slates complete coverage of the Trayvon Martin case.

*Correction, March 20, 2012: This article originally stated that George Zimmerman is white, but his father says he identifies as Hispanic.

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Why George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martins killer, hasnt been ...

There are some events and dates in life that you will never forget.

Dates that leave a long-lasting mark on ones psyche, remembering where you were, how the space felt, the emotions you had and the thoughts that immediately entered your mind.

When the news broke that George Floyd was killed by officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I was in the living room having just finished a Zoom meeting. It was a quiet, warm day, the sun was out, I was a little hungry, but I felt at ease. Then my phone started ringing.

It was May 25, 2020.

I would join millions of people across the country the next day who would watch the now infamous video taken by a fearless, teenage onlooker we would later find out was Darnella Frazier and be shaken once again by the myriad of emotions that have come over the years due to police violence taking the lives of unarmed, Black and brown people.

Summer started early last year.

The City of Philadelphias Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disability Services (DBHIDS) Engaging Males of Color (EMOC) initiative, an effort that I lead for the Department, was and is uniquely designed to address some of the challenges that would follow over the course of this past year.

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Since conversations and data collection began in 2013 by then DBHIDS Commissioner, Dr. Arthur C. Evans Jr., and our official launch in 2014 when I was brought onboard, we have worked to promote mental health and wellness for men and boys of color in Philadelphia. We seek to increase access and awareness to behavioral health services, build health literacy and reduce the stigma associated with mental health. We understand the vast disparities when it comes to the social determinants of health for this population and build strategic partnerships to assist in connecting folks to resources.

In perhaps a twist of fate here, EMOC, though initially modeled somewhat after then-President Barack Obamas My Brothers Keeper initiative, is about as old as the Black Lives Matter movement, which started as a hashtag after George Zimmerman, in 2013, was acquitted in the murder of Trayvon Martin.

We Breathe, We Live: Brotherly Love Protest Stories is part of EMOCs contribution to this ongoing dialogue about race and policing in this country.

Our team has served on panels and shared thoughts in meetings and conferences since May 2020, however it is the value of storytelling, brought on by our special partners in the nonprofit, First Person Arts (FPA), that became the catalyst for this film project. FPA amplifies stories of everyday Philadelphians in dynamic productions and we began a series several years ago, Beyond Expectations, to showcase the innermost feelings and ideas that males of color have and navigate through each day, covering a range of subject areas and issues.

We Breathe, We Live is a continuation of that work.

We identified seven men of various backgrounds, ages and experiences to share their story, as we prepare for the one-year anniversary of this infamous murder and subsequent summer of protests. Where were they? How did they feel? What was it like to be on the ground in the marches? How has this trauma affected them and/or their loved ones? The director of the film, Glenn Holsten, brought a brave and innovative vision to catalyze and link the ideas presented in the film.

These rich stories, plus the inclusion of spoken word poetry and conversations with our DBHIDS EMOC colleagues, give life to a moment that was a peak example of dehumanization.

This film has further resonance since we find ourselves in Mental Health Awareness Month; additionally seen in the relief of millions now that Chauvin has been convicted of his charges.

We hope on Monday, May 24, at 9 p.m. on WHYY-TV (and live on http://www.whyy.org) that communities will gather to watch this film and see these men, in a state of vulnerability, not as the stereotype, but as the humans that they are.

Which is maybe all that George Floyd wanted.

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For more information about EMOC, please contact Gabriel Bryant at Gabriel.bryant@phila.gov, follow EMOC on twitter @emocphilly, and for additional resources and supports, go to http://www.dbhids.org/boost.

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'We Breathe, We Live: Brotherly Love Protest Stories' part of ongoing dialogue about race and policing in US - Generocity

In Elizabeth City, N.C., the morning after a jury in Minneapolis found the former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of the murder of George Floyd, a unit from the countys Sheriffs Department dressed in tactical gear arrived at the home of Andrew Brown Jr. They were there to serve drug-related arrest and search warrants.

Within minutes, 42-year-old Mr. Brown was dead, shot at the wheel of his car. He was hit by five bullets, including one shot to the back of his head. The North Carolina prosecutor in the case has called the shooting justified.

If George Floyd forced America to face the question of whether an officer who abuses power can be held accountable, Andrew Brown Jr.s blood cries out from the ground of eastern North Carolina for deeper change. Justice demands systemic and enduring transformation something that younger generations will see and trust as authentic. We call it the Third Reconstruction.

Consider our recent history, starting with Mr. Chauvins trial. For us, it brought back memories of the summer of 2013, when a jury in Florida found George Zimmerman not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Mr. Zimmerman had shot and killed the 17-year-old boy who was guilty of nothing more than walking while Black in a gated community. Our legal systems failure to hold Mr. Zimmerman accountable for killing Mr. Martin sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. It rallied a generation of young people who refused to accept white police officers regularly killing unarmed Black people, not unlike how white Americans regularly lynched Black Americans in the early 20th century.

And that moment the rise of Black Lives Matter in turn recalled the movement galvanized by the death of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, who was murdered with impunity in Jim Crow Mississippi. The horror of his lynching inspired a generation of children who looked like Till to confront a system that denigrated their Black lives and undermined democracy. Over the next decade and a half, they grew up to be the college students and young adults who led sit-ins at lunch counters, organized Freedom Summer in Mississippi, petitioned their fellow Americans to see voting rights as a moral issue at Selma and built a Rainbow Coalition in Chicago to advocate the dignity of all poor people.

The reckoning that Emmett Tills generation demanded took time and it was subverted and sabotaged at every turn. But the young people who saw themselves in Till eventually contributed to a Second Reconstruction of America in the mid-20th century, expanding democracy and pushing the nation toward the promise of a government that would represent all of its citizens.

Now the Trayvon Martin generation has come of age and is pushing the nation toward a Third Reconstruction. The death of Mr. Floyd, along with those of Breonna Taylor and so many more whove joined the litany of lives taken, marked a turning point in the movement: His cries of I cant breathe united this generation in a collective gasp for justice.

But what does that justice look like? Accountability for Mr. Floyds murder is not justice. If we cannot stop the killings of unarmed Black people before they happen, any collective affirmation of Black life rings hollow.

As hard as it may be to achieve, the Third Reconstruction is about more than Black people surviving encounters with law enforcement. Its about America taking steps to protect and value its Black citizens as it has never done before. A Third Reconstruction is about ensuring Black Americans are no longer twice as likely as white Americans to die in a pandemic. Its about remaking a system that saddles them with student debt and then offers them poverty wages.

A Third Reconstruction will ensure that all Americans can access decent housing for their families and quality education for their children, as outlined in a resolution introduced Thursday by Representatives Barbara Lee and Pramila Jayapal, and supported by our organization, the Poor Peoples Campaign. Their resolution seeks to ensure all Americans access to clean and unleaded water and, in the face of widespread voter suppression efforts, a guarantee that their participation in American democracy is expanded and protected.

The Third Reconstruction is about confronting policies and practices that produce death, whether from police killings, poverty, lack of health care, ecological devastation or unnecessary war. It is, in short, a declaration that unnecessary death is intolerable and that democracy is still possible.

In 2020, following a summer of Black Lives Matter protests, we witnessed the most votes cast in a federal election in U.S. history, with a higher percentage of eligible voters participating than wed seen in decades, and maybe even more than a century. From the Fight for $15 to the Sunrise Movement to the Poor Peoples Campaign, this generation has linked up with movements to connect systemic racism in policing with systemic racism in economic inequality, ecological degradation, health disparities and voter suppression. In our work with the Poor Peoples Campaign, we saw thousands of Black, white and brown Americans reach out to millions of poor and low-income neighbors like them, encouraging them to join a movement that votes for a transformative agenda in our public life.

And then, 11 months after Mr. Floyds murder thanks to the courage of Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed Derek Chauvin with his knee on Mr. Floyds neck the nation witnessed a police chief testify against one of his own and a jury vote to hold Mr. Chauvin accountable for murder. It was a measure of accountability that Trayvon Martin and so many others were never deemed worthy of, and the crowds in Minneapolis celebrated with chants of I am somebody.

But even as Mr. Chauvins trial was approaching and underway, the police continued to kill Black and brown people. We added names including Donovan Lynch, Adam Toledo and MaKhia Bryant to the list of souls we mourn.

As with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of the Second Reconstruction, any fundamental change in American policing will require federal legislative action that we do not currently have the political power to achieve. Even the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which does not fundamentally reimagine law enforcement but does introduce protections against the abuse of power, is languishing in a Senate where Republicans are using the threat of filibuster to silence any real debate.

The Third Reconstruction is about more than any single bill or the agenda of a political party. It is about building power to fundamentally reimagine what is possible in our society. Both the First and Second Reconstructions in American history happened because moral movements reclaimed the promises of democracy and a new, expanded electorate insisted on new priorities. If the Trayvon Martin generation has pricked the nations conscience and sparked a moral movement, we believe a coalition of poor and low-income people who have historically been low-propensity voters has the potential to shift the political landscape. We must organize around an agenda that lifts from the bottom so that everyone can rise.

No single verdict or election can bring about the racial reckoning America needs after 400 years of building systems that have rested upon white supremacy. But the generation of young people who saw themselves in Trayvon Martin knows that whatever the color of their skin, their lives will not matter in this society until Black lives matter in our public policy.

William Barber II is the president of Repairers of the Breach and a co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good.

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Opinion | George Floyd Died a Year Ago. The Third Reconstruction Is Underway - The New York Times