I'm not going to name names, and I'm not going to go into detail (I have a lot of work to do right now). But I have to comment on this... Over at FtB, I've seen a couple of commenters and at least one of the bloggers implying or even outright stating that the minor injuries George Zimmerman is reported to have had after the fatal encounter with Trayvon Martin were self-inflicted or faked, or even fabricated. The idea being that he thought this would let him get away with his devious plan to murder a black kid.
Come on, people. Is it possible that happened? Well, sure, and that sort of thing is not unheard of. But it's a pretty dramatic accusation, and a pretty spectacular explanation, especially when there is a much more mundane explanation ready at hand.
We know with 100% certainty -- from the 911 tapes -- that Zimmerman had been following Trayvon for several minutes and was extremely agitated by the time he got out of his vehicle. If we accept that the major elements of "Dee-Dee's" story are more or less true, we also know that Trayvon was (justifiably!) pretty worked up as well. For instance, "Dee-Dee" urged him to walk faster to try and get away, but he defiantly chose not to alter his pace. We also believe that at some point, Zimmerman got out of his SUV and approached Trayvon. Again if we accept "Dee-Dee's" story, it seems that the events at that point degenerated pretty rapidly, with the phone connection being cut off almost immediately after Zimmerman's approach, possibly as a result of Trayvon being shoved.
You know what could happen next in that kind of situation that would be totally unsurprising? A fistfight. Either one could have thrown the first punch, or neither of them might really have done it. Both were pretty much at maximum fight-or-flight response at that point, and based on their phone conversations we have reason to believe both of them had already made a conscious decision against "flight". Is it so shocking that they would have come to blows? Why on earth would someone be so skeptical of this narrative that they had to invent some weird conspiracy about self-inflicted wounds???
Is it some sort of need to make sure that Zimmerman is maximally to blame? If so, it's entirely unnecessary. If you stalk a kid ten years younger than you, aggressively walk up to him, get in a fistfight, and then shoot his ass, that's a serious crime, at least any place with sane gun laws. Hell, even if Trayvon unambiguously threw the first punch, you can't provoke someone into punching you and then cap them in the chest. Yeesh!
Or is it some sort of impulse to make Trayvon into some kind of saint? Well, once again, this is grossly unnecessary. Teenagers, um, occasionally get into fistfights. I know I sure did. And in this case, it seems Trayvon was pretty justified in feeling threatened! And like I say, even if there was a fistfight, that doesn't at all imply who threw the first punch. It's entirely plausible that Zimmerman walked up and tried to tackle Trayvon, then started losing when Trayvon fought back, and cowardly pulled out his gun. There, see, you still get to picture Trayvon as some sort of immaculate never-broke-a-single-rule hero, but you don't have to ludicrously deny that the evidence points strongly towards there having been a physical confrontation.
This conspiracy mongering about self-inflicted wounds is useless and annoying. Unless evidence comes to light that actually suggests that really happened, people should stop yammering about that hypothesis. It's paranoid, it's absurd, and it's distinctly unskeptical.
Addendum: A couple other thoughts on this... Zimmerman has not exactly come across as a criminal mastermind here. This is a guy who used to call 911 if he saw an open window or open garage door, and his website was, uh... well I don't know how to describe it. It's much easier for me to believe that Zimmerman is just a regular idiot with a gun and a hero complex, rather than some kind of devious sadist who formulated a clever plan to murder a kid in the streets and get away with it.
Also, some noise has been made about the fact that Zimmerman was on top of Trayvon when the shot was fired, and so therefore how could Trayvon have busted his nose? All I can say is, I guess people who say that have never been in a fistfight before. As I mentioned, I was in a couple of 'em as a kid. One of them actually dragged on for awhile, because it wasn't in school so there was nobody to break it up. Sometimes I managed to pin him down, sometimes he managed to do it to me. We both had bloody noses by the end. Actually, I think I bloodied his nose with a lucky punch when he was on top of me (though this was like almost two decades ago, so I don't really remember).
It's entirely plausible that Trayvon was mostly winning, then for a moment Zimmerman managed to get the upper hand, and he seized that opportunity to pull out his gun. I'm not at all saying that is what happened; it is just one of many possible scenarios that is consistent with the evidence. But it (and a lot of other similarly mundane explanations) are a lot more plausible than this self-inflicted wound crap.
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