SCENE:\u00a0 MITCH is sitting on the light rail, heading from the Mall of American downtown to a Twins game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At Bloomington Station stop, Avery LIBRELLE, Cat SCAT and Gutterball GARY get on the train.\u00a0 MITCH turns toward the window and dons sunglasses, but LIBRELLE notices him.\u00a0 The three amble to him, stumbling awkwardly as the train starts moving, and sit surrounding him even though the car is otherwise empty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hey, Mitch.\u00a0 You racists won.\u00a0 Hope you’re proud of yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Um…if I ask “what are you talking about?”, would that imply I actually want to know?\u00a0 Because I’m not sure…<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 George Zimmerman was acquitted.\u00a0 It proves the system is racist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Um…huh?<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 The case was entirely about race!<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 All about race!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Neither the prosecutors nor the defense ever mentioned race during the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 Well, the 911 call proved that Zimmerman attacked in a racist fury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Fury!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Listen to the audio yourself.\u00a0 He sounded disgusted, depressed and dejected.\u00a0 All of the pique came from the prosecution and media’s slanted reading of the transcript.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Zimmerman called Martin a “f****ng coon”<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Rage!\u00a0 Ragey wingnut!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0\u00a0 No, he said it was “f****ng cold”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah, “right”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 Zimmerman contradicted his own story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Counterdicted!\u00a0<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0Not according to the Sanford police chief, who said his story held up entirely through multiple rounds of questioning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Yeah, well, he was a wannabe cop who disobeyed a police order not to follow Martin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0Hah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Police order, stupid Right-wing nut job!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 There was no police order.\u00a0 A dispatcher is not a cop, and can’t give orders.\u00a0
\nWhen Zimmerman said he was going to follow Martin, the dispatcher said “we don’t need you to do that”.\u00a0 It was vague, and it was utterly non-binding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 Martin had every right to be on the street.<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah! Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 So did Zimmerman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Huh?\u00a0<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0Zimmerman had a right to be on the street, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Not if he was stalking Martin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah !\u00a0 Stalker!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 “Stalking” is a pretty loaded term.\u00a0 He was following.\u00a0 Advisable?\u00a0 Maybe, maybe not, but not remotely illegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 But he was acting like a wannabe cop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Wannabe!\u00a0 Wannabe!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0That’s a pejorative interpretation of Zimmerman’s long-past behavior.\u00a0 There’s no law in wanting to act like a cop, in any case.\u00a0 And, er, how someone “acts” doesn’t justify being assaulted and having ones head bashed into the ground like some kind of MMA fight.<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 He had a round in his chamber, the hammer cocked\u00a0and the safety off!<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Round off and safety in the chamber!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0Um, just about everyone who carries a firearm carries a round in the chamber.\u00a0 Including every single person with a revolver.\u00a0 And let me ask you – who told you the “safety was off and the hammer was cocked”?<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 It’s just facts!<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah ! Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Stupid wingnut!\u00a0 Facts!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Right, the KelTec 9mm that Zimmerman carried has no cockable hammer, and no safety catch.\u00a0 It’s a “double action only” pistol; the hammer only cocks when you squeeze the trigger.\u00a0 There’s no need for a safety, so there is none.\u00a0\u00a0 I know this from years of familiarity with KelTec pistols.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE:\u00a0 The injuries Zimmerman suffered aren’t consistent with being punched.<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Yeah!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 Right, but they are consistent with being beaten against a cement sidewalk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SCAT:\u00a0 This case is proof that “Stand your Ground” laws are racist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Racisss!\u00a0 Yeah!<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0 “Stand your Ground” was never at issue, since the Defense showed that retreat was never an option; they didn’t even opt to go for a “Stand your Ground” hearing, since the law didn’t apply to this case.\u00a0 Not even a little bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE: …<\/p>\n
SCAT: …<\/p>\n
GARY:\u00a0 …<\/p>\n
MITCH:\u00a0How about those Twins?<\/p>\n
(TRAIN stops at Franklin Avenue.\u00a0 SCAT, LIBRELLE and GARY abruptly get up and climb off the train, which pulls away as the three’s eyes all go wide with fear).\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIBRELLE (receding into distance as train pulls away) Hey!\u00a0 Where’s the 331 Club?\u00a0<\/p>\n
And SCENE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SCENE:\u00a0 MITCH is sitting on the light rail, heading from the Mall of American downtown to a Twins game.\u00a0 At Bloomington Station stop, Avery LIBRELLE, Cat SCAT and Gutterball GARY get on the train.\u00a0 MITCH turns toward the window and dons sunglasses, but LIBRELLE notices him.\u00a0 The three amble to him, stumbling awkwardly as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-37345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37345"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38190,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37345\/revisions\/38190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}