The Trayvon Martin case

As some of you have probably heard, Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teen, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman at the end of February. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, claims the boy was acting suspiciously so he followed him, got out to check his location and then Martin attacked him, so it was self-defense (and therefore may be non-prosecutable under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground law. Even though the 911 operator advised Zimmerman against following the boy.
Martin’s girlfriend says she was talking to him on the phone when he reported someone following him, and that he told her he was going to “walk fast.” Several neighbors said they heard cries for help; one neighbor who told police she’d heard a teenage boy crying out was corrected and told she’d heard Zimmerman.
Some of the initial criticism of the police response pointed out that if a black kid had been found standing over a white guy, there’d have been an arrest: Zimmerman hasn’t been. Police didn’t run a background check on Zimmerman (they did on Martin) or check him for drugs or alcohol, and they apparently accepted his assurances (which were lies) that he had a clean record.
Worst statement: The local police chief said that while Zimmerman probably would do things differently if he had it do to over, “so would Trayvon Martin.” Meaning what: He wouldn’t walk down the street in the white neighborhood where he’s staying? Would have used his mad ninja skills to escape the guy following him?
The police have also asserted that under the Stand Your Ground Law they can’t even investigate unless they have a reason to doubt Zimmerman’s story (I’d say they have enough but I admit my own bias here). Others writing about the case have offered widely differing assessments, including Naked Politics, the Miami Herald, American Prospect and Julian Sanchez.
For bonus links, we have Slacktivist on the case, and Florida Rep. Dennis Baxley arguing that a drop in the violent-crime rate and the increase in justifiable homicides proves the law is a good thing. As noted at the link, the fact cases like this are entered as justifiable homicides rather than murder doesn’t mean they are justifiable homicides or that the law is, in fact, stopping murder rather than enabling it.
(Dennis Baxley is one of Florida’s nuttier right-wingers, which is saying a lot. One of his past proposals was that if a students states an opinion and the teacher tells him he’s wrong, the student can sue. While Baxley’s primary focus was on preventing teachers from telling students creationism is wrong, he admitted it would also protect students who insisted the Holocaust didn’t happen, or any other crackpot notion).