Did Martin double back to confront Zimmerman?

Readers have forwarded to me various scenarios and reconstructions of the respective movements of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman leading up to the shooting. I found these theories highly speculative (for example the authors would guess which 7-11 or convenience store Martin had gone to and map out his probable route based on that), mutually contradictory (for exampole, some said Brandy Green’s house is in the Retreat at Twin Lakes, some say not), and too complicated to understand, so I chose not to post them. (As a side point, it was for similar reasons, a couple of years ago, that I stopped reading about the various theories of human pre-history and early evolution.)

However, Leonard D. has sent an e-mail that lays out a clear and understandable scenario, so here it is.

Leonard writes:

When I first started following the Trayvon Martin killing, I thought it would be interesting to use Google maps to see why Trayvon Martin was in the neighborhood where Zimmerman killed him. But I ran into two problems: no close 7-11s, and I could not find out where Brandy Green’s house was. (Green is Martin’s father’s girlfriend; Trayvon Martin was staying at her townhouse while suspended from school.) So I gave up on that. But I did think that such information should be pretty easy for a journalist to figure out with a little bit of work.

Well, finally I see someone has done it—in this post by one Dan Linehan at a site called the Wagist. (I am unfamiliar with both the author and the site.) The article shows a Google map annotated with various locations of interest in this incident: where the killing happened, where Zimmerman’s SUV was, and where Brandy Green’s townhouse is. This is obvious work that the mainstream media has not done.

Now, assuming the info there is correct (again, I cannot verify it beyond that the streets match what anyone can see on Google maps), we see several very interesting facts about the killing:

(a) There are paved walkways in the townhouse development that would make it very easy to escape anyone in a vehicle. The path where Martin ran from Zimmerman (still in his SUV) was one of them. And it explains why Zimmerman got out of his SUV: he could not follow Martin to see where he was going, except on foot.

(b) The path where Martin ran was the first part of one of the shortest routes from the road he was on to Brandy Green’s townhouse. It is definitely the shortest non-vehicle-capable paved route; any other similarly short route would have been down Twin Trees, where Zimmerman was.

(c) When he started running, Martin had walked past Zimmerman, so that he, Martin, was closer to Green’s townhouse than Zimmerman was. At this point Zimmerman was still in his truck, about 450 feet by paved walkway from Brandy Green’s townhouse.

(d) The site of the shooting was about 150 feet from where Martin left the road onto the walkway, and about 300 feet from Brandy Green’s townhouse. Martin could have sprinted “home” after he passed Zimmerman’s truck in 20 seconds.

Zimmerman was on the recorded 311 call for almost two minutes after he reported Martin started to run. (And the fight didn’t happen for a few minutes after that.) In two minutes, a normal person would walk 500 feet; to have moved just 150 feet in that time would be to move at about 1 mph. It is very difficult for any adult to move 1 mph. A slow walk will be 2-3 mph; a faster walk 4 or so (wiki link on walking speeds).

The above facts lead the author, and me, to speculate that Martin must have doubled back. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain how they happened to encounter each other just 150 feet from Zimmerman’s truck, more than two minutes after he reports Martin running.

- end of initial entry -

April 6

Clark Coleman writes:

Leonard D. wrote:

(a) There are paved walkways in the townhouse development that would make it very easy to escape anyone in a vehicle. The path where Martin ran from Zimmerman (still in his SUV) was one of them. And it explains why Zimmerman got out of his SUV: he could not follow Martin to see where he was going, except on foot.

I thought that Zimmerman’s story to police was that he did not get out of the vehicle to pursue Martin, but only to read an address. Are we admitting that Zimmerman was lying to police?

The point of my question is that, while I deplore the witch hunt surrounding Zimmerman and don’t buy into the Saint Trayvon liberal script, I also don’t buy into the Saga of Saint George. Partisanship seems to cause most people to gravitate to one extreme or the other. I believe you have expressed a similar position.

LA replies:

Indeed I have. But I think you go too far in suggesting an equivalence between the St. Trayvian cult and some supposed St. George cult. There is no equivalence between the partisanship of the two sides. The left’s massive lies and conclusory statements as to Zimmerman’s supposed guilt have no equivalent on the pro-Zimmerman side. The fact that Leonard’s failure to remark on Zimmerman’s possible false statement that he only got out of the car to look at an address, is your main evidence for an equivalence between the Zimmerman defense and the Communist-level campaign of lies against Zimmerman, makes my point.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 03, 2012 11:06 AM | Send
    

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