DC Trawler

Mohammed Merah and George Zimmerman: A tale of two gunmen

Font Size:

We’re no closer to solving the unfathomable mystery of Mohammed Merah, as the Daily Mail reports:

The Al Qaeda gunman who shot dead seven people in France was in touch with British Islamic extremists as recently as last year, security sources in Paris said yesterday.

Mohammed Merah, 23, who was killed when police commandos stormed his flat in Toulouse last week, is said to have met UK-based jihadists on a visit to Afghanistan. His codename – ‘Youssef Toulouse’ – was passed to British security agents…

Merah had been tracked by French authorities since he broke out of an Afghan prison in 2008. He worked as a mechanic in France, but returned to the Middle East to train with the Taliban. He is thought to have gone to Pakistan in 2010 and reached the Afghan  capital Kabul that November. He was picked up by US security agents and sent back to France.

If only there were some way to adduce a motive.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to find a motive in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

The Root:

Among the newly released tapes of 911 calls made before and after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, one stands out: a recording of the call made by the man who reportedly said that he shot the teen. The 28-year-old white Hispanic neighborhood-watch captain of a Sanford, Fla., gated community can be heard voicing his suspicions about the 17-year-old black teen.

NPR:

The U.S. Justice Department announced late last night it will open an investigation and a state attorney for the area has announced that he is sending the case to a grand jury.

And many have noted that, adding to the tensions around the case is the fact that Trayvon Martin is black and his killer, George Zimmerman, is a white Hispanic man.

International Business Times:

On Feb. 26, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Sanford, Fla., was shot dead by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white Hispanic man driving around his gated community in an SUV as part of the volunteer neighborhood watch program.

Yahoo! News:

Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, was patrolling the streets of a gated community in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26 when he spotted Martin and told a police dispatcher that a “black male” was acting “suspicious.”

Panama City News Herald:

Although much of the focus has been on the racial aspects — 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was African-American; his assailant, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, is white Hispanic — Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law also is in the spotlight.

The Madison Times:

Being a young black man has been called the hardest job in America.  Young black men are much more likely than white men to be jobless, in jail and labeled “suspicious,” sometimes with deadly consequences.  Such was the case on February 26th, when 17-year-old high school student, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by a white neighborhood-watch vigilante in Sanford, Florida. The shooter, George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white Hispanic, noticed Trayvon walking through his gated community and called 911 to report a suspicious person.

Reuters:

City commissioners in Sanford, Florida, approved a motion of “no confidence” in the city’s police chief on Wednesday over the department’s handling of the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white Hispanic neighborhood watch captain.

NYT:

Deryl Dedmon, a white teenager who drove a pickup truck over a black man in the parking lot of a Jackson, Miss., motel, pleaded guilty to murder on Wednesday and was sent to prison for life…

“I do not ask y’all to forget, but I do ask y’all to forgive,” Mr. Dedmon said to the family of James C. Anderson, 47, who was killed last June, according to pool reporters in the courtroom…

The family has filed a wrongful death suit in the case against all seven teenagers who the police say were involved, including two girls.

Morris Dees, a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is working with the family and their lawyer, Winston J. Thompson III. He said the family would continue to push for a civil trial so that more about the case could be revealed.

“You continue to see this around the country, the systematic targeting of black people. That’s what happened here and that’s what happened in Florida,” he said, referring to the case in Sanford, Fla., in which an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed almost four weeks ago by a white Hispanic crime watch volunteer.

ITV News:

George Zimmerman, a white hispanic, spotted the teenager while he was walking back to his father’s girlfriend’s house after having bought sweets and iced tea.

HuffPo:

When a white Hispanic neighborhood-watch volunteer admitted to police that he had shot and killed an unarmed black teenager — and police accepted his assertion that he did so in self-defense — it was “taking off the scab of the wound” in Sanford, Fla.

Jackson, MS Clarion Ledger:

In New York, a Million Hoodies March has been called to honor the victim, Trayvon Martin, a black 17-year-old shot and killed last month in Florida by George Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic.

Reuters again:

President Barack Obama weighed into the controversial killing in Florida of black teenager Trayvon Martin for the first time on Friday, pledging to “get to the bottom” of the shooting and telling the parents “if I had a son he’d look like Trayvon.”

The 17-year-old was shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, 28, on Feb. 26.  Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, has said he shot the unarmed teen in self-defense.

Reuters yet again:

A Florida college said it has taken the “unusual but necessary step” this week to drop from its enrollment the neighborhood watch captain who killed an unarmed black teenager but has not been arrested for the shooting.

George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month and claimed self-defense.

Ah, mystery solved. Cognitive dissonance relieved.

Isn’t it interesting that the identifying phrase “white Hispanic,” while not new, has suddenly come into vogue in the media? When was the last time you heard somebody described that way in the news, if ever? It’s almost as if they jumped to a conclusion based on someone’s name, and now they’re trying to justify it. One of Zimmerman’s parents is white, so that explains everything. “Wait, he’s what? Dammit. No, hold on a second… he’s a white Hispanic. Whew!”

And if you now try to bring up Obama’s mom, you’re a racist. If he’d had a son, the kid would look like Trayvon. That’s the only thing that matters.

As for the families of Mohammed Merah’s victims? Sorry. Tough luck. We’ll never know what drove their murderer. Some things simply aren’t mentioned in polite society.

Update: This is also why it’s okay for Spike Lee to try to send an angry mob to Zimmerman’s house. Spike had to use Twitter, because there was no metal trash can handy.

Update: Of course, we all know who’s ultimately to blame. MSNBC host: The Koch Brothers have Treyvon Martin’s blood on their hands.

Update: Victor Davis Hanson reminds us to beware of the mob.

Update: As Daniel Knauf notes, Nidal Malik Hasan murdering 14 people at Fort Hood was “not as simple as it might appear.” Obama advised against jumping to conclusions. No such caution is needed now, though, because of two simple words: “white Hispanic.”

Update: I’d tell you what Trayvon’s now-deleted Twitter handle was, or show you some more recent pictures than the ones we’ve all seen on the news, but that would be racist.

Update: New Black Panthers offer $10,000 bounty for capture of shooter George Zimmerman. You might not think they’re allowed to do this legally, but they weren’t supposed to stand in front of polling places on election day either.

Update: Zimmerman says Martin punched his white Hispanic face and slammed the back of his white Hispanic head into the sidewalk several times.

Update: Multiple suspensions paint complicated portrait of Trayvon Martin. Seems to me it’s getting less complicated by the minute. Another possible clue: Trayvon’s Twitter account.

Update: Mother Seeks Trayvon Martin Trademarks.