Last night the NYT went to press with a 5,000 word article on the shoddy nature of the initial investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida. Unless you have been in a cave for the last few month, you know most of the tale already so I won't repeat it here.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The article includes the following bullet points, and is well written and decently well sourced, and worth reading in total.
¶ On the night of the shooting, door-to-door canvassing was not exhaustive enough, said a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. If officers had been more thorough, they might have determined that Mr. Martin, 17, was a guest — as opposed to an intruder — at a gated community called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. That would have been an important part of the subjective analysis that night by officers sizing up Mr. Zimmerman’s story. Investigators found no witnesses who saw the fight start. Others saw parts of a struggle they could not clearly observe or hear. One witness, though, provided information to the police that corroborated Mr. Zimmerman’s account of the struggle, according to a law enforcement official.
¶ The police took only one photo at the scene of any of Mr. Zimmerman’s injuries — a full-face picture of him that showed a bloodied nose — before paramedics tended to him. It was shot on a department cellphone camera and was not downloaded for a few days, an oversight by the officer who took it.
¶ The vehicle that Mr. Zimmerman was driving when he first spotted Mr. Martin was mistakenly not secured by officers as part of the crime scene. The vehicle was an important link in the fatal encounter because it was where Mr. Zimmerman called the police to report a suspicious teenager in a hooded sweatshirt roaming through the Retreat. Mr. Zimmerman also said he was walking back to the vehicle when he was confronted by Mr. Martin, who was unarmed, before shooting him.
¶ The police were not able to cover the crime scene to shield evidence from the rain, and any blood from cuts that Mr. Zimmerman suffered when he said Mr. Martin pounded his head into a sidewalk may have been washed away.
¶ The police did not test Mr. Zimmerman for alcohol or drug use that night, and one witness said the lead investigator quickly jumped to a conclusion that it was Mr. Zimmerman, and not Mr. Martin, who cried for help during the struggle.
The NYT is a major paper and the sole-byline writer has a Pulitzer on his desk, so I'll be careful here when I say that the article is only scratching the surface regarding the shoddy nature of the small town cops' initial investigation.
But all the sources for this article are ones that have an interest in protecting the overall reputation of the Sanford PD and the city of Sanford itself. So they admit to errors where the reporter can confirm them, or ask the right questions but what are we to really take away from this? Is this the whole story? Heck, no.
I'm not sure what to think about the fact that the gun is never mentioned, whether it was taken into evidence right away or not, things like that. It's been reported elsewhere but never conclusively what the chain of evidence is regarding the weapon.
It's not in dispute as the weapon that killed the youth, but I think it's worth knowing where it traveled after the fact. If TM's fingerprints were on it, that would hugely bolster a self defense claim, I'd think. I'm hardly charging a conspiracy, just pointing out that there is so much we don't know here fully, and a trial can only bring out so much.
Me, I think there needs to be a credible outside investigation into the Sanford PD and Norm Wolfinger's actions here. There is not, however. And I say this not because it should influence the trial - it should be done to ensure that the future victims of crimes are served by a police department that has been held to the highest standards. Everyone benefits that way.
Regardless of your personal opinion of the guilt or innocence of GZ, the family of TM is right to wonder if they are going to find justice here until all the facts can be established. You may disagree with their methods or counsel's methods but their unarmed son is dead and they are right to demand answers, and seek justice.
The Sanford PD mishandled the initial investigation, muddying the water for the investigation of the Special Prosecutor, and that's a shame. But they were not alone i the actions that let the admitted killer of an unarmed teen escape arrest and trial for so long. This NYT article should have been a dual report on the actions of local state prosecutor Norm Wolfinger's involvement in the initial investigation.
Wolfinger refused an interview for the report, and has quietly announced he is resigning after 27 years at the end of his current term. We don't know why, but he may think he re-election chances are slim now. He may KNOW that his office acted improperly and that the trial will unearth this activity, who knows? I'm speculating where we don't have all the facts. His office here in the NYT article is characterized as pushing for more investigative work but in truth that "push" seems to have been indicated by a single phone call. That's what I mean by not knowing the full story yet, and "limited hangout."