As we comb through the initial police report and 911 calls in the Trayvon Martin case, we’ve uncovered more questions than answers about the night that George Zimmerman shot and killed the unarmed teen.
According to the initial police report in the Trayvon Martin case:
Upon arriving at the scene, Officer Timothy Smith said he saw a white male in a red jacket and blue jeans in between the buildings, and saw a Black male wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt laying face down in the grass. He says he asked the white male (later identified as George Zimmerman) if he had seen the subject, presumably who shot the Black male. Then Zimmerman told Officer Smith that he shot the Black male and that he was still armed. Officer Smith cuffed Zimmerman and he removed the gun and holster from inside Zimmerman’s waistband. Smith noted that Zimmerman’s back was wet and appeared to be covered in grass, as if he had been laying on his back on the ground. Officer Smith also said that Zimmerman was bleeding from his nose and the back of his head.
The Sanford Police Department Report Raises SO MANY QUESTIONS
Why is the time dispatched and the time arrived at the scene (see top section of police report) identical and listed as 19:17 on 2/27/2012? Did it take police less than a minute to arrive on the scene or was he already on the scene? How can these times be identical?
How is it that the report lists, one offense, one victim, yet no offenders? If there is an offense, mustn’t there be an offender?
A trained police officer sees two people between a building–one of them dead, face down in the grass–and has a casual conversation with the other party asking if they saw the person who did it? Why not suspect the person standing there with the body–the ONLY one there besides the injured party on the ground? We know why. It’s because the white person on the scene was not viewed as suspicious to Officer Timothy Smith. We wonder why…
In his account, Officer Ayala said that “Officer Smith LATER STATES that there was one subject shot, and he had one at gunpoint.” Why was this not mentioned in Officer Smith’s account of the events immediately after his arrival on the scene?
Officer Smith’s description of George Zimmerman’s condition includes the speculation that, “While I was in such close contact with Zimmerman, I could observe that his back appeared to be wet and covered in grass, AS IF HE HAD BEEN LAYING ON HIS BACK ON THE GROUND.” Instead of stating the facts, we see Smith engage in speculation that makes the case that somehow Zimmerman was on his back. And if Zimmerman was on his back, this implies that Trayvon Martin may have been on top of him during a struggle–or at the very least that Martin had something to do with Zimmerman being on his back. This is a subtle move toward making the case for Zimmerman’s claim of self defense in the shooting of Martin.
Officer Smith gave a full description of George Zimmerman’s condition, but he didn’t talk about the condition of Trayvon Martin’s body at all–nothing about wounds, or apparent gunshot or anything. Officer Ayala, who performed CPR on the victim also made no mention of condition of the body. It would seem that while performing chest compressions on someone with a gunshot wound to the chest, there would be obvious details warranting inclusion in the report. Did Martin have signs of the struggle that we hear 911 callers report? Where exactly was the gunshot located on the chest? Was blood even spotted on Trayvon Martin or his clothes? These are all things that one would expect to be conveyed in the report of what the officer observed on the scene. Why weren’t these details included?
In the report, Officer Smith also mentions overhearing Zimmerman talking to the paramedics, telling them “I was yelling for someone to help me, but no one would help me.” Why did he choose to place what he overheard Zimmerman say without having asked him specifically himself? The report gives no indication of whether the paramedics prompted this statement from Zimmerman or whether it was voluntary. Furthermore, why was this the only direct quote in the entire report?
Was the police report altered to remove detail? There are parts of the report that have great detail about the occurrences before arriving at the scene and once other officers arrived at the scene. However, there seems to be some missing detail when it comes to the officers’ accounts of what took place immediately after arriving on the scene.
Due to the shoddy documentation and the apparent coverup already going on in the case, we have no idea when these reports were really written nor whether anything was removed. For all we know the report could have been edited prior to its release to the public.
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