Thursday, April 26, 2012

George Zimmerman is part Black



New post on Fellowship of the Minds

George Zimmerman is part Black

by Dr. Eowyn

In their rush to judgment, the media and Black race-baiters (including the President of the United States himself) painted Trayvon-shooter George Zimmerman as an anti-Black racist, never mind that our judicial system is predicated on the innocent-until-proven-guilty principle. Nor did the pack of hounds bother to find out about Zimmerman -- his racial-ethnic background; does he have a racist history; what led him to be a neighborhood watch volunteer.

A reporter for Reuters, Chris Francescani, has finally undertaken the investigative work that journalists are supposed to do. Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the Reuters report of April 25, 2012, paints a much more nuanced and truer picture of Zimmerman than as an angry racist vigilante. Among the facts uncovered is this:

George Zimmerman is not just bi-racial -- Latino (Peruvian) and "white" (Jewish), he has Black roots. His maternal great grandfather was an Afro-Peruvian.

Some of Reuters' other findings:

  • 28-year-old Zimmerman comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him. Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, lived with the family during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she babysat for two black girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.
  • At age 18, George Zimmerman got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with a black friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office.
  • In June 2011, a wave of break-in robberies rattled the gated community where Zimmerman lived -- Retreat at Twin Lakes, in Sanford, Florida. The homeowners association asked Zimmerman to launch a neighborhood watch. Zimmerman began to carry a Kel-Tec gun (for which he had received training) on his regular, dog-walking patrol of the neighborhood.
  • The series of break-ins in his neighborhood was committed by young Black men. A black female neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account: "Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK? There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood. That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin." The woman declined to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race.
  • At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood. In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50% white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20% each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.
  • One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.
  • But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse. On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors, and frantically called a police dispatcher. Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open. "He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said. "People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week." The Bertalans decided to move out, and left two days before the Trayvon Martin shooting.
  • Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.
  • In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns. Zimmerman was asked to head up (as "captain") a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.
  • On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors. "I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled. The "young black man" turned out to be Emmanuel Burgess (see below).
  • On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two black men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles. Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2. Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.
  • About two weeks after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police. "We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said. The young man was Trayvon Martin. This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin. Referring to the incident in February when the police had arrived late so that Emmanuel Burgess got away, Zimmerman muttered in an aside: "These assholes, they always get away." Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

Read the full Reuters article for yourself, HERE.

~Eowyn

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