The Times — and every other news outlet — report that George Zimmerman will be charged in the shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in Florida.
Angela B. Corey, the prosecutor, called a news conference in Jacksonville for 6 p.m. Wednesday to announce the charges against Mr. Zimmerman, 28, a crime watch volunteer, who fatally shot Mr. Martin, an unarmed teenager, in a case that has captivated the country and brought to the fore issues of race, violence and precisely what constitutes self-defense.Critical to the decision of the prosecutor will be whether or not the shooting fell under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which gives wide leeway to people who claim self-defense, and which does not require people to retreat before using deadly force.
The question that is likely to be at the center of the case is not Zimmerman’s feelings about race, but whether his apparent disregard of the dispatcher’s orders to avoid confrontation and his decision to follow Martin through the condo complex preclude his ability to claim self-defense. I would think it does, but in a still-racialized America that has bought into the vigilante myth central to so much of our cinematic product (most Westerns, the Dirty Harry movies, nearly every superhero) it is difficult to predict whether a jury would convict.
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