[Video below.] As reported on Friday here on Matzav.com, George Zimmerman apologized to the parents of Trayvon Martin and was granted a $150,000 bail by a judge at a Friday morning hearing in a Seminole County courtroom.
Zimmerman will have to wear a GPS monitor if he makes bail. He’s not allowed to contact Martin’s family, won’t be able to possess firearms or drink alcohol, and will be under a curfew, Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester said.
His release date will be determined at a later time, Lester said.
The hearing lasted over two hours, with testimony from Zimmerman’s wife and parents on his behalf. Zimmerman, who was wearing a suit, tie and shackles, also took the stand to apologize to Martin’s parents.
Click below to watch the full video of the hearing:
{Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}
A sensible solution. The trial will give us (we hope) an accurate idea of what happened, and justice will be served for both Zimmerman and Martin.
My own opinion is that Zimmerman was playing out his own fantasy of a Clint Eastwood movie, following Martin and acting in a menacing fashion. When Martin, who had no idea that Zimmerman was a neighborhood watchman, tried to fight off what he assumed was a mugger, Zimmerman realized that Martin outclassed him physically, panicked himself and shot Martin. The fact that he apologized to the family indicates that he doesn’t feel 100% right about what he did. The real guilty party here is the gun. If Zimmerman hadn’t been carrying he wouldn’t have followed Martin, the encounter would never have taken place, and there would have been no tragedy.
In my opinion Zimmeman is guilty of stalking, menacing and negligent homicide. Not by any means murder, but definitely jail time. This should also make people think again about carry laws and the Stand Your Ground idiocy that NRA cowboys have conned some states into passing so they can live out their Walter-Mitty fantasies.
Sure, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. BUT – how often would somebody be ABLE to kill if they didn’t have a gun? Geoff Canada put it nicely in “Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun:” It may be the same argument, but the chance of someone getting killed is in direct proportion to the deadliness of the weapon available.
And yes, I’ve carried a gun – as an anti-terrorist neighborhood guard in Jerusalem back in the days before suicide bombers, when the fellaheen came over with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades. We were trained, supervised, and patrolled with the ammunition clip in our pockets, so we had to think before we fired. Maybe another party guilty of negligence here is the Sanford police department?