But Who STARTED The Altercation Between Martin and Zimmerman?

[csziggy]

68. 18 seconds after he got out of the car he agreed with the operator

On his non emergency call to Sanford PD to not follow Martin. Last year I created a timeline of Zimmerman's call. I haven't updated with additional information, but it is still useful:

The underlined times are from the police call log, the other times are accumulated time from my notes on the recorded call - and come at the end of the comment/event logged. If you add those times to the beginning time logged as the connection to the Sanford PD non emergency system, you get the actual time.

19:09:34 CALL CONNECTED

<SNIP>

02:06:65 Shit he's running.
Dispatcher: He's running? Which way is he running?
02:09:47 (seat belt alarm)
Zimmerman: Down towards the other entrance to the
neighborhood. (car door slam)
02:14:18
Dispatcher: Which entrance is that that he's heading towards?
Zimmerman: The back entrance…fucking (unintelligible)
02:22:36
19:11:59 SUBJ NOW RUNNING TOWARDS BACK ENTRANCE OF COMPLEX
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah (wind noises)
02:25:20
Dispatcher: Ok, we don't need you to do that.
Zimmerman: Ok

<SNIP>

02:38:14
(Wind noises stop some time in here)

<SNIP>

04:11:00 (recording of call ends)
19:13:41 COMPL NEW REQ LEO 1045 BEFORE 1056
19:16:00 Time approximate - call with girlfriend ends after she hears
interchange with Trayvon and unknown follower (cell company on logs calls by the minute - this call could have ended any time from 19:15:01 to 19:16:00)
19:17:00 Officer Ricardo Ayalla dispatched/arrived
19:17:11 Officer Timothy Smith arrived. As he arrived notified by dispatch
of shots fired.

At 19:11:48 Zimmerman slams his car door. The dispatcher hears that and wind noises, asks if Zimmerman is following. At 19:12:12 Zimmerman says OK when told he doesn't need to follow. A minute and forty three second later, Zimmerman's call ends at 19:13:45.

During his video taped walk through the day after the shooting, Zimmerman claims he stayed on the phone while walking across the block to look for a street number (and claims that is because the dispatcher asked him for one which was a lie) and while he was walking back Martin jumped him. The timing does NOT work.

This distance from Zimmerman's truck, across that block then back to where he claims Martin jumped him is 330, average walking speed would cover that in 75 seconds. Zimmerman would have been jumped before he got off the phone with Sanford PD and minutes before the 911 calls began and the shot was heard.

Here's what works for me for the timing:

Martin's path was the shortest route to get back to where he was staying. If he took a shortcut between townhouses to get off the main road, then walked to the mail boxes next to the club house he would have passed Zimmerman just as Zimmerman told the operator "He's coming to check me out." at 19:10:50. Martin told his friend that he was taking shelter - probably under the mailbox structure - then talked to her about the "creepy ass cracker" watching him. He told her he was going to run and their call dropped before 19:12. Zimmerman said "He's running" at 19:11:40.

The distance from the mailboxes to the sidewalk T is a little over 400 feet, the distance from the T to where Martin was staying is about the same. It would take about 90 seconds to cover each distance at a walk. Martin could have been home by 19:15 if all he had done was walk - but after their last call connected at 19:12 he told his friend he'd lost the guy and he was almost home, then said the guy was following again. There is no timeline for the friend's narrative - she did not hold a stop watch as they were talking and did not realize how deadly serious the situation was.

I think Zimmerman either walked or drove to the end of the block and Martin saw him and turned back up the path to get away from his stalker. Zimmerman then doubled back to intercept Martin at the other end of the block. If the extra distance and time (400 feet and 90 seconds) is added to when Zimmerman said Martin ran from the mailboxes, that puts the two of them back at the T at just after 19:16 - the same time Martin's last call was disconnected, right when the first 911 call about the yelling begins and the right timing for the shot to be fired and Officer Smith to be notified of a shot fired at 19:17:11.

One of the constant refrains has been "Why didn't Martin just go home?" This scenario explains it - he was trying to just go straight home, but Zimmerman was stalking him and Martin doubled back to try to avoid the "creepy ass cracker".