Here's my problem. Can someone explain why Martin would attack Z if Z was doing nothing wrong?

[Igel]

17. In my world, it's unclear how it could have gone past words.

In my world if somebody pulls up in a car you wait for them to speak or you speak first.

TM ran.

In my kids' world, in high school, low SES kids often run to avoid the trouble they expect (whether it's a realistic expectation or not) when they're not on their own turf and running is an option--not so much in the school building, but common enough outside. And teachers know that it's not a valid inference that they're guilty, but still most jump to that conclusion.

Also in my kids' world when you're on your turf, esp. if you're a low SES teen male, you often tend to assume that questions are challenges. You have a right to be there--but the other guy doesn't, even if he lives 20 feet away. And how dare he ask *you* that question, who does he think *he* is?

If you're around others in your peer group, esp. male friends or girls you like, then "own turf" could be anywhere. I've written up kids for not complying with my requests for information--name, reason that they're in a certain place in the school, fairly tame stuff. Then they show the principal the pass from the teacher and have absolutely no explanation for why they didn't show me when, by all accounts, all I did was stop and ask why they were sitting in that part of the hall. The right answer? They're teenagers. Their inhibition center is just being formed and if TM was 16 it had 8 years or so until maturity. If they're low SES, they sometimes have to show they're not just passive in the face of authority. Esp. true of the black males in interracial situations, and esp. true if there are members of the kid's peer group around. For example, a girl or other guys they hang with. Sudden Onset Stupidity, from my perspective. Showing that they're sufficiently defiance and independent, from theirs.

So from TM's viewpoint, some car was following him. He ran to avoid trouble, because, well, he wasn't on his turf and that's all grownups do--get kids like him in trouble. He'd have his father's fiancee, then his father, yelling at him. "Kidnapper" or "child molester" is probably way down on the list of worries. Even worse, the creepy other-raced guy started to follow him. No words were exchanged, so TM knew nothing about GZ except the make/model of his car and his approximate height, that he was an adult, and that the half-Latino GZ was 'white'. And GZ was following him. That is the sum total of the information TM had to make his decisions on. Something like age, race and possibly class. He did not try to get any more information. He wasn't just on his way home--he was either scared or avoiding trouble. Neither lets the higher cognitive functions of the brain do their stuff. Sit him down and ask why he did it, and you'd get incoherence. At the time, it seems reasonable.

A bit later, TM had avoided GZ and was talking to a/his girl, and this creepy other-raced guy shows up again. But TM's on his turf. 200 feet or so from home, he's moving slowly and instead of calling his father's fiancee he's called an older girl. Higher cognitive functions still working at their usual level. These are two other things that make no sense to me. But from my kids' perspective, they probably do. He has every right to be there so why should he be any place else? (Uh ... crazy white guy after his ass?) And not call the girl? What? (That's one of the two best answers for anything: call a girl, call a friend).

That's where it goes wobbly. No reason to launch a physical attack. Not obviously so, not even in my kids' world as I understand it. It's the time to launch a verbal attack, to run, or or diss by snubbing. In a group, perhaps try to intimidate or threaten. But launch an attack, while you're on the phone with a girl? Puh-lease.

But let's back up to GZ's perspective. He knew that a few weeks earlier he'd seen a couple of black males were outside an apt. in the area. The apt. was robbed. And one of the guys was arrested for the burglary. He was suspicious of them when he saw them and he was right. Now he sees another suspicious black male apparently doing the same thing.

Moreover, when followed, instead of doing the proper thing like answering a question, he ran. He must be guilty. So GZ gets out and chases him. No evidence he tries or has the chance to ask any questions. Run first. He loses TM and finds him a few minutes later either strolling along or standing there, talking on the phone.

And everything's back to wobbly. There's no reason to tackle TM if he's just standing there. Not much more of one if he's leisurely walking. Even an out-of-breath overweight power-mad Neighborhood Watch guy knows he has to do one of a small number of things. Call the police to report location. Get information. Catch his breath.

It's a nice caricature to think that GZ went out hunting black youth and managed to bag himself one for his wall. That's what a lot of the posts here amount to saying. Make GZ out to be a kind of devil and TM to be a kind of saint. After all, TM had every right to be where he was.

It's a nice caricature to assume that TM was just walking along and because he was followed felt threatened enough to jump GZ. GZ had no business being there, but he had every right to be there. We say that about TM at the beginning, and it holds for both of them in both locations.

Now, when GZ caught up to TM, as far as I can tell, TM was talking to RJ. In my world, GZ should have said something to TM, and/or vice-versa. But RJ as far as I know said not a word about anything TM and GZ said to each other. I find utter silence from GZ to be incredible. It's possible that TM was engaging in studied indifference since was nearly home scott-free, bucked up by support and sympathy from RJ. Still, that's a stretch if TM was rattled by what happened, and RJ's testimony says that he was rattled a bit. Perhaps RJ was too busy yacking to have heard what was going on. Over TM's saying "hold on" and words exchanged with GZ, RJ talked and talked and talked and talked. That's my guess. (Okay, say it's not plausible. Go on.)

She stops when she hears the headset hit the ground. Did GZ rip it off TM's head? Did TM drop it by accident as he took it off so he could hear GZ? Did it fall off as TM hurtled to the ground? Or as TM tackled GZ because of something RJ failed to hear?

Mess with one of my kid's phones while they're talking and you're in for a fight. Possibly a punch.

Grab a shoulder to get their attention is fine for some. Less "fine" for a lot of low SES minority males at my school.

Did GZ use a wrong word and offend TM? Did TM think GZ used an indiscrete epithet?

Or maybe TM heard GZ say he was calling the police. Or accuse him of being a robber.

Perhaps TM said something wrong--or just used one of the many techniques teens have these days of claiming to be silent and innocent but show complete disdain and disrespect. (They know they do it--they just go for plausible deniability. Sigh, eye-roll, head toss, studied indifference, etc.) Perhaps TM decided to start running and was tackled instead of answering a question.

Hard to know. If any of that happened, our only witness missed it.

If GZ takes the stand, we'll hear what happened but entirely from GZ's point of view. He may well describe a lot of stuff that RJ was in a position to have heard. But we'll only hear GZ's memories, assuming that he's truthful on the stand. And those memories will be far from accurate: He'll remember what he wanted to have said as much as what he did say, he'll remember more what he understood TM to have said than what TM did say. If he's replayed this in his mind, he'll have altered i so that his memories of that night don't date to from that night. We'll hear a caricature of what GZ thinks TM said in a way that he thinks TM would have said it. Just like I've known immigrants whose English has far surpassed their first language and who have quoted their grandparents word for word in English--only to stop because their grandparents never learned English and they can't remember the actual words their grandparents used. Content survives even when the words are changed. The (R) lambasted Gore's remembering a song written years after he remembers his mother singing it to him, saying he was lying and not just incorrect. Memory's like that. It's malleable, changeable.

In any event, by the next data point provided by a witness the first punch had long since been thrown and we move on to some other point of contention that forensics will almost certainly be able to provide a fairly sure answer to, if we'd just wait to hear it.