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George Zimmerman Attempted Shooting – New Facts Released

George Zimmerman Attempted Shooting – New Facts Released

Zimmerman never fired his own gun.

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the Lake Mary Police Department has released additional information on the events surrounding Matthew Apperson’s firing of a bullet at George Zimmerman’s face yesterday.  Here’s video of the LMPD press spokeswoman briefing the media:

Additional facts now being reported by the Orlando Sentinel include:

Police recovered two handguns from Apperson’s car, including a Glock 22 (in .40S&W, of course) and a .357 Magnum revolver with one spent case in the cylinder. The police spokeswoman indicated that Apperson had licenses for both guns, a fact which seems odd given Apperson’s prior arrests and sometimes convictions on charges ranging from drug possession to reckless driving to DUI to violation of probation (see: Zimmerman Shooter Claims Self-Defense.)

Police also recovered a handgun from Zimmerman (also a Glock model unspecified), which Zimmerman’s lawyer Don West indicates is habitually carried because of the great number of death threats made against Zimmerman.  Zimmerman is licensed to concealed carry a pistol in the State of Florida.

Attorney West states that Zimmerman did not wave or shoot his gun during any portion of Monday’s encounter with Apperson.

West also states that Apperson’s bullet went through Zimmerman’s closed passenger-side window, barely missed Zimmerman’s head, and was lodged in the driver’s side door frame above the window.

West also claims that it was Apperson who was the aggressor:

He initiated the event by following George. George was on Lake Mary Boulevard and on his way to a doctor’s appointment.

Police have confirmed that Zimmerman did not fire his gun.

Apperson’s attorney, Mark NeJame, said yesterday that his client shot at Zimmerman in self-defense, but declined to elaborate. The Orlando Sentinel reports today that NeJame was unavailable to them for comment.

Last September Apperson called Lake Mary police to claim that Zimmerman threatened to shoot him while both were driving on the same Lake Mary Boulevard that was the venue for yesterday’s conflict between the two men.  Two days later Apperson again called the police to report that Zimmerman appeared to be following him.

Despite these calls to police, in neither case did Apperson elect to press charges. Huh.

No one has been arrested or charged with a crime in Monday’s shooting.

The police also reportedly released the first-half of the 911 call made by an unidentified and uninvolved party at Apperson’s request, although we have not yet acquired that audio.  As soon as we do, we’ll post it up. The second half of the 911 recording is being withheld by the police as relevant to the ongoing investigation.

The police are also to hold another press conference at Lake Mary police headquarters, but that had not yet begun at the time of the press report.

That’s it for this post, folks.  We’ll write more when we have more.

–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

P.S. I wonder, is it racism if the Florida authorities don’t throw the state’s “10-20-Life” statute at Apperson with the same determined vigor with which they threw it at Marissa Alexander? Asking for a friend. 🙂

(If you need to refresh your recollection on “10-20-Life,” you can read the full-text of the statute here: §775.087 Possession or use of weapon; aggravated battery; felony reclassification; minimum sentence.)

–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense


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Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He also holds Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and provides free online self-defense law video lectures at the Law of Self Defense Institute and podcasts through iTunes, Stitcher, and elsewhere.

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Comments

#IStandWithMatthew.

Char Char Binks | May 12, 2015 at 8:45 pm

I’m sure witnesses will be dying to come forward.

Andrew, when are you going to be ready to give us the five-element analysis of this self – defense claim?

Are you sparing the embarrassment to your fellow colleague, Apperson’s lawyer?

    Heck, anybody can do it, it’s not complicated:

    Innocence
    Imminence
    Proportionality
    Avoidance
    Reasonableness

    I’m just waiting on more facts. Although what can currently be inferred seems pretty clear, be nice to see a police report, witness statements, etc.

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

I suspect he’ll be standing in the prison shower room before this is all over with. And it won’t be cigarette smoke he’ll be blowing then.

Premises:

1. West is a very good defense attorney

2. West has been forthcoming with information

3. West knows not to burn his own reputation and public opinion by relating falsehoods

Conclusion:

George didn’t do anything criminal OR that gives this nutball a self-defense out.

Here is a link to the documents the released as well as the 911 call:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fghlmt5c3f02jdw/AAA6QgSM-IlNjnx9WRFExDS_a?dl=0

    Hey, that’s great, thanks so much!

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

    JackRussellTerrierist in reply to Merrymary. | May 13, 2015 at 4:15 pm

    I only found the call from the idiot. I don’t find a call from GZ on there.

    It’s interesting that the driver told the caller it was GZ. How could he know that for sure?

    It’s interesting that Apperson is only charged with ADW w/o intent to kill. I guess the answer to the question above about Alexander is “no.” It’s okay to try to kill a “white Hispanic” guy who’s done nothing to anybody except have the audacity to kill a black who was trying to kill him, but when the target is a black man, they throw the book just as they did at GZ in the first place – which is not to say Alexander didn’t get off easy – she did. But then, she’s also black.

    Once again, George “Jean Valjean” Zimmerman will get no justice.

Is it at all conceivable that the local PD will not charge the stalker?

What’s taking so long?

If charged, what is the likelihood of a gross undercharge because the local PD doesn’t like GZ?

Should either come to pass, can GZ demand of state’s attorneys the same sort of intervention that got GZ himself indicted?

“Apperson called Lake Mary police to claim that Zimmerman threatened to shoot him while both were driving on the same Lake Mary Boulevard”
Stalker attempting to invent exculpatory evidence prior to a planned murder?

“…a handgun…which Zimmerman’s lawyer Don West indicates is habitually carried because of the great number of death threats made against Zimmerman.”
This highlights one of the reasons why I now regard Progressives as not as mistaken although well-meaning but rather as evil and malicious. This grossly immoral campaign to inflame a killing hatred, and the numerous actual calls for Zimmerman’s murder, show that Progressivism is indeed a species of fascism as vicious and depraved as Mussolini’s and sometimes more so.

If I were Zimmerman I would install dash-cams covering 360 degrees.

Predictions:
1) Apperson (A) will release a statement through his lawyer that claims Zimmerman (GZ) threatened him, attacked him, brandished a firearm, and attempted a number of other criminal actions before A was forced to defend himself by firing at GZ’s vehicle.
2) The press will eat it up and report it as fact, totally ignoring GZ’s statement.
3) Multiple witnesses will come forward, supporting GZ’s version of events. The press will ignore them. The same for physical evidence.
4) Multiple witnesses will come forward, most who could not possibly have seen the events, and they will support A’s version of events, or worse. The press will treat them with great respect and repeat their claims ad infinitum, despite not being able to confirm their stories or even make sense of them.
5) The police will arrest A. The press will be in shock. Great volumes of greenhouse gas will be emitted by many notable people in support of A.
6) A will go to trial. The press will tire of him, but a dwindling number of supporters will continue to fund his legal team and live in their little fantasy worlds about magic bullets and missing video.
7) A will go to jail. Nobody will care. A will write a book. It will sell a few hundred copies on Kindle, otherwise it would not even make back its publication cost.

“P.S. I wonder, is it racism if the Florida authorities don’t throw the state’s “10-20-Life” statute at Apperson with the same determined vigor with which they threw it at Marissa Alexander? Asking for a friend.”

Oh, no.

THAT would be SEXISM.

MouseTheLuckyDog | May 12, 2015 at 11:20 pm

Which way was George driving when he met up with police?
Where is his doctor?

According to George he made a U-turn to get to a police car he saw.
After the U-turn he would be driving away from his doctor.

Daily Mail Online has discovered Apperson is no stranger to the police, having been arrested at least six times.

His threat to kill was detailed in a 2013 police report by his local police department.

During a telephone call with a telephone canvasser from the University of Florida, Apperson suddenly said: ‘I have a .357 Magnum and I am going to kill a trespasser.’

Check the link–there is more:

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3079058/Man-fired-George-Zimmerman-road-rage-row-reported-police-neighbor-squirrel-shot-yard-probed-threatening-trespasser-Magnum.html#ixzz3a1kK0Tzf
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    Char Char Binks in reply to Merrymary. | May 13, 2015 at 11:44 am

    It’s really looking like attempted murder 1. The man is a hero to thugs everywhere who want to shoot Zim, and libs and lefties who are too timid to take action.

Florida is a strange state. In New York the shooter would have been arrested the day of the incident.

RandomCrank | May 13, 2015 at 6:51 pm

If I’d been on Zimmerman’s first jury, I’d have done what they did and acquitted him. And I think the “news” media did an atrocious job in that case. Really, really bad stuff, especially the doctoring of the 911 tape.

Now let’s step back a second and have a look at George Zimmerman and try to jettison the usual ideology and see if we can agree that he is a walking verification for the fact that half of the population is below average. As was Trayvon Martin, by the way.

To criticize Zimmerman is not (for me, anyway) to support his antagonists. To me, the ongoing George Zimmerman saga (which, one way or another, seems destined to end badly) says less about Zimmerman than it does about how our society tends to be geared for the superior intellects while leaving the rest without adequate guidance in the complexities of life.

To have a right — to keep and bear arms, and to use them in self defense — does not mean that it’s wise to use it. Zimmerman justifiably shot Trayvon Martin. As I wrote at the outset, had I been on the jury I’d have acquitted him. But let’s imagine what might’ve happened if Zimmerman had done the sensible thing and a) carried grizzly bear spray (trust me, I am a Westerner and that stuff works) on that fateful night, or b) had not confronted Martin but rather waited for the police to get there after he’d placed the 911 call.

I focus on Trayvon Martin because that’s what got us here. His death was certainly legal, the homicide justified. But it was also unnecessary. And subsequent events in Zimmerman’s life show him to be someone who’s getting himself into one scrape after another. He looks “out of control” to me, although that might be an exaggeration.

In any case, I am someone who’s sufficiently pro-RKBA to view Zimmerman’s shooting of Martin as justified. But there are some people out there who, while legally entitled to be armed, you’d wish were, um, “hoplophobic.” That’s the word the gun nuts (yes, you can be pro-RKBA while acknowledging the existence of gun nuts) invented for people who are afraid of guns.

It’s not necessarily all that bad a thing to be “hoplophobic.” It’s too late for Zimmerman to be a hoplophobe now, given how many strangers are literally gunning for him. But I don’t think every one of his scrapes needs to be viewed strictly through the lens of justifiable self defense.

To be much more concise: George Zimmerman is a stupid whackjob, and he seems to have a knack for generating disputes with other stupid whackjobs.

    RandomCrank in reply to RandomCrank. | May 13, 2015 at 7:33 pm

    I want to re-emphasize that none of the foregoing was in any way, shape, or form a defense of this Apperson nutball who took the shot at Zimmerman.

      Miles in reply to RandomCrank. | May 13, 2015 at 8:29 pm

      Well, Random, seriously, with no sarcasm intended, once we get past the incorrect parts of your description of the events leading up to the demise of Martin, we might have something to talk about.

      Why don’t you do yourself a favor, research again those events and self-correct your work in a subsequent post so everyone here will know you’ve actually done your own homework instead of reciting someone else’s narrative.

      RandomCrank in reply to RandomCrank. | May 13, 2015 at 10:49 pm

      My memory, which I’ll admit might be incomplete given that I don’t carry the whole case around in my head, is the following:

      1. Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch guy of some sort.

      2. The neighborhood had experienced crimes.

      3. Zimmerman became suspicious of Martin, and called 911

      4. The police told him there was no need to confront Martin (as opposed to “instructing” him not to, as Martin’s supporters have falsely claimed).

      5. Zimmerman confronted Martin, who then started to beat him up.

      6. Zimmerman shot Martin in self defense.

      What did I get wrong? Recall that I’ve stated more than once that, if I’d been on the jury, I’d have voted for Zimmerman’s acquittal.

        No.

        Zimmerman did not confront Martin, the at no point does the dispatcher address any such confrontation.

        To the contrary, it was Martin who confronted Zimmerman.

        –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

          RandomCrank in reply to Andrew Branca. | May 14, 2015 at 1:01 am

          I’ll take your word for it about who confronted whom. It might help me in a future argument with, well, you know who. But I don’t think it would matter in my hypothetical vote as a juror, or my opinion (subject to change) that Zimmerman would’ve been better to have carried bear spray than a gun.

          Miles in reply to Andrew Branca. | May 14, 2015 at 1:06 am

          Ah geez, Sir. I wanted him to figure it out. I was planning on telling “wrong” and having him recycle his missed point until he finally got it right.

          Shows me what I get for watching McKenna’s Gold.

          Oh well, he knows now.

    GeorgeZ did not confront Trayvon Martin. It was the other way around.

      RandomCrank in reply to Aussie. | May 14, 2015 at 1:04 pm

      I guess you don’t read responses to comments, so I will nee4d to cut and paste my response — just for you. So here goes.

      “I’ll take your word for it about who confronted whom. It might help me in a future argument with, well, you know who. But I don’t think it would matter in my hypothetical vote as a juror, or my opinion (subject to change) that Zimmerman would’ve been better to have carried bear spray than a gun.”

      Now — does that help you? Sheesh.