Dance of the Reptiles (26 page)

We’ll probably never know what really happened when Martin and Zimmerman spoke face-to-face, since one is dead and the other is trying to avoid prison. The few witnesses will probably give conflicting accounts of what they saw and heard.

Still, a trial is vital because Martin’s death was so wrong and so avoidable, and it took place purely because Zimmerman foolishly propelled events in that direction. It’s a classic case for manslaughter, not second-degree murder.

Jurors will be able to vote for that lesser charge of manslaughter, which might be why prosecutors overreached. A compromise manslaughter verdict is bound to stir less public reaction than an acquittal or a murder conviction. Zimmerman’s
attorney will try to bypass a jury through asking the judge for a dismissal, based on Florida’s brilliant “stand your ground” law—now a favored legal defense for gang members and dope dealers who plug each other on the streets.

Given the national spotlight on the Martin shooting, it seems unlikely that Zimmerman will be able to dodge a trial. Trayvon isn’t around to tell his side of the story or to hear his killer’s, but his family deserves a day in court.

Because in the end, a young man carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea lay dead in the grass, a young man who was being followed by a stranger and didn’t know why.

Note: George Zimmerman was acquitted by a Sanford jury in July 2013
.

May 5, 2012

A Violent Homicide Isn’t Hazing

Eleven of the 13 people who allegedly participated in killing Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion have been charged with “a hazing resulting in death,” a low-grade felony. The two others are accused of misdemeanors.

You can’t blame Champion’s family for being disappointed and a bit confused.

Champion was singled out for an attack, then beaten until he died. That it occurred during a hazing doesn’t mean it should be handled differently from any other violent homicide, yet it
is
being handled differently. Way differently.

Not one of the 13 suspects was booked for murder or even plain old manslaughter, a second-degree felony that can bring up to 15 years in prison. By contrast, causing a death by hazing is only a third-degree felony for which the maximum term is six years.

In other words, a gang-style lethal assault in Florida is more leniently appraised when it’s a moronic college ritual gone awry. Six years behind bars isn’t light time, but it’s much better than the high end of a manslaughter conviction.

What do you think would have happened if Champion had been killed by a mob of strangers in a barroom or on a street corner? For starters, authorities wouldn’t have taken more than five months to make an arrest, especially if they had the names of everyone involved. You can also be sure that the defendants in such a case wouldn’t be charged with “hazing”—they’d be facing much heavier felonies.

Here’s how Champion died. The 26-year-old man was made to walk down the aisle of a chartered bus that was parked outside an Orlando hotel, while fellow band members (and possibly others) repeatedly kicked and punched him. Evidently, this is what passed for dear tradition within the famed A&M Marching 100, now in disciplinary limbo.

Eventually, Champion collapsed. Later somebody dialed 911: “One of our drum majors is on the bus, and he’s not breathing.… He’s in my hands, ma’am. He’s cold.”

If Champion was cold to the touch, it was likely he’d been down for a while.

Dying among his own bandmates after a football-game performance.

In December, less than a month after the incident, the Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Champion’s death was a homicide, the autopsy showing “extensive contusions of his chest, arms, shoulder and back with extensive hemorrhage.”

Although coroners found no bone fractures or damage to Champion’s internal organs, there was “significant rapid blood loss” from the injuries he’d received. The cause of
death was reported as “hemorrhagic shock due to soft tissue hemorrhage, incurred by blunt force trauma sustained during a hazing incident.”

So it was manifest from the beginning that Champion hadn’t fallen down the steps of the bus 20 or 30 times. He’d been battered—and not by teenagers gone wild. Most of the suspects are men in their 20s.

The state of Florida didn’t need a special anti-hazing law in order to prosecute. Long-standing criminal statutes specifically address assaults that end in death. Nowhere in this country is it legal for 13 persons—or six, or two, or one—to strike another person if he or she isn’t a threat. Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter to prosecutors whether the assailants are wearing band uniforms, fraternity jerseys, or the do-rag of a street gang. Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar said the Champion case is complicated, and investigators didn’t find sufficient evidence for a murder charge.

Then how about manslaughter, at least?

Said Lamar: “We do not have a blow or a shot or a knife thrust that killed Mr. Champion. It is an aggregation of things.…”

In fact, Champion suffered repeated blows. Identifying which of the band members delivered the most—or the most damaging—won’t be easy. It seldom is when multiple participants are involved. But Lamar said the killing fits Florida’s statute against hazing, a widely banned practice that he described as “bullying with a tradition—a tradition that we cannot bear in America.”

It would be nice to think that the publicity about the attack on Champion will deter future hazing in high schools, colleges, and the military. So far, the prospects aren’t so good. Two months after the FAMU killing, two male students seeking
to join the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at Youngstown State University in Ohio were “initiated” by being beaten with fists, a paddle, and a wire laundry hanger. The abuse continued over a period of 12 days, after which one of the victims required a ventilator to breathe. Nine men, only one a current YSU student, were indicted.

Here’s the difference: The Ohio defendants aren’t being charged with hazing but, rather, with felony assault.

A grown-up charge for a grown-up crime, as it should be.

And they’d be facing far worse if one of their victims had died, the way Robert Champion did.

READY, AIM, FIRE

December 9, 2001

Gun Lobby’s Interests Before Public Safety

This is some wacky war on terrorism.

Incredibly, the U.S. Justice Department has forbidden the FBI from checking its own records to see whether any of the 1,200 persons detained since September 11 had bought guns.

The information is sitting in computer files, and FBI agents are eager to examine them. But Attorney General John Ashcroft, a hard-line critic of firearms laws and background checks, opposes using gun-purchase records to investigate potential terrorists in the United States.

He’s the same guy who advocated detaining hundreds of foreign nationals without criminal charges; the same guy who pushed for peremptory authority to wiretap individuals without court approval; the same guy who, after the slaughter of September 11, solemnly vowed that the government would do everything in its power to protect Americans from future attacks.

Everything, apparently, except offend the National Rifle Association.

In a move that has exasperated FBI officials and angered law-enforcement organizations, the Justice Department has decided that federal gun records cannot be used to investigate individuals, even in terrorism cases. “Absurd and unconscionable” was the reaction of Larry Todd, a California police chief who serves on the firearms committee of the International Association of the Chiefs of Police. The group has formally objected to Ashcroft’s closing the files to investigators.

Currently, firearms dealers fax applications from prospective buyers to the FBI or state police agencies. Computers search to find out whether the applicant is a convicted felon
or fits into another category of persons prohibited to buy guns. Those include illegal immigrants and foreigners who have been in the United States less than 90 days. The FBI says that many detainees fall into those two groups.

In past criminal probes, the agency has used its gun-purchase data to determine whether someone was mistakenly allowed to buy a weapon when he or she should have been denied permission. Five days after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms sent the names of 186 detainees to the FBI. Two of them, it turned out, had received approval to buy guns. The very next day, however, the FBI was informed that reviews of gun records no longer would be allowed. The Justice Department said that the policy reversal was based on a narrow new interpretation of the law.

FBI officials believed the law gave clear authority and immediately asked to have the ban reconsidered. They failed.

According to
The New York Times
, the Justice Department’s trigger man was Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, a political appointee and a pal of Ashcroft. Dinh’s ruling was a masterpiece of hypocrisy. He stated that the background checks being sought by terrorism investigators would violate the privacy rights of foreigners, including those being detained.

In other words, we’ll lock you up with no trial, interrogate you with no lawyer present, secretly wiretap your friends and relatives—but heaven forbid we invade your privacy by checking to see whether you’ve bought any guns during your stay in the United States.

That stupefying contradiction is merely Ashcroft playing politics. As a senator, he staunchly fronted for the gun lobby, which reciprocated generously. According to the Violence
Policy Center, National Rifle Association sources contributed nearly $340,000 to his last campaign.

Among Ashcroft’s favorite targets was the Brady Law, which gave authorities the power to screen firearms buyers for past crimes. The legislation was welcomed by police and has blocked thousands of felons from purchasing handguns and other deadly weapons.

Ashcroft remains unpersuaded. Now the country’s top cop, he’s seizing the opportunity to impose his pro-NRA agenda on the Justice Department. His timing couldn’t be worse. These days, the sight of a box cutter makes people jumpy. Extending gun-toting rights to visiting foreigners isn’t likely to be a popular idea.

Notwithstanding Ashcroft’s sudden concern for their privacy, the detainees remain central to the September 11 investigation. If some turn out to have Al Qaeda connections, it would be helpful to know whether they’ve been building an arsenal while they’re here.

The attorney general might say it’s being nosy to check, but most Americans will think it’s crazy not to.

November 23, 2003

Legislators’ Attempt to Block Police from Ownership Records Absurd

If you’re a prosecutor or a police officer in Florida, here are some names to remember:

Juan-Carlos Planas of Westchester; Carl Domino of Jupiter; Ken Sorensen of Key Largo; Mark Mahon, John Quinones, and Mike Davis of Jacksonville; Curtis Richardson and Lorraine Ausley of Tallahassee; Don Davis of Naples; Dennis Ross of Lakeland; Jeffrey Kottkamp of Cape Coral; Kevin Ambler of Lutz; and Gaton Catens of Miami.

These are not friends of law enforcement.

These are state legislators who are trying to make it as difficult as possible to trace the ownership of guns found at crime scenes. Every pistol-packing felon in Florida should write these knuckleheads a thank-you note.

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee—on which the above-named politicians serve—okayed a bill that would ban police from maintaining computerized lists of gun sales and owners for more than 30 days. If passed by the Legislature next spring, the law will strip authorities of an important crime-solving tool for no other reason but politics.

Currently, Florida police keep databases of firearm-sales records from pawnshops and some gun dealers. When one turns up at a crime scene or in a suspect’s possession, its origin can be traced by typing the serial number into a computer.

The paranoid droolers at the National Rifle Association have long opposed police efforts to computerize gun records, saying it’s an iron-fisted step toward totalitarianism. According to the NRA’s propaganda, which reads like the
National Lampoon
, the same government that can’t locate thousands of visa violators (including terrorists) is somehow capable of tracking down and confiscating every lawfully owned firearm in America.

To peddle this loony Orwellian fantasy, NRA lobbyists in Florida dredged up a couple of goobers named Dennis Baxley and Lindsay Harrington, Republican legislators from Ocala and Punta Gorda, respectively. Baxley and Harrington “cosponsored” the anti-cop bill that went to the House panel. As originally penned by the NRA, the legislation invoked the names of Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro as examples of despots who espoused gun controls.

Get a load of Baxley: “We’re at a point in our history
where the government is trying to slowly take away our rights, piece by piece, and I’m trying to stop that. By accumulating all this [gun] data, it could fall into the wrong hands. And that could be a treacherous thing.”

Don’t bother to ask him in what way a sales receipt for a .38 Special might be put to nefarious use and into whose evil hands it might fall. And don’t ask if he can name a single instance when it’s happened, because he can’t. Not even Marion Hammer, the NRA’s hatchet woman in Tallahassee, provided lawmakers with one example of a law-abiding citizen being “harassed” or “abused” because of computerized sales data. Police, however, can tell lots of stories about crimes being solved because they were able to swiftly track the ownership of a weapon. One recent example: Pawnshop sales records helped detectives connect a Miami Beach man accused of shooting three of his neighbors with the gun used in the attack.