Commenting on the George Zimmerman trial, America’s first half-black President, Obama stated:
On the other hand, if we’re sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we’d like to see?
And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?
Obama also stated:
I think the African-American community is also not naive in understanding that statistically somebody like Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys, but they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it – and that context is being denied.
And that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.
Or it might not have.
Meet Christopher Cervini killed by two gun shots.
Meet Roderick Scott the man who killed him:
YNN Rochester reports on the verdict:
Not guilty: The verdict in the manslaughter trial of Roderick Scott. After more than 19 hours of deliberations over two days, a jury acquitted the Greece man in the shooting death of Christopher Cervini, 17, last April. [Jury Finds Roderick Scott Not Guilty:]
Mr. Obama’s speech-writer clearly has not been doing his homework.
“I just want to say thank you to the people who believed in me, who stood by me,” Scott said following the verdict. “I still have my regrets for the Cervini family; it’s still an unfortunate situation for them. I am happy that at least this chapter is over.”
As deliberations dragged on over two days and the jury asked for testimony to be read back, Scott admits he didn’t know how it would all turn out.
“I was nervous of course,” he said. “You never know what direction this whole thing is going to turn, so I have no idea. But it worked out and I feel that justice (was) served today.”
Cervini’s family members say justice wasn’t served. They say Christopher was murdered in cold blood, that he’d never been in trouble and Scott acted as judge, jury and executioner.
“The message is that we can all go out and get guns and feel anybody that we feel is threatening us and lie about the fact,” said Jim Cervini, Christopher’s father. “My son never threatened anybody. He was a gentle child, his nature was gentle, he was a good person and he was never, ever arrested for anything, and has never been in trouble. He was 16 years and four months old, and he was slaughtered.”
Scott says he acted in self defense when he confronted Cervini and two others saying they were stealing from neighbors cars. He told them he had a gun and ordered them to freeze and wait for police.
Scott says he shot Cervini twice when the victim charged toward him yelling he was going to get Scott.
“How can this happen to a beautiful, sweet child like that?” asked Cervini’s aunt Carol Cervini. “All he wanted to do was go home. And then for them to say, he was saying, ‘Please don’t kill me. I’m just a kid,’ and he just kept on shooting him.”
Comments T.Kevin Whiteman at Liberty Unyielding:
[…] It was verified during Scott’s murder trial that he called 911 before the bloody confrontation took place. It was also determined that he opened fire with his legally owned firearm only as a last resort when he reasonably believed his life was in danger.
Still another similarity between the two cases was Scott’s testimony that there had been a rash of break-ins in the area. Scott testified that on the morning of the fatal encounter he observed Cervini and two other youths breaking into a neighbor’s vehicle. Scott says he ordered the suspects to freeze and wait for the arrival of the police.
He insists that he opened fire on Cervini only when the teen “charged” him and was screaming that he was going to get Scott.
After Scott was acquitted, family members of the deceased child claimed that justice had not been served by the verdict. They shared their belief that their son’s killer had taken it upon himself to act as judge, jury, and executioner.
But this is where the similarities between the two cases end. There were no marches, no vigils, no mobs crying “No justice, no peace.” There were no riots or revenge beatings of lone black men by gangs of white teens. There was also no statement by the president — whose named coincidentally was Barack Obama — or other efforts to inject his personal biases into the outcome of the trial. [“Obama’s double standard on race challenged by the 2009 shooting death of a white teen by a black adult“]
For the record the Scott decision, like the Zimmerman decision, was the correct one.
However, like Dana Loesch, we are wondering: where is the outrage from the “progressive” racial bigotry machine?
Outrage peddlers are silent because this story doesn’t fit the narrative of racial strife. Al Sharpton can’t Tweet about his photo ops with Jay Z and Beyonce over instances of justice like this.
So do Sharpton, NAACP, Piers Morgan, Stevie Wonder, etc, etc, all believe that Roderick Scott is a murderer? That he should have been denied his ability to defend himself? Are they really wanting to reintroduce Reconstruction-era suppression on the ability and right to self defense? [The Double Standard On The Zimmerman-Martin Case | RedState]
Perhaps this is because the Zimmerman case, unlike the Roderick case, distracts attention from the nihilist in chief’s attacks on the American Republic, capitalism, and freedom.