Talk:Investigation of the death of Trayvon Martin

Summary style skeleton
I suspect the main article will ultimately get refactored along the lines of:
 * 1) The actual incident itself-- what happened before police got there.
 * 2) The local law enforcement investigation
 * 3) The national investigation, only recently announced

This article, in theory, aims for the second for those three. In Reply to TVOS-- the main article has to cover _everything_ about the incident. This article is narrowly focus on police role, not Zimmerman's and not the political implications. I realize at early revisions, the article's narrower focus may not be clear. It will emerge. --HectorMoffet (talk)


 * I was trying not to go the AfD route - there really is nothing here that shouldn't be in the main article, and if the main article gets too long we can talk about splitting some of it off. Right now the main article can and should handle the local law investigation as well as the rest - we don't need to have this redundant article. If you think material is missing from the main article, by all means discuss that there.  I'd like you to reconsider and reinstate the redirect - if you don't want to, I guess we can go for either speedy delete or AfD, but I was hoping to avoid that. Tvoz / talk 08:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This won't go speedy delete, it's an obvious child article.
 * IF you absolutely must, do what you must. But the point is the main article doesn't need this level of detail.   The question of "Is Zimmerman a racist murderer?" is a very different question from "How did local police handle the investigation?".
 * Deletions are the work of the devil, I regard a AFD as the equivalent of an artistic "fuck you", but if you must you must. No matter what we call it, a child article on this narrow section is needed.  --HectorMoffet (talk) 10:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I see some value in the fork, as we can put a level of detail in here that would overwhelm the main article. The problem I see is scope. If the grand jury or fbi start releasing information from their investigations, will that go here as well? Or is this only for the immediate investigation? I thikn the final disposition will depend a lot on what happens. If the FBI/grand jury goes forward, then that will become the "primary" investigation, and the initial one can probably become highly summarized. If the case gets dropped, then the additional level of scrutiny on the initial investigation is where the bulk of details will be. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:23, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I see this article as focused exclusively on narrow time period that starts with the first 911 calls and ends with the StateAtty/Chief replacements.
 * I think there are better titles out there. I was actually drawn to the title Sanford Police Investigation of the Death of Trayvon Martin, but in the interests of NPOV, I don't want to malign the whole force by inclusion in the title.   But, you get that idea-- a title change might help clarify the scope. --HectorMoffet (talk) 22:29, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a problem in principle with having forked off articles when a main article becomes unwieldy. But we're not there yet, and it's not clear to me that the editors of the main article would necessarily choose this part of it to be forked off. So I think we should keep working over there on this section and see what happens. Or at least have a discussion there about it - maybe I missed it if it was raised there - so much going on it's hard to know. I foresee a problem where the details expressed there differ from those presented here because it is hard to keep two articles in line when it isn;t actually a fork, but a new article being created on its own, and we wouldn't want that to happen. Tvoz / talk 17:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Tvoz, I don't mean to 'degrade' the main article by making an early child.   But as long as we're going through and making sense of the sources, we might as well save our notes.    I don't claim that hte main article must have a child to be NPOV.  But, if someone feels like setting up a narrower child article, that's cool too.  I felt like putting in the work.  --HectorMoffet (talk) 22:32, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Hector, I hope it didn't sound like I didn't realize you were putting in a lot of work - I can see you have.  In fact, I just read your article  again and I think you've done an amazing job.  I did take seriously your point up top that the point of this article would emerge - that's why I didn't go for an AfD, which truthfully would go against my grain anyway - in over 5 years here I've never started one that I can recall and I've only commented on those that were obvious POV forks and the like.  I have a lot of concerns about the main article, and I hope you'll continue to help out over there, particularly on this section over there, and the rest - you seem to have a good handle on how to keep it clean and neutral, and as things progress in the case I expect we'll need more eyes over there. (And I hope the POV-pushers stay away from here!) Cheers Tvoz / talk 22:57, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

You should live here
Today in Sanford and surrounding communities ALL vacations were cancelled for police officers and fire fighters. Does someone know something we don't? The talk among us locals is they are going to announce next week that no charges will be filed against George Zimmerman. There are folks that are REALLY scared. I have gone through several hurricanes here, and I compare it to that. Waiting for the storm that you know is coming. Some of my neighbors are actually planning to take a early vacation and leave the area. I was in Southern California during the Rodney King riots, lived in Corona, and don't want to go through that again. What is the relevance of putting this here? What does it have to do with the article? Well... remember this.... as you sit at your home or office in comfort and security, remember there are many good people, totally unrelated to the event who could be seriously affected by it's outcome. Including what you publish. I have a feeling this situation is going to speed up after the Easter Holiday, be very careful in how you write this article. Be responsible. --70.119.53.11 (talk) 01:18, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

From the Martin Family legal advisers:

'“People have the right to express their complaints and their feelings however they feel is best,’’ he says. “We don’t want any problems, of course, but we also know that you have to demand what you want, and have to make those demands known. That’s the only way people listen, and the only way anything gets done.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.119.53.11 (talk) 01:39, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.119.53.11 (talk) 01:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

And then we have to deal with THESE hateful people!--70.119.53.11 (talk) 01:47, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

'Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett said on Thursday that the city’s emergency management team has met regularly with the U.S Department of Justice to construct a plan. Officials said extra police officers and fire department officials are on standby. Neighboring agencies have also been asked to assist, if needed.'

Why? I want to make sure everyone here knows what they are dealing with. This is REAL life for many of us.... Not a game, not an edit war. It goes far beyond your computer! Publish the truth, be factual, BE RESPONSIBLE!--70.119.53.11 (talk) 01:51, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

SPD removes docs from website
Most of the documents linked to at the Sanford Police Department website have been removed at the request of the FL State Attorney (Corey). --  Kenatipo   speak! 15:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Public record, once publicized, are public.  Replace with link to mirrors. --HectorMoffet (talk) 18:50, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Done! --  Kenatipo   speak! 21:46, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hector, on a different matter, the report of Officer Timothy Smith needs to be added to the collapsing section. Originally what we had there was two copies of Ayala's report.  --  Kenatipo    speak! 21:46, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that should be added back correctly-- I messed it up. :)  I'd do it now but, only semi-conscious. --HectorMoffet (talk) 08:43, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I am very doubtful over the incident. Is this article neutral? It seemed so biased, and just like any other media on this matter, Zimmerman is always zeroed. Everything good is mentioned about Trayvon and it seems the media painted him and his family like angels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laincy (talk • contribs) 09:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Allegations of media bias towards a forced "white man kills innocent black kid" story
I have been reading many articles from smaller scale news organizations, certain important blogs (including one from CNN), and other sources which claim that there has been a big push from the mainstream media to make this case seem like a simple "Evil racist white man kills innocent little black kid for no reason". They point to the following as evidence for this: I don't think I'm experienced enough to say whether this is real or just conspiracy theory. However, I think it should have a mention in the article. Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 20:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The use of a picture of Trayvon when he was much younger than at the time of death
 * The use of mugshot-looking picture for Zimmerman, including an orange (county jail-looking) shirt
 * Juxtaposition of these two pictures
 * Whitening of Zimmerman's picture to make him look caucasian
 * The use of the term "white-hispanic" to maintain the story line after it was claimed that he was hispanic
 * Editing the 911 call to make Zimmerman appear racist
 * among others...
 * Maybe make a link to media sensationalism? Which is not exactly new (has been around for centuries).DXDanl (talk) 04:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)