More on Martin case, and Cordell Jude arrested--but not for Daniel Adkins killing

CNN was playing the moral paladin again in the Trayvon Martin case yesterday morning, with the usual heavy-handed dose of double-dealing. The efforts to dismember George Zimmerman and his assumed character defects notwithstanding, the media continues to be unwilling to ask the pointed question of who Martin really was, not the sanitized version his family, lawyers and supporters have been providing. I read one Internet commentator try to deflect Martin’s history of school suspensions by claiming that he was in fact a “model” student in “advanced placement classes,” but is just another element of the misinformation campaign. The evidence suggests that he was a “robber” who broke into school lockers with a screwdriver and stole jewelry. There are also various claims that a few days before the shooting Martin struck a bus driver in the face for refusing to allow him to board a bus without paying fare; according to these stories, Martin was not arrested because the driver’s supervisors told him not to press charges. I can’t independently verify this, because the media just doesn’t want to know anything that upsets the narrative; people continue to claim that Martin “did nothing wrong” while Zimmerman “deserved” to be beaten-up. Since when is “following” someone (if that is the narrative) who may or may not be acting “suspiciously” a crime, while physically assaulting someone is not? We shouldn’t lightly overlook what is suggested about Martin’s character by such comments from a friend on Martin’s twitter or Facebook page, who said after the shooting that he “knew” that Martin had “whupped” Zimmerman’s “ass.” So what did he know that we haven’t been told that could go a long way to understanding what exactly happened that night?

One aspect of Zimmerman’s “character” that has received much attention was the role that “racial profiling” and his supposed racial attitudes played into the events that night. Martin’s supporters and partisans demanded that the Justice Department conduct an investigation into the “probability” that Zimmerman’s actions were motivated by “racism.” The FBI just released its report, after interviewing dozens of people who knew Zimmerman. The result, according to a story in the Christian Science Monitor—an early Martin partisan—suggested that no witness was “willing” to say that Zimmerman was a “racist.” Even the police investigator who was most skeptical of Zimmerman’s story, Chris Serino, told FBI investigators that Zimmerman’s neighborhood seemed to be overrun with African-American gangs "typically dressed in black and wore hoodies.” The report went on to say that "Serino believes that when Zimmerman saw Martin in a hoody (sic), Zimmerman took it upon himself to view Martin as acting suspicious…Serino described Zimmerman as overzealous and as having 'a little hero complex,' but not as a racist.”

According to the FBI report, no one interviewed claimed that they observed Zimmerman "display any bias, prejudice or irrational attitude against any class of citizen, religious, racial, gender or ethnic groups." Even his ex-fiancé admitted that she never observed anything “racial” in his attitude toward other people. There was a witness “Number 9,” a cousin who was not part of the investigation but has claimed that Zimmerman’s whole family was “racist,” but she is unable to provide specific examples of this in word or deed; she is the same person who claims that Zimmerman molested her when he was 16. The trial judge, who allowed the audio of her comments to be released to the protest of both defense and prosecution has been asked to recuse himself by Zimmerman’s attorneys, for demonstrative bias against Zimmerman.

After the FBI’s findings, CNN reported that “Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump told CNN's ‘Erin Burnett OutFront’ that the question of Zimmerman's attitudes on race was not pertinent. ‘None of that matters to why this armed watchman with a 9 mm gun got out of his car and chased an unarmed teenager and shot him in the heart,’ said Crump…The fact I wear a hoodie doesn't justify you killing me.” No, but being on top of a man beating him does complicate matters. Crump’s showboating and lack of credibility plays like your typical political campaign ad—long on bluster, short on facts.

Besides a judge who seems prejudicial, some are accusing prosecutors of “coaching” some of the witnesses “friendly” to Zimmerman in order to change their stories. The witness who was closest to scene and saw Martin beating Zimmerman in an “MMA” style and stated Zimmerman was calling for help, according to prosecutors now claims he isn’t “certain” who was calling for help. Again, facts are irrelevant; a police officer at the scene overheard Zimmerman tell paramedics that “I kept calling for help, but no one would help me.” Police also claim to have audio from a 911 call that they say is Zimmerman, not Martin, calling for help “at least 14 times.”

The FBI report noted that home invasions and robberies were rampant in the community in the months leading-up to the shooting, but I’ve already discussed this, and won’t repeat it for those who insist on being blind to the reality other people live with. One thing I do find disturbing—and turns the anti-black racism argument on its head—is Zimmerman’s old MySpace account, where he seems to have a dislike for “Mexicans.” In one aside in 2005, the half-Peruvian Zimmerman states that he is “Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, getting knifes pulled on you by every Mexican you run into!” With Sheriff Joe Arpaio's present trial for racially-profiling U.S. citizen's because they look "Mexican," it seems that Zimmerman is making the mistake of falling for a distinction without a difference in the eyes of most people.

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Meanwhile, there has been a “break” in the Daniel Adkins case, although it seems hardly anyone has noticed it yet, the media in particular. It is now nearly four months that police recommended second degree murder charges against his killer, Cordell Jude. The case was “remanded” back to police for further “investigation,” since a “special panel” of retired prosecutors were unable—or unwilling—to say “definitively” that Arizona’s draconian “stand your ground” law was not applicable in the Adkins’ killing. It appears that police did keep an eye on Jude, in the expectation that he would slip-up—something that his tweets suggested were a part of his “wayz.”

And slip-up he apparently did. According to several crime blogs, Cordell Lamar Jude was arrested and booked into a Maricopa County jail on July 14—not for the murder of Daniel Adkins, but for various drug offenses, including “use of a weapon in drug offense.” It certainly won’t help Jude’s case that he is still a “suspect” in murder. It may be that this arrest will be the “cover” that prosecutors need to overrule the objections of Arizona’s fanatical gun lobby.