George Zimmerman suffered some significant injuries in the fatal confrontation with Trayvon Martin, his lawyer claimed to the media.
Craig Sonner, Zimmerman’s legal adviser, said that Zimmerman suffered a broken nose and a head wound in the violent altercation that ended in Trayvon’s killing. The statement marks the first public relations offensive by Zimmerman’s camp to counterattack the nationwide uproar to have him arrested and prosecuted.
Sonner also said that an unidentified witnessed claims that Trayvon was on top of Zimmerman at one point in the tussle, attempting to corroborate Zimmerman s claims that Trayvon was the aggressor.
There are, however, a couple of troubling aspects to Zimmerman’s lawyer’s strategy to paint Trayvon as the aggressor. First, there was nothing in Zimmerman s 911 call that could be construed that he felt was threatened or intimidated by Trayvon. Also, the call clearly indicated that Trayvon was trying to evade Zimmerman s pursuit, which is why Zimmerman expressed his concerns that another (expletive) would “get away.” Thirdly, there were no claims that Martin had pursued, chased, or threatened George Zimmerman while he was on the phone with 911. Actually, if Zimmerman had obeyed a police order not to pursue Trayvon, he would be alive today.
Another stickler in these sudden revelations? Sonner says that he has yet to even see his client, Zimmerman, and only has spoken to him on the phone thus far. Therefore Sonner has not had a first-hand account of Zimmerman s alleged injuries.
What else did the lawyer say? Zimmerman could not have been a racist who had it out for blacks, Sonner claims, because Zimmerman and his wife were mentors two African American teenagers, ages 13 and 14.
“And in this — I talked with the mother of the two children. And she indicated — I asked her, you know, did he make comments to you that indicated he was a racist? And she said, no. And she is African-American,” Sonner explained to Anderson Cooper. “And for the things he’s done, you know, as far as taking the children to the mall, you know, he took them to the mall, took them to the science center. Did the kind of outings to help, you know, to help the children have time out to be a friend to them. I don’t believe that’s the indication of a person that is a racist to do that.”
But when pressed about the 911 recording that some say they hear Zimmerman using a racial slur before confronting Trayvon, the attorney said that he has yet to listen to the recordings. Conner also admitted that he hasn t seen the official police report yet, either.
Well, it doesn’t look like Sonner has done much of anything to this point, expect act as Zimmerman’s PR mouthpiece.
– terry shropshire
