Angela Corey, an adherent of the Michael Nifong school of prosecution

I’ve previously said that the charges in the Affidavit of Probable Cause against George Zimmerman are nothing but a rehash of the fact-free “official story” put out by the liberal media and the black leaders. As Bob Owens at PJ Media brings out, it is much worse than that. The Affidavit contains outright lies, assertions that directly contradict the facts known from Zimmerman’s 911 call. For example, the affidavit says that the 911 dispatcher “instructed” Zimmerman not to follow Martin and that Zimmerman disregarded this command and kept following him. Here’s what the Affidavit says:

Zimmerman got out of his vehicle and followed Martin. When the police dispatcher realized Zimmerman was pursuing Martin, he instructed Zimmerman not to do that and that the responding officer would meet him. Zimmerman disregarded the police dispatcher and continued to follow Martin who was trying to return to his home.

Owens comments:

The affidavit’s claim is in direct opposition to the facts as recorded on the 911 call.

Zimmerman was not “instructed” of anything. The use of that particular word creates the impression that Zimmerman was affirmatively told—commanded—not to do something. That isn’t what occurred. The dispatcher spoke ambiguously: “We don’t need you to do that.”

Then, the affidavit makes the completely unsupported claim that Zimmerman continued to follow Martin, even as the 911 call indicates that he stopped following Martin and was stationary for more than a minute and a half before attempting to return to his truck to meet with the responding officer. This, again, appears to be a misrepresentation by the prosecutor, unsupported (and possibly refuted) by the known evidence.

There is much, much more. The affidavit is beyond shocking. Or, rather, it is even more beyond shocking than I had previously realized.

Owen concludes:

I live and work in central North Carolina, just miles away from where an overzealous, politically minded prosecutor named Mike Nifong attempted to railroad athletes from the Duke University lacrosse team in a similarly racially charged environment just a half-decade ago.

Nifong was disbarred and found guilty of criminal contempt for his actions. Angela Corey’s affidavit against George Zimmerman looks to be treading dangerously close to that same path.

- end of initial entry -

April 20

Neil Parille writes:

The affidavit might even be worse than Owens thinks. Note that Zimmerman was in his car and it wasn’t moving when he called the police dispatcher. Then he got out of the car and followed Martin. Unless Zimmerman was in his car and driving toward Martin and then stopped his car (which I haven’t heard anyone allege) it looks like the affidavit got the chronology wrong.

And what’s with the “witness advised” wording? Shouldn’t it be something like: “The witness reported that during the phone call that Martin told her he was scared because someone was following him.”? The “through the complex” wording seems a little over the top, given the respective locations of the car, the direction Martin was running, and the shooting site.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 18, 2012 08:24 PM | Send