Disparate thoughts and items about Trayvon Martin case

• There's been a lot of hubbub about the mainstream media's description of George Zimmerman (who is half White and half Peruvian) being a "white Hispanic," which some have taken to be a sign that the media is trying to make this a White-versus-Black issue even though Mr Zimmerman looks "obviously Hispanic" (to me, he looks Jewish). It should be noted that in the police report, but officer son the scene later described him as "white."

• Here's the Sanford police report from where I got the above information. 

• Much sharper versions of the in-station surveillance video have been offered up the Sanford Police Department (see here, here, here, here, and here). His head does not look like it has a wound where blood had been coming out of it (it doesn't look just cleaned up, but healed). At one point the fourth video it looks like he might have a broken nose, but the angle makes it tricky. There is no sign of blood nor is there any sign of a bandage, not even a small one. 

• Critics of Trayvon Martin, noting that he smoked pot in 2011, seem to be using that as a justification for him being killed, or at least as a sign that he was unruly. I've never smoked pot before, but I've routinely heard (and my own experience backs this up) that pot smokers are kinda mellow people, making him violently reacting to Mr Zimmerman less likely, not more. 

• See points A (2821 Retreat View Circle) and B (1231 Twin Trees Lane) in this Google Maps screen shot? It was in the green area between those two buildings where police found Trayvon Martin's body lying face down, his hands beneath his body. Unless George Zimmerman was driving his car in the grassy area between the two buildings, it seems unlikely descriptions of Trayvon Martin jumping George Zimmerman near his car are true, unless their scuffle had them running around the buildings into the green area. This seems unlikely; what seems more likely is that when they encountered each other, Mr Zimmerman had in fact been pursuing Mr Martin on foot, from the front of the clubhouse to the upper left of this screen shot (from where he'd made the 911 call), despite being advised by dispatchers not to do so.

• A great deal has been made about the Stand Your Ground law in Florida. This case seems a failure of that law for two reasons. First, if what we've been led to believe is true, Mr Zimmerman could not invoke a Stand Your Ground self-defense claim because he had been the one stalking and then in pursuit with a firearm, even though he may have thought it protected him (and possibly emboldened him toward the reckless behavior that got Trayvon Martin killed). Rather, it is Trayvon Martin, who apparently confronted his stalker/pursuer, to whom the SYG defense would actually apply, but this got him killed. Either way, the law failed miserably in this particular situation. 

• According to The Guardian, one man who claims to have seen Trayvon Martin shot dead says he saw George Zimmerman walk uninjured: "He didn't appear hurt or anything else." (He described Mr Zimmerman as Hispanic.)

• A witness who said this occurred right behind her home says Sanford police "blew her off," taking only a cursory statement despite her having seen a great deal more:

  "Blew us off, and I called him back again and I said, 'I know this was not self-defense. There was no punching, no hitting going on at the time, no wrestling,'" Cutcher said.

  She says she had to repeatedly contact the police to get them to listen.

• The Sanford city manager has issued a document of FAQs that may be interesting to people following this case. It presents and then answers questions like "Why was George Zimmerman not arrested the night of the shooting?" and "Why was George Zimmerman labeled as “squeaky clean” when in fact he has a prior arrest history?" and "If Zimmerman was told not to continue to follow Trayvon, can that be considered in this investigation?"

• A too-clever-by-half title for a book on trigger-happy Neighborhood Watchmen in this Florida town might be "Sanford & Gun" (a play on words for you Millennium Generation babies).

• North Korea's Central News Agency reports on "protests on racial discrimination in U.S."

• More on this stuff as I see fit...

... 

Kyopo crime story of the day

Western visitors to Korea like to talk about two things: dog consumption and the propensity for South Koreans to say "Fighting!" for just about anything.

So it was only a matter of time before an unscrupulous someone would combine dogs and "Fighting!" to get, um, dogfighting:

Police [in the Philippines] have arrested six South Koreans suspected of running a massive, high-tech dogfighting operation where matches in the Philippines were shown online to overseas bettors, according to police.

About 240 pitbulls were confiscated in the raid late Friday from a secluded compound where the dogs were kept and the matches held, the local police intelligence chief said on Saturday.

"They had an arena enclosed with mirrors. They had videocams, computers and they would show live fights of the pitbulls and it could be seen on their website in Korea," Chief Inspector Romeo Valero said.

He told AFP that Filipino caretakers hired to take care of the animals said the dogfighting operation in a rural area about an hour's drive south of Manila had been going on for over a month, and sometimes dogs would die from their injuries. [AFP]

Sorry about that lame attempt at humor earlier. I'm not trying to make light of this, which is blatant animal cruelty on a large scale. And I'm just pleased as punch that people like this would get shut down.

Apparently, though, they are going with the infamous Poker-8 gang's defense after they were arrested for running "high-stakes" poker from their home and publicizing it on Facebook:

He said the Koreans did not know how to speak English and it was not yet known how long they had been in the country. One Korean claimed they did not know dogfighting was illegal in the Philippines.

They face six months to two years in prison for the dogfighting, but authorities will have difficulty charging them with illegal gambling because the money was managed overseas. One would hope that the Philippine authorities would hand over that part of their investigation to the South Korean authorities, which are in a position to haul these people to jail over the gambling portion of this.

... 

Korea National Police Agency going all out to prevent foreign suspects from falling victim to racist Korean police

This is an interesting story translated over at Korea Beat:

From now on, detectives investigating crimes by foreigners will be re-assigned whenever they make racially discriminatory remarks.

The National Police Agency (경찰청) announced on the 7th that, in order to protect the rights of foreigners suspected of crimes and to expand the reliability and impartiality of the detectives who investigate those crimes, those detectives will be subject to a system of removal.

According to the Agency, investigators who use racially discriminatory language, fail to notify the consulates of foreign criminal suspects, compel suspects to make statements through force or lack of sleep, or fail to read them their Miranda rights, will be re-assigned at the request of the suspects in order to prevent improper investigative techniques.

Unlike when Korean suspects file such a request, where an investigative means committee is formed and makes a decision on the detectives being re-assigned, for foreign affairs detectives there will be automatic re-assignment without a committee or reason given.

Wow. That's great that the National Police Agency is so keen to prevent foreign suspects from falling victim to racist cops, but automatic re-assignment seems to have some potential for abuse itself. It would seem that a savvy suspect could simply keep making accusations of racially discriminatory language in order to impede an investigation.

Perhaps rules will be in place to guard against such action (e.g., verifying what is said by means of videotaping of interrogations). I hope this also doesn't become merely new rules that are not enforced. Still, I think there are enough organizations, from Catholic charities helping foreign migrant workers from poor countries to groups like ATEK, that would easily create such an international stink if such rules were violated against an innocent person, that they could keep the police reasonably in check. One would hope, anyway.

...

Straight outta blogdom: Kushibo's personal encounter with the court system

This is going to be an occasional but on-going feature here at Monster Island: taking lengthy or significant comments I left on other blogs and bringing them "home" to this blog. Back in the day, before preparing to leave Seoul for Honolulu, I wrote a lot of comments, especially at The Marmot's Hole. Here's one from March 2006...

It reminds me of my personal run-in with the court system. Most foreign nationals, apparently, are funneled through a certain court so that interpreters and what-not can be more easily pooled.

I was there because I was challenging a 1 million won fine for driving without a license (which I successfully got down to a 100,000 won fine for not having my license in hand), but some of the other “foreigners” there were in for violent crime or theft. While I drove myself to the courthouse, some of these people were marched in through a special entrance in the back.

There was this one guy who was huge: NBA tall and NFL wide, built like that really big guy on Green Mile who cures everybody of their hacking cough.

He took advantage of his time before the judge (his was a preliminary hearing of some kind) to make a complaint about the prison food: he wasn’t getting enough. Apparently the rations were tantamount to starvation for someone of his size. Also, he couldn’t eat any of the spicy stuff, and he asked the judge to give him a different diet. Green Mile Dude was very soft-spoken and polite throughout.

The judge, however, said he has no control over the prison food. Next!

UPDATE (present era):
I learned a lot from that encounter with the judicial system, including that the court system seemed to try to go out of its way to be fair to the "foreigners" who'd gotten arrested (which included a few kyopo).

I also learned that even if your Korean is pretty good, take advantage of having a translator, because they know their stuff and they just might couch things in a way that helps your case (which also makes it in your interest to be nice to them).

Also, be respectful and contrite when facing the judge. It is not the place to cop an attitude (and I really could have, considering why I was there).

Orange County Crime Story of the Day:kyopo home invaders

One thing I like about living in Seoul: a general lack of home invasions. But alas, globalization might someday bring them to ROK shores.

Anyway, this story in the Los Angeles Times was about a home invasion in Diamond Bar, a tony Los Angeles County burb just north of the OC, with a tie-in with Las Vegas. Nothing special really, that it's apparently a kyopo gang, caught by the oddest of details:

Detectives had little to go on in the case but learned one of the suspects was a black man who spoke Korean very well, Kim said.

Then last month, investigators learned of a monthlong FBI undercover sting with Las Vegas Metro Police that netted five members of a Korean organized crime group from Los Angeles.

The suspects were allegedly preparing to rob what they believed was a drug stash house in Las Vegas.

When they were interviewed by Asian gang team detectives in Las Vegas, three of the five suspects allegedly implicated themselves in the Diamond Bar home invasion robbery.
They included David Chon, 28, James Han, 28, and Rene Hypolite, 26, who investigators say has African American and Korean parents and speaks fluent Korean.

Investigators also identified three other suspects in the robbery: one who drove the getaway car and two who masterminded the home invasion. The alleged driver, Andrew Kim, 26, of Los Angeles, was arrested Jan. 24 at his home in Los Angeles.

I just hope it's not one of the eleven Andrew Kims I know.

Was Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona assassinated over health care vote?

UPDATE: 
The earlier reports that she had died were inaccurate, and CNN is saying she is instead undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound to the head. No word on the other dozen who were also shot. Let's pray for the best. I'm leaving the original post intact. (Further updates will be below original post.)

ORIGINAL POST:
Far be it from me to believe in (or promote) conspiracy theories, but when you have a Congresswoman shot at point blank at an event for the public to come meet her, and there have been other incidents where someone was removed after discovered to have brought a firearm to such an event, and her home-state office was vandalized after she voted for the contentious Obamacare health care overhaul, it's not hard to connect the dots and see that as at least possible. (And her immigration reform positions may be another possibility.)

That Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and half a dozen other people were killed (and half a dozen more injured) is tragic enough. But if she were killed for her politic stance, that is utterly sickening.

In a country where both sides of the political spectrum increasingly see the other as an un- or anti-American, enemies who deserve violence delivered upon them (according to some of the more extreme voices on-line and even on-air), it would not be a surprising turn of events. Extremely disturbing, but unsurprising.

Requiescant in pace, Representative Giffords and the others.

UPDATE 2:

Representative Giffords is out of surgery and in stable condition, but her aide was killed. Also killed was Judge John Roll, who earned the ire of local talk show hosts when he allowed a $32 million lawsuit against an area rancher to go forward.

In 2009, The Arizona Republic talks about the subsequent threats:

In February, when U.S. District Judge John Roll presided over a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against an Arizona rancher, the Marshals Service was anticipating the fallout.

When Roll ruled the case could go forward, Gonzales said talk-radio shows cranked up the controversy and spurred audiences into making threats.

In one afternoon, Roll logged more than 200 phone calls. Callers threatened the judge and his family. They posted personal information about Roll online.

"They said, 'We should kill him. He should be dead,' " Gonzales said.

Roll, who is the chief federal judge in Arizona, said both he and his wife were given a protection detail for about a month.

"It was unnerving and invasive. . . . By its nature it has to be," Roll said, adding that they were encouraged to live their lives as normally as possible. "It was handled very professionally by the Marshals Service."

At the end of the month, Roll said four key men had been identified as threat makers.

That, sadly, is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about earlier.

And we're reading now that apparently Sarah Palin was targeting Congresswoman Giffords last year, complete with "gunsights," according to this Huffington Post story from last year:

And Sarah Palin is now officially radioactive. While this is not evidence that she herself sought to have people literally target the Democrats on the above list, her choice of imagery was poorly thought-out, even before someone shot one of the people on the list point blank and killed a judge and a child in the same attack. This may indeed be enough to shift moderate Republicans and other non-Tea Party GOPers away from her.

Oh, and this is apparently the YouTube channel of the alleged shooter, Jared Laughner (or Loughner).

UPDATE3:
Well, not so much of an update as a comment, on others' comments. I think some might come along and think I've joined (or started) some sort of Tea Party- or conservative-bashing bandwagon, but a careful read of what I've written demonstrates otherwise. I specifically wrote (and even italicized) dangerous rhetoric on both sides of the spectrum, and this comment at The Marmot's Hole about the shooting demonstrates what I'm talking about:

Normally, I wouldn’t try to attribute blame between shooter and media influence. But Republicans tend to have low IQ so I think it’s likely the shooter was another one of those right-wing psychos inundated by diatribes by Palin, Fox, et al.. But we’ll see…

I think Palin should be shot. America’s political dialogue deserves to be better than whatever that bimbo has contributed.

Pot, meet kettle. I'm beginning to wonder if The Korean wasn't eerily prescient when he said this:

But now, it looks like an argument can be made that Korean politics is actually more advanced than American politics, since the problems of American politics is appearing to follow the problems of Korean politics a few years ago. How much longer until we see Fight Night in Congress? ("You lie!" sure seems like a great prelude to that.)

The coming end of American civility in the public sphere, I thought, would mean we can't reach necessary compromises on important issues. Now I'm beginning to wonder if the current take-no-prisoners form of American politics is bringing us intractable violence.

Kicking ass in Koreatown

The Los Angeles Times has an article about a Koreatown couple who ignored the usual advice of just giving armed intruders what they want, and instead put the guy (a ROK national) in the hospital:

But the man grabbed her and put a gun to her head, demanding money, authorities said.

They returned inside, where the woman gave suspect Keon Kim, 26, her wallet, Corona said. Unsatisfied with the $120 he found inside, Kim, a Korean national, took the woman into the bathroom and demanded to know who else was home, police said. She told him her boyfriend was.

When Kim left the bathroom to find the woman’s boyfriend, the woman screamed, waking her boyfriend.

The two men, Corona said, began to fight, throwing punches and scratching. The altercation spilled into the bathroom, then back outside the apartment -– all while the suspect kept control of his gun.

The boyfriend called out to his girlfriend to call 911. On her way back outside, she came across a golf club. She dashed outside with it and struck the man twice in the head so hard that the club broke into two.

“At that point, he manages to get up,” Corona said. “And he decides it’s time to go home.”

But the boyfriend chased him down to the second floor, where they continued fighting until police arrived.

The article doesn't say whether the couple themselves are also Korean (and in Koreatown, that wouldn't be a given nowadays), but I'd say in general it's probably best for KoKos in the US to realize that going after someone who has a gun with anything less than a gun is not wise. Don't do it unless you absolutely have to (and 120 bucks or some jewelry and electronics are not worth your life).

Criminals in South Korea, thankfully, almost never carry firearms, so it's reasonable to assume you've got a good chance of fighting back using a golf club. Not so against a handgun. Just sayin'. [Also bear in mind that when the cops arrive, they don't always know who the real criminal is right away.]

This public service announcement has been brought to you by 'Bo from the 'hood, straight outta Compton.

In other blogs (April 18, 2010 edition)

• Joshua at One Free Korea has a must-read overview of the options in front of the South Korean government as it decides what to do if North Korea is responsible for the sinking of the Chonan, especially if we want to avoid a wider war. I had thought about quoting part of it here, but the entire thing deserves a read.

• Justin Nalepa has a travelogue on the Ch'ujado Islands, around which a ROK military helicopter crashed recently while searching for submarines.

• Writing about OC denizen Kyle Nachreiner, Marmot at The Marmot's Hole is stealing my Orange County Crime Story of the Day idea, with an update to the infamous (if you're from OC) gang rape case perpetrated and videotaped by the sons of friends of our county sheriff.
  
  Here's his post ("And the Worst Person in the World Award Goes To…"), and here's my post from June 2006, where I mentioned it as a reason for not voting to re-elect the guy (who later was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison on corruption charges). My reasoning back in 2006:
  
  
  

  For some reason in Orange County our sheriff and coroner are the same person. That should make for interesting plot lines when they start to make CSI: Orange County. This was actually the race that was getting the most press because of the scandal in which the incumbent, Michael Carona (Carona the Coroner...nice ring to it) and his cronies found themselves. Both opponents focused on this, and one of them demanded that Carona resign.
  
  Essentially, both of the challengers were running on a platform of not allowing their friend's son to rape 16-year-old girls.
  
  Carona said in his bio/platform that "residents of Orange County are safer today than they were eight years ago" when he took office. I know I'm safer, but that may be because I live in Korea.
  
  One of his opponents, Bill Hunt, says that violent crime in sheriff-patrolled areas (i.e., areas not part of some city plus areas where policing is contracted out to the OC Sheriff's Department) skyrocketed 30% (he doesn't say from when...could be from 1850 when we achieved statehood, or 1890, when OC broke off from L.A. County) and homicides have increased 26%.

Why is ass rape allowed in US prisons?

Five years ago, a Marmot's Hole regular named KrZ, our resident convicted drug felon, made a point about gang rape that is commonplace in US prisons being an added punishment for drug convictions:

U.S. drug laws are no joke either, plus you get the added extreme violence and anal rape/salad tossing of U.S. prisons. U.S. sentencing guidelines do allow for the death penalty for possesion of certain quantities of marijuana and other drugs, and our mandatory minimums are very high for all drugs. If I had the choice of serving time in a Korean prison or serving time in a U.S. prison I’d pick Korea. No ass-raping and you can still vote and be treated like a normal human when you get out and return to the U.S.

I always thought KrZ was an intriguing person, and he really seems to have a sensible head on his shoulders — except for the drug selling. Anyway, the type of thing he describes has long been one big reason I lean toward drug decriminalization (favoring, for now, treatment instead of prison, and possibly full legalization).

Indeed, a lot of people in America seem to treat prison rape as just desserts deserts for whatever crime you committed, and it's a staple of late-night comedy. Me, I think it's horrifying and cruel to subject even criminals to frequent and inescapable sexual assault, and it's encouraging that some are starting to bring this to light as the serious problem it really is.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Prison rape is an uncomfortable subject rarely covered in newspapers, a laugh line on late-night television. But the reality is that rape in our prisons is a national scandal. A study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2007 found that more than 60,000 adult inmates and -- even worse -- 1 in 8 juveniles in custody had been sexually assaulted in the previous year.

Nearly a year ago, the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission issued a strong report on the scope of the problem and what must be done to address it. But for its proposed reforms to be implemented, we must overcome the inertia and resistance to change within our prison system. Efforts to set standards for prison officials and establish the means to hold them accountable for ending prison rape remain bottled up in the Justice Department bureaucracy.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is committed to ending prison rape. But instead of taking immediate action, he is allowing bureaucrats to spend another year redoing the work already completed by the Prison Rape Commission. Meanwhile, more adults and juveniles in our prisons will be sexually assaulted.

Unfortunately for the incarcerated, complaints that this could go on for another year are more likely to be met with tiny violins than a call to action. But action needs to be taken:

The standards proposed by the [Prison Rape Commission] are straightforward. They require, for example, assessing which inmates are more vulnerable to being raped, and they call for isolating likely predators. Because guards also commit sexual assaults, the report called for pat-downs and strip searches to be conducted by an officer of the same sex, except in exigent circumstances. It also called for each rape be treated as a crime. You would think prison administrators would not have to be told such a thing.

This is indeed a national shame. Prisoners are people — people who we do not want as damaged souls living amongst us once they are released. Being raped was not part of anybody's sentence, and we should stop treating it like an "Oh, well, you shouldn't have done the crime then" kind of issue.

Korea : Russia :: America : Mexico (?)

That's the kind of analogy it's starting to shape up to. From KBS Global:

A Korean student studying in Moscow remains in critical condition after being stabbed in an apparent hate crime.

The 29-year-old, identified by his surname Shim, was stabbed in the neck by a masked assailant outside a downtown store around 5 p.m. on Sunday, local time.

Shim, a junior at a state-run film school in the Russian capital, is undergoing surgery but is known to be in a critical state.

Russian police say the attack is similar to a number of other recent racist attacks that have targeted foreigners.

Shim has lived in Moscow for six years.

On February 15th, a 22-year-old Korean beaten by a group of local youths in the city of Barnaul in the Russian Far East died as a result of the injuries he sustained.

Arirang also has the story.

Are Koreans being targeted or is this just random violence? Either way it's bad, of course, and it makes me wonder if South Koreans shouldn't just write off (for the time being) Russia as a study destination. (HT to Brian, from whom I snagged the graphic below)

Felonious monks

Yonhap is reporting an increase in serious crimes among the largely single population of foreign residents (hence the oh-so-clever title):

Violent crimes committed by foreigners in South Korea rose 18 percent last year from a year earlier, a police report showed Wednesday.

The National Police Agency (NPA) said in its report that 7,812 foreigners were detained in 2009 for committing such felonies as murder, robbery and rape, up from 6,615 the previous year.

By type of crime, robberies nearly doubled to 260 from 133, while theft rose 45 percent to 2,001 from 1,343, the report showed.

"While the crime rate is going up in accordance with the surge in the number of foreigners staying in the nation, it could also be attributable to last year's intensive crackdown on crimes committed by foreigners," an NPA official said.

According to the Justice Ministry, 870,636 foreigners were living in South Korea as of December last year, with the number steadily rising from 854,000 in 2008 and 765,000 in 2007.

Naturally one should ask if the increase in total violent crimes is commensurate with any increase in foreign nationals. Well, using their numbers, we have a rate of 897 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2009, versus 865 violent crimes per 100,000 in 2008. This represents about a four percent increase in the rate.

Hold on, make that 897 versus 864 arrests for violent crime. This could mean a lot of different things. Greater attention to crime committed not just by foreign nationals but also against foreign nationals could lead to an increase in arrests even if the actual incidence of crime committed by foreign nationals were to have decreased (and I have no particular reason to believe that's the case, just throwing that out as a reasonable possibility).

Similarly, though, these numbers don't necessarily point to a more law-abiding foreign population vis-à-vis the KoKo population. I've never been fond of the "well, the Korean population has even more arrests!" argument, since it compares all Koreans with anglophone foreigners who tend to be of a more educated socioeconomic class, thus an apples-and-oranges comparison.

Anyway, it's nice to see that they're separating out the traffic tickets from the serious crime (anti-USFK leftists would lump all legal matters into one number, with murders and running of red lights all lumped together as equals) but it is dismaying to see any significant amount of crime going on at all.

Run amok?

Nomad posted a couple stories about a group of USFK personnel in Uijongbu who robbed a taxi driver and then locked him in the trunk of his car. Last week they admitted what they had done, and we're waiting to see how the case will be handled.

A commenter named justpassingthru through claims that this same group of people has beaten down a bar owner and his wife, but they were still running around. Nomad himself is incredulous about the claim:

So you're saying that's correct? The same guys previously beat up a bar owner and his wife? I'm having a hard time believing they did that and were still walking around free.

If it is true (and I will retract some of this if it turns out it isn't), then I have something to say about this. [Before I begin, I want to make clear that I'm saying this from a personally held point-of-view that USFK is mostly well-behaved and that the chinbo "progressives" who want to push USFK off the peninsula to remove what they believe is the primary obstacle to peaceful unification seek to blow any incident out of proportion.]

It is this kind of thing that, when reported, feeds the common Korean public perception (well, mostly misperception as far as I'm aware) that too many USFK personnel have for too long run amok without fear of real punishment by a military organization that lets things slide when Korean nationals are victims of such crime by USFK personnel.*

This, plus the taxi jumpers and the alleged stabber in Shinchon who managed to make a spectacle on camera (GI Korea suggests the half-naked guy [seen above in what GI Korea describes as a staged photo] with the yakuza-esque tattoos who was willingly breaking regulations against being in an off-limits area "was probably a good kid just out having a good time with his friends"), are a composite image that, sadly, can eclipse the many good deeds of thousands of law-abiding, hard-working USFK personnel.

*A proper refutation of this perception would address how USFK personnel crime is taken seriously by USFK, not point out, correctly or not, that the Korean judicial system does not take seriously crimes committed by Korean nationals against USFK personnel.