Juror B37 Says Zimmerman Case Wasn’t About Race

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – I have three and a half minutes of it from AC360 last night.  The entire interview, I think, was probably, I don’t have a rough time on it but it was the majority of the show.  He asked many what I thought were pretty good questions.  Juror number B37’s answers may surprise you.  I’m just going to start where I picked up with it.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I have three and a half minutes of it from AC360 last night.  The entire interview, I think, was probably, I don’t have a rough time on it but it was the majority of the show.  He asked many what I thought were pretty good questions.  Juror number B37’s answers may surprise you.  I’m just going to start where I picked up with it.  This is Anderson Cooper, AC360 asking: What do you think about George Zimmerman?

[start audio clip]

Anderson Cooper: What did you think of George Zimmerman?

Juror B37: I think George Zimmerman is a man whose heart was in the right place but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighborhoods and wanting to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done.

Cooper: Do you think he’s guilty of something?

Juror: I think he’s guilty of not using good judgment. When he was in the car and he called 911, he shouldn’t have gotten out of that car. The 911 operator also, when he was talking to him, kind of egged him on. I don’t know if it’s their policy to tell them what to do, not to get out of the car, to stay in their car, but I think he should have said: Stay in your car, not: Can you see where he’s gone?

Cooper: Do you feel George Zimmerman should have been carrying a gun?

Juror: I think he has every right to carry a gun. I think it’s everybody’s right to carry a gun.

[end audio clip]

Mike:  No, no, you can’t say that to Anderson Cooper.  You think he should have been carrying a gun?  This is America, you don’t carry guns around.  What is this, the Wild West?  Do you think you’re in some town in Georgia that has a must-carry law?  DC180 was visibly shaking and shocked.  That’s another part of our devolution from the rugged individuals that settled the great prairies and tamed the wild frontier and what have you.  It just goes without saying, and no one gave it much thought, that defending your own self from wild animals, from time to time you might have had to defend yourself from some of the Indian tribes, from robbers and cowboy marauders out there.  This is just how people lived.  No one gave this a second thought.  He’s got a gun.  So?  Everybody’s got a gun.  Today, though, we’re shocked by this.  Why would you pack a piece?

Mike Church Show Transcript – Zimmerman, The Justice Department, And States Rights

I think there is probably a larger body of evidence to support that if you go to a place where there is someplace or someone’s open carry — we may be referring to police officers or military people — there’s probably less of a chance that — it’s not a foolproof chance obviously but less of a chance — that there is violence.  If you support this whole mutually-assured destruction thing, it’s kind of along those lines.  I just want to hear this again….

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[start audio clip]

Juror: . . . I don’t know if it’s their policy to tell them what to do, not to get out of the car, to stay in their car, but I think he should have said: Stay in your car, not: Can you see where he’s gone?

Cooper: Do you feel George Zimmerman should have been carrying a gun?

Juror: I think he has every right to carry a gun. I think it’s everybody’s right to carry a gun.

Cooper: Do you think, based on the testimony you heard, you believe Trayvon Martin was the aggressor?

Juror: I think the roles changed. I think George got in a little bit too deep, which he shouldn’t have been there, but Trayvon decided he wasn’t going to let him scare him and get the one over up on him or something.  I think Trayvon got mad and attacked him.

Cooper: Do you feel like you know for sure what happened?

[end audio clip]

Mike:  Wait a minute.  Let me set this one up because I’ve heard it already.  The next question is: Do you feel like you know for sure what happened?  Let’s see if there’s any hesitation here.  Remember, the whole outrage here from those out there taking to the streets and performing all these acts of civil disobedience and what have you, the whole outrage here is that the jurors were a bunch of crazed, racist fanatics that made their decisions based on race, didn’t come to the proper conclusion because they refused to consider the evidence and what have you.  She is asked, Juror 37B, point blank: Do you think you know for sure what happened.  Listen.

[start audio clip]

Cooper: Do you feel like you know for sure what happened in the altercation? And did the other jurors feel for sure that they knew what happened?

Juror: Nobody knew exactly what happened.

Cooper: What did you think of the testimony of Trayvon Martin’s mother and father? Do you find them credible?

Mike Church Show Transcript – Interview With Winston Elliott III From The Imaginative Conservative

Juror: I think they said anything a mother and father would say, just like George Zimmerman’s mother and father. They’re your kids. You want to believe that they’re innocent and that was their voice, because hearing that voice would make it credible that they were the victim, not the aggressor.

Cooper: So in a way, both sets of parents kind of cancelled each other out in your mind?

Juror: They did, definitely, because if I was a mother, I would want to believe so hard that it was not my son that did that or was responsible for any of that . . .

[end audio clip]

Mike:  Here comes the big one.  They’ve already done two: Should he have been carrying a gun?  Do you think you guys knew for sure what happened?  Here’s the big whopper: Do you think race played a role in this?

[start audio clip]

Juror: . . . that I would convince myself probably that it was his voice.

Cooper: So you don’t believe race played a role in this case?

Juror: I don’t think it did. I think if there was another person, Spanish, White, Asian, if they came in the same situation where Trayvon was, I think George would have reacted the exact same way.

Cooper: Was that a common belief on the jury, that race was not, that race did not play a role in this?

Juror: I think all of us thought race did not play a role.

Cooper: It didn’t come up, the question of: Did George Zimmerman profile Trayvon Martin because he was African-American?

Juror: No. I think he just profiled him because he was the neighborhood watch and he profiled anybody that came in acting strange.

[end audio clip]

Mike:  Duh.  Wait a minute, wait a minute, this whole neighborhood watch thing has been thrown to the side.  Come on now, everybody knows that if he was parading about that neighborhood with a weapon, then he was looking for trouble.  As some have remarked and reminded, or some have tried to remind people, that there were incidents in this particular neighborhood that necessitated the need for citizens to form a neighborhood watch.  That’s another one of the angles on this I fear, I hope it doesn’t happen but I fear that it will, is that ultimately if citizens do try in other parts of the country to establish their own neighborhood watches because there’s violence going on or because things are being stolen or cars are being boosted or whatever it is in the parlance of our times that crime is going on in neighborhoods, the cops will usually tell you: We respond to these things.  Police aren’t out there patrolling the streets of your subdivision in your hamlet, and that’s why you have neighborhood patrols.  I fear that there will now be a wet blanket thrown on top of this, [mocking] “Now, we don’t want to have a Zimmerman incident.”  You want to put a sign up saying: We don’t have, we’re never going to have a neighborhood watch.  So a neighborhood watch is what?

Mike Church Show Audio – Caller Glen Says Stop Talking About Zimmerman And Start Talking About Obama

It’s a republican initiative that says that we care about our neighborhood and we’re perfectly capable of some form of self-defense.  No one wants to take weapons into their own hands and begin shooting wars, but we can keep an eye on things.  If things get out of hand, that’s what we have 911 for and that’s what we have the police for.  You make the call and do what is needed after that.  As I said, I fear the side effect will be, [mocking] “Yeah, but you should leave these matters to the police.”  Don’t we leave enough?  The cops at the end of the day are working for whom?  The government.  Again, these officers are needed as are active, vigilant citizens.  Isn’t that part of the problem in many facets in areas of our various lives, not enough citizen involvement?

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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