Zimmerman is a frustrated Mall Cop personality, I think.

[MineralMan]

I have a brother-in-law, a complete moron, who has this affliction. He thinks he is, or should be, a cop. He can't have a concealed carry permit, though, because he was convicted of making terroristic threats to a black woman who was coworker of his a few years ago. But, he carries a magnetic rotating red light in his car, "in case he needs to pull someone over."

He hates everyone who is not a Caucasian descendant of Scandinavian ancestry. His satellite radio fare is of the "Bubba the Love Sponge" variety, and he never stops talking about conspiracy theories. In fact, he simply never stops talking, period. Frankly, he needs medication.

As soon as I heard about this murderous shooter in FL, I thought of my brother-in-law. When I saw the photo of Zimmerman, it was even an even clearer thought. The empty eyes and sullen face.

It's a type. Somewhat paranoid about things, with law enforcement fantasies. Very, very scary people.

[warrior1]

1. have we heard all of the 911 tapes?

We know he was on the phone with 911 and there is a timeline of that with Trayvon's girlfriends phone log. It seem that Zimmerman was on the phone with 911 for the entire time or did he hang up? Is there a tape of the shooting from Zimmerman's 911 phone call. I know there's a 911 call tapes by the neighbors. This would complete the timeline of the events. Or at least the most crucial.

[FarPoint]

3. Excellent point.

My concerns are regarding the police cover up. This is a small, tight good olde boys network that were in crisis mode...Heck, Tayvon laid in the morgue 3 days! Sandford is not New York City! You get my drift....

[Old and In the Way]

2. I'll bet Zimmerman had a lot of opinions to share with the digital world.

The prosecution should be all over his PC and get access to his online comments. I have no doubts he'll be shown to be a frequent poster at any one of the premier hate sites on the net...Freerepublic, Lucianne, StormFront, Fox News, etc. His comments online, after the murder, would be most enlightening in understanding this guy's mind.

[FarPoint]

5. Beautiful!

Let's hope the Special Prosecution is up to the task.

[MineralMan]

13. Could be, but might not be, too.

In the case of my brother-in-law, he never posts anything on the Internet, and refuses to even use email. He's certain that the powers that be are monitoring every word written on the Internet and can instantly find out who you are. He may be closer than he thinks on that, though. But, what he would write on the web would be very different from what I write.

We may yet hear if this Zimmerman character was a poster.

[Old and In the Way]

16. He strikes me as a loner type.

In the real world. Probably not a lot of people would relate to his worldview, I think. It will be interesting to hear what people who know him have to say. If so, I suspect that he was more at home online sharing his thoughts with people who think like him...sort of validating his world view. He may not have been online, but, given the ubiquity of the social media networks ion our lives, I find that doubtful.

[romantico]

4. More

More people like this out there then you know. My brother started buying firearms when Obama won in 2008. I was talking to him one night and he heard a noise and I heard him loading his shot gun. He said there might be some trouble. He lived in a bad neighborhood at the time. Another time he had his Glock and was walking outside late on night while we were talking because he saw a car slowing down in front of his apartment building. Said there were some robberies and people "like Him" had to keep order. My brother would be offended and furious if you dare call him a racist. He just does not trust minorities(because according to him they are the ones who start trouble. NOT white people)

People like my brother have all these guns and now he lives in a nicer neighborhood. He is just begging for a reason to use one of his guns. In his mind,why have them if you are not going to use them and he has not used them in years. People like your brother in law and my brother can't resist the urge which is why I have no desire to have any firearms in my house. My brother constantly tries to talk me into buying a small handgun for protection and I tell him I have an antique sword that is about 200 years old that is still very very sharp in the house and I feel safe. He laughs and says if someone breaks into the house I am as good as dead.

I have to hear the gun speech and why I have to have one at least once a year and yes, Obama is ALWAYS mentioned several times in the speech/rant.

[LeftinOH]

6. That's what people said about Richard Jewell (at first);

that turned out to be a *totally* wrong first impression, though he "looked" the part, to many people. With Zimmerman, there are the 911 tapes, witnesses and some 'priors'; his personal appearance isn't enough.

On edit- Jewell didn't shoot anyone, either.

[izquierdista]

7. I compartmentalized him too.

He fits the profile of Dave the Drunk. When I met Dave the Drunk, he was homeless and looking for odd jobs. He did some work for me and as I got to know him, I found out that he was the also the most repulsive human alive. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, law enforcement wanna-be, and had to know someone's ethnic background before he could know what kind of person they were. He was easily the most sexist male I have ever met, which also explains his homelessness -- he would get violently angry and call his mother and sister cvnts if they even broached the subject of his drinking.

Despite being completely unfit for police work (bad leg, conviction for making meth, and his drinking), Dave the Drunk nevertheless held law enforcement in high regard and reminisced fondly about how that was his dream when he was in school (before the leg injury, conviction, and discovery of booze). I'm sure if he could have disguised his drinking, he would have been a mall cop, just think, the authority to stop people, question them, and tell them what to do.

Dave the Drunk was amazed when I told him that he could get SSI disability for his leg, and was most grateful when I helped him submit the paperwork. When it was approved, he saw that his homeless days could be behind him, now that he had a regular SSI income. Then the drinking caught up with him, and before he could spend the second SSI check, he died of liver failure -- at 45.

[HereSince1628]

8. Each of us views the world through the lens of our own perceptions

You, me, and Zimmerman. It's a form of projection.

Consequently, our capacity to "see" patterns may be more a measure of ourselves than it is upon those whose personalities we "accessorize" with the products of our perceptions. Each of us the unfortunate capacity to dress people with our own biases.

Zimmerman saw a threat that didn't exit.

You seem to say that you have seen a person's mental development as that of an 8-12 year old through photographs and evidence that his personality is identical to your BIL.

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, that's true.

How else would we see the world? Our entire lives are spend learning about the world, in one way or another, so it's natural that our perceptions are colored by the world we know.

[HereSince1628]

18. I am not saying it would be otherwise, I'm suggesting knowing that it biases our 'vision'

should make us cautious about our evaluation of and reliance on the truthiness of perceptions that are largely painted in our own image.

[cbdo2007]

9. I haven't kept up very well on this story, but does zimmerman have law enforcement or military....

background???

One time we had an ex-cop come to our work to teach us about the dangers of work place violence by non-employees (spouses, stalkers, etc. - I work in mental health) and literally every single one of his 10+ examples the attacker was former law enforcement, security guard, military, etc. It was really alarming at the time, but also as news stories like this one come out, I usually realize again that it's always those "type" of people who do violent things like this.

[MineralMan]

12. I believe he was studying law enforcement. At least think I remember

reading that in one of the many threads here. My B-I-L worked as a security guard for a while, but was fired suddenly for some reason.

[MineralMan]

14. Here's the story:

In Florida, Zimmerman shifted his plans, enrolling in Seminole State College with hopes of becoming a law-enforcement officer. He became the self-appointed protector of the streets around his home in Retreat at Twin Lakes, a gated community, although his neighborhood-watch organization was not officially registered.

In the past eight years, he called the police department at least 46 times with reports of various sightings: open garages, suspicious people. In 2005, according to police records obtained by The Orlando Sentinel and other news organizations, Zimmerman was twice accused of either criminal misconduct or violence. He had a concealed-weapon permit and had a black Kel-Tec semiautomatic handgun and a holster the night Martin died.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017819414_zimmerman23.html

[Old and In the Way]

10. he also has a history of making these reports.

So there are other tapes, I presume, that could further establish his attitudes about blacks, in general. Not sure they'd rise to evidentiary level unless he identified himself on these other calls...but I have no doubts that he editorialized about his opinions about blacks in his neighborhood.

[randome]

11. I had an uncle like that, too.

Bombastic, loud and in your face. Pleasant enough in small doses but he lived with his parents his entire life so you could tell his personality was to make up for his failures in life.

I think you nailed Zimmerman's wannabe personality.

[tularetom]

17. Here ya go

It's a definite type. I knew a few kids in high school who were the same way. Maybe they thought it was a way to get girls but as I recall most of the girls were laughing at them.