Using absurd rhetorical tricks, the defense continues its effort to criminalize Trayvon Martin.
Alleged murderer George Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara coldly questioned Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton on Friday, going so far to suggest her slain son was responsible for his own death. Fulton had testified that she heard her Martin’s voice screaming for help on a 911 call, and O’Mara suggested that she only said so because she wouldn’t want her son to have been acting badly.“If it was your son, in fact, screaming as you testified, that would suggest that it was Mr. Zimmerman’s fault that led to his death,” O’Mara said to Fulton, “And if it was not your son screaming, if it was, in fact, George Zimmerman then you would have to accept the probability that it was Trayvon Martin that caused his own death, correct?”
“I don’t understand your question,” Fulton replied, “I heard my son screaming.”
Then, O’Mara took it a bit further, saying “You certainly had to hope that was your son screaming even before you heard it, correct?”
“I didn’t hope for anything,” Fulton said, “I just simply listened to the tape.”
O’Mara tried to discredit by saying, “I don’t meant to put you through this any more than necessary, but you certainly would hope your son, Trayvon Martin, did nothing that could have led to his own death, correct?”
“What I hope for is that this wouldn’t have ever happened and he would still be here,” Fulton replied to the callous remark, “That’s my hope.”
O’Mara’s questioning nods to the notion that “Zimmerman’s innocence rests on the notion of Trayvon’s criminality,” Mychal Denzel Smith writes in the Nation, adding that, “And in this country, it’s not that difficult to convince six people of the criminality of a 17-year-old black boy.”