Expert: Zimmerman whispered 'punks'

[Go Vols]

Thu April 5, 2012

Sanford, Florida (CNN) -- A forensic audio expert who analyzed 911 recordings disagrees with speculation that George Zimmerman uttered a racial slur moments before shooting Trayvon Martin to death.

What the neighborhood watch volunteer whispered as he followed the teen leading up to the deadly confrontation could weigh into the decision about charges against Zimmerman.

The garbled word that raised controversy was "punks," not the racial slur some people said they heard, said Tom Owen, chairman emeritus of the American Board of Recorded Evidence.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/05/justice/florida-teen-shooting/index.html

[DearAbby]

1. So it was Pooooons I heard?

how do you get "unks" from the " Khoooo nz" I heard?

[rufus dog]

32. no shit!

Yo Vols, you smell like TROLL!

[Art_from_Ark]

33. Wait a minute-- I thought it was "goons"

A term of "endearment"!

[HangOnKids]

2. Tom Owen Is A Lying Sack Of Crap

Next they'll be claiming Zimmerman was actually singing Ava Maria!

[lacrew]

4. Wait a minute

Owen is also the consultant who stated the yelling for help was not Zimmerman.

This is what is so infuriating about this case...Owen's credibility is judged on the basis of whether or not his analysis fits one side or another. A few days ago, the pro-Zimmerman crowd hated him; and, he was the darling of the pro-Martin crowd. Now his a lying sack of crap?

I'm in the pro-I dunno what happened until real evidence comes out in court and not through idiot journalists crowd, btw.

[ZombieHorde]

19. "Owen's credibility is judged on the basis of whether or not his analysis fits one side or another"

Exactly. Some people on "both sides" are being illogical, in my opinion.

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. I respect your position

If only the pro-I dunno what happened until real evidence comes out in court and not through idiot journalists crowd didn't overlap so much with the but I'm pretty sure the n*gger got what was coming to him crowd. I'm sure you're in that slice of the Venn diagram that represents the former without including the latter, though.

[Spazito]

3. The battle of the experts begins...

What is unclear to me is whether Mr. Owen was asked for his analysis or volunteered it unasked. If asked, then by whom? If not, well, that's interesting.

The two other forensic audio experts were, as was clearly stated, asked by the Orlando Sentinel to provide their expertise.

The experts who will actually have influence will be those who are hired by the State and the defense, assuming of course, the case goes to trial.

[Fawke Em]

5. Owen is also the man who confirmed the screams

were not from Zimmerman.

I think he's just trying to be as honest as he can.

Whether Zimmerman said "coons" or "punks" doesn't negate that he:

A. Called into police to report suspicious people at least five of seven times and every time, those "suspicious" people happened to be black.
B. Chased down an unarmed teenager after the police department requested he "not do that."
C. Had little to no blood evidence on him that would support his testimony to police that he shot Trayvon while the teenager was on top of him. You can't shoot a weapon up, hit the chest (where the heart and A LOT of blood are located) and not get splattered with liters of blood.

Just my opinion.

[PotatoChip]

6. +1

That is pretty much what I came here to post, but you said it far better. Thanks

Edit: The only thing I'd add to your list is that Zimmerman himself does not deny that he shot dead a 17 year old.

[Kaleva]

11. 'C' is iffy

I've hunted and shot deer in the chest. If they die immediately, there is often very little blood. If they live for a bit and the heart keeps pumping, then there can be quite a bit of blood.

Trayvon was shot in the chest but the police found him face down. Witnesses said they saw one man on top of the other. Zimmerman, if he was on top, could have shot Trayvon in the chest, got up and rolled Trayvon over or Trayvon could have rolled over himself after Zimmerman got off of him and then he died.

[Fawke Em]

17. You shot deer point blank while they were on top of you?

I was a police reporter for 10 years. While I'll admit I've never been a hunter, my father and grandfather where. The only blood they ever got on them was when they were cleaning the game for meat.

And, you're correct. If Zimmerman was on top, he could have shot him with minimal blood splatter, but that would negate his contention that Trayvon was on top, beating the hell out him.

[Kaleva]

18. No, I described the differences in the amount of blood bled out...

after I had shot the deer in the chest area (with a rifle). It depended. Some had bloody fatal wounds which were easy to see and others one had to search to find where the entry wound was.

Just because Zimmerman had no blood splatter on him doesn't mean that Trayvon wasn't on top of him when he was shot by Zimmerman.

[Fawke Em]

20. Um... people aren't deer.

We bleed out at a far faster rate, mainly because we have less hide and muscles.

Edited: We're animals, but we aren't "wild." Trayvon was in slim shape, but he still has a smaller ribcage and chest than any deer.

[Kaleva]

21. Well, we could debate this till whenever...

but two witnesses said the guy wearing red (Zimmerman was wearing a red as seen in the video of him arriving at the police station) was on the bottom.

[Fawke Em]

28. We could, but he still wasn't wearing

reddish brown and had on an undershirt, which decidedly isn't red or brown.

[Kaleva]

29. It was dark and raining.

One lady who called 911 said the person on top was wearing white.

[Fawke Em]

31. Yes... and no one was.

And... your point is?

[Kaleva]

34. Unless the woman mistook the grey hoodie for being white in the darkness & rain.

She might have assumed the hoodie was white but the darkness made it appear gray which it actually was. Another witness said the bigger man was on top. Did he mean taller? I don't know but Trayvon was taller then Zimmerman.

[Fawke Em]

35. Unless the woman mistook the grey T-shirt Zimmerman had on.

It goes both ways.

Everyone's point is that there should have been an arrest and let this shit come out in court. Isn't that justice?

[indepat]

7. So Zimmerman taught that little black punk child a good lesson according to a legion

of supporters who could not agree more that Zimmerman's actions of shooting an unarmed child was justified and just hunky-dory. Just how sick is the mindset of so many?

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. Well, you *do* know that the "assholes" always get away, don't you?

If you plant corn, you get corn, after all. It is what it is, you understand?

Zimmerman supporters are just pointing out the obvious: even if this particular "asshole" wasn't a criminal, he might have been, and probably would be, and really, with the hoodies and the baggy pants, don't they are really kinda look the same? They always get away. Plant corn, get corn. Wise up. It's just political correctness that's preventing you from saying that most of them act the same way, so if one gets shot because of the others once in a while, well, it is what it is, am I right?



It's shocking that the sarcasm tag is necessary in this case, but it is.

[Lucy Goosey]

8. To me, the most telling thing is that he pluralized it.

What I mean is that when Zimmerman said "these assholes always get away" and "fucking coons/punks," plural, he pretty much betrayed the fact that he didn't see Martin as a person who was an immediate threat to Zimmerman himself; he saw Martin as one of "them," a symbol, other, a generic thug/punk/coon/whatever. Interchangeable; might as well shoot this one to teach the others a lesson.

I mean, if Zimmerman thought of Martin as a human rather than as a symbol for everything that's wrong with the system or whatever, he would have said something like "he's getting away" instead of "these assholes alway get away"? Was Zimmerman talking to the 911 dispatcher about one person or about every black person he believed had ever committed a crime in the neighbourhood.

I'm ranting a bit, not too sure this is very articulate - am I making any sense here?

[JDPriestly]

10. Yes. When we choose to hate something, we seek to distance ourself from its reality.

We try to objectify it -- view it as one of a category of things we hate.

Those others -- the enemy -- the evil-doers.

We believe that we are free to hate those who cannot possibly share our humanity.

It is not natural to want to kill another human, so we make ourselves believe that the other person is an object. It is because of this trait in us that the legitimacy defense of self-defense has to be carefully and objectively considered by a court. The person claiming self-defense will virtually always believe that his killing that other person-thing was justified.

That is also why modern warfare is so devastating. Dropping bombs from airplanes (or using the plane as a weapon) or attacking with drones is much easier than facing another soldier in a trench. In modern warfare, the "other" is just an anonymous object on which you are dropping another object. The superior military power makes the act of killing as impersonal and certain as possible.

If I remember correctly, Jean-Paul Sartre warned us about this.

[AtomicKitten]

9. Not even close. At least Joe Oliver's "fucking goon" was in the ballpark of sound-alike.

[pokerfan]

12. Dubious (a polite way of saying he's full of shit)

On the raw audio I clearly hear a k sound followed by an ooo sound and ending with an s sound. Dont see how it could be punks (puhngk). Team Z has gone from goons to cold to punks? Whats next? Fucking rain? Fucking dark? How about fucking sidewalks?

[JoeyT]

13. After listening to the audio very carefully,

I'm convinced he said "Coconut macaroons".

If he hadn't said "coons", his defenders wouldn't have been insisting on things that either ended in oon or started with a k sound.

[marshall]

14. Isn't punk a homophobic slur?

Either way, a slur is a slur.

[butterfly77]

15. Last night..

on CNN I thought i heard them trying to say Zimmerman was saying fucking cold or it may have been his father,because they were saying it was raining and it was cold. All of it is bullshit he said fucking coons..

[fascisthunter]

16. as if it matters

he's fucked. The system itself will hang him out to dry, because this thing will get ugly if he does not go to court.

[Zax2me]

22. Too late now - people have made up minds attack was racially motivated

The truth about what he actually said won't matter.

[Brigid]

24. Even if Mr. Owen is right . . .

That still doesn't mitigate the horror of what Zimmerman did. And the element of racism is still there.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. This would matter if one person could explain to me how Trayvon Martin was acting like a "punk"

Just as a reminder for the Zimmerman Fan Club, the young Mr. Martin was walking down the street on his way back to a place where he was legally visiting, and had some candy and an ice tea.

Oh, I get it, if he didn't say "coon" but the more general "punk," then it wasn't racially motivated, or something. Whatever. Trayvon Martin was walking down the street minding his own business. The transformation from regular dude walking down the street to "fucking punk" goes by way of "coon" in this case, and everybody here knows it. You don't get from point A to point B without a little drive through Coonville in the racial imaginary.

[Go Vols]

27. .

Put your cursor on the bar and keep clicking at 0:07.I hear the same thing I did the first time weeks ago."fucking punks"

[ohheckyeah]

30. That's not what it sounds like to me; however,

here is what we do know:

Martin was walking through the neighborhood,talking to his girlfriend on the phone. Zimmerman, who was either going to the store or on neighborhood watch "patrol" spotted Martin and called 9/11 reporting Martin as suspicious because he was just looking around. Zimmerman was armed, against neighborhood watch regulations, and told 911 he was following Martin. 911 operator told Zimmerman he didn't need to follow Martin.

At some point the two met face to face. Zimmerman was armed with a gun....Martin was "armed" with Skittles, a cell phone and an Arizona Iced Tea.

Zimmerman claims he feared for his life - we aren't sure whether it was the cell phone, Skittles or Iced Tea that was the threat to Zimmerman. One would think that it certainly wasn't the smaller Martin who presented a lethal threat that would cause Zimmerman to need to use a gun to "defend" himself.

My guess is it was the Skittles that set Zimmerman off.

Seriously - we're never, ever going to get a full and truthful account of what happened that night. If Zimmerman did in fact say "punks" I want my money back for the last hearing test I had because I was informed I had better than average hearing and it sure doesn't sound like punks to me.

[uppityperson]

36. How do you walk not looking around? I don't understand that bit.

Walking and "just looking around" is suspicious? Maybe walking with a scarf tied around your eyes is better, or walking with your eyes shut? Maybe he should have been crawling? Skipping? Eyes rolled up to the sky?

[ohheckyeah]

38. I know - it's just

stupid. Remember Zimmerman said Martin "must be on drugs or something". I'm not sure what that assessment was based on either.

[johnlucas]

37. Tom Owen is full of shit. It was clear what Zimmerman said & it explains his motives.

They're trying to water down the case against Zimmerman in the media.

Zimmerman said...
First word: Rhymes with Ducking. Replace 'D' with 'F'
Second word: Raccoons minus the initial 'Rac'. It's an old slur against Black people.

That combination of words explains his paranoia of Black people.
That paranoia of Black people explains why he DIDN'T heed the warning not to follow Trayvon Martin, a Black person.
That failure to heed combined with his paranoia of Black people is why he hunted this Black boy & ultimately murdered him.

Every day George Zimmerman walks free is another day injustice & the disrespect of Trayvon Martin's life goes on.
I want to see this man behind bars in April. ARREST HIM!!! He is a MURDERER!!!
Black life is not worthless & he will NOT get away with this.
John Lucas