While terrorists slaughtered helpless unarmed citizens unable to fight back in Paris, armed Americans on the West Coast listened to trainer of instructors Marty Hayes, completing his lecture program begun the day before.  Then, they heard from a series of survivors.

There was Bob, the jeweler who when a masked thug from Compton burst into his store screaming profane commands and waving a Glock .40 responded by drawing his own Kimber .45 and putting a 230 grain jacketed hollow point into the thug’s chest, fatally ending the encounter. Bob’s description of this incident, along with links to the security camera recording of the shootout, can be found at proarmspodcast.com.   There was John, who used his skills in combatives to keep a fellow vet with PTSD from snatching John’s gun to commit suicide and end his despair.  There was Sherry, who when she was 18 and unarmed endured along with a friend a nightmare ordeal at the hands of an armed rapist.  Miraculously and courageously surviving that, she now walks the path of the armed citizen.

And, capping the day, there was George Zimmerman.9A7A4715

He went through his notorious incident in detail, clarifying many of the points that became confused in the media propaganda blitz that followed. I learned something I hadn’t been aware of until now.

If you read my take on Zimmerman’s trial (here in the blog archives beginning on the day of his acquittal, July 13, 2013 and running for a total of twenty segments), you saw how Benjamin Crump – the attorney for the family of the deceased Trayvon Martin – manipulated the media. I did not know at that time that when Crump won an earlier multi-million dollar lawsuit in the state of Florida, he had received assistance from then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama.  In return, Zimmerman said, Crump had sent a very substantial donation to Obama’s campaign for President.

Hmm.  And then came from President Obama: “If I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon.”

Gosh, Mr. President…if Trayvon had wanted to date one of your daughters, and you had Secret Service check him out first, would you have allowed that date to take place?

The Legal Eagles conference on firearms law, hosted by JB and Glenda Herren, continues for four more days.

19 COMMENTS

  1. “when Crump won an earlier multi-million dollar lawsuit in the state of Florida, he had received assistance from then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama. In return, Zimmerman said, Crump had sent a very substantial donation to Obama’s campaign for President”

    How do we know this is accurate? The political contribution I suppose is a public record but what help did Obama give Trump who was operating in a different state?

  3. Uh… what “assistance” could a local Florida attorney get from an Illinois senator?

    I realize many legal wrangles cross state lines, but I’d like to hear more about that…

  4. TWW and TRX, do you not think it is to your advantage when the President of the United States publicly appears to be an advocate for your side of the court case?

  5. I saw what Obama did with Zimmerman; my question was what Obama could do for Crump when he was a junior senator in a distant state?

  6. Mas, had a question come to mind while watching the video of the Paris attacks. I don’t recall any treatment of it prior.

    If confronted either as LEO or civilian with a protracted engagement how do you maintain weapon (handgun and longgun) control over time? Training that I have seen is low ready to on target for threat etc. But what if it drags on for 20 minutes or a couple of hours ? I am watching cops hanging handgun at their side or resting it on car roof. Rifles are at all sorts of carry arrangement. Watched one guy where it was up then down the up again then down.

    Fatigue has to be a problem. But readiness must be paramount I suspect. Just wondering if you or other trainers address this kindof occurrence. Tks

  7. In that G. Zimmerman gave both immediate and numerous in-depth interviews with police detectives post incident, with no lawyer present, can it be assumed the Legal Eagles used his behavior as an example of what NOT to do after a “use of deadly force” encounter?

    Can the fact that as a result of those police interviews Zimmermann’s entire story was presented as evidence at trial without cross examination, and without major negative consequences, be considered a viable legal strategy or just plain dumb luck on his part?

  8. Benjamin Crump making a donation is confirmed by public record?

    I guess so otherwise Mas wouldn’t have mentioned it.

    But, oh dear. It does look like donations are made in cash and are repaid in favours.

    I also hope that Mr Zimmerman does find peace. As someone once said there are two phases in surviving an lethal force encounter, one is surviving the encounter. The other is surviving the legal aftermath

  9. TWW, TRX,

    Mas probably does not need my assistance, but maybe this will help.

    Benjamin Crump has made a fortune winning lawsuits using a similar tactic each time. This tactic involves contacting the family of African- American “victims” of law enforcement (Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown,Tamir Rice, etc.) , offering his services, then rallying certain “civil rights leaders” to lead “protest marches”, then manipulate the media by feeding them inflammatory, misleading, and even false “evidence”. The media dutifully reports this false narrative, usually resulting in civil unrest. The criminal justice system normally sees through this guise and find the accused innocent, but the local governments will capitulate to multi-million dollar settlements to make the bad publicity go away.

    The involvement of “then Sen. Obama” in Zimmerman’s presentation may be that described in the third paragraph of the following link.

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2012/04/02/trayvon-martin-case-repeats-2006-playbook-for-martin-lee-anderson/

    Hope this is helps.

  10. P.S. to my previous post,

    Attempts to follow up on some reports that Justice Department appointments made later by a newly elected president Obama, that evidently proved to be very beneficial to the 2006 civil suit, were stymied. I can’t find out how they benefited Crump, as all attempts to access those stories came up with “this page is no longer available”, even when the page was local news stories in the hometown Florida newspapers.

    I just hate it when freedom of information seems to be no longer an American right when it might be considered embarrassing to certain protected people.

  13. We know those jihadists wouldn’t have picked seven venues in Texas to attack.

    Like every CCW, I try to game out how I might have reacted in those Paris settings, given whatever info I know. How close would I have to be to take shots with a G30 at three guys with AK’s …ten feet, twenty-five, further? How many bystanders’ lives would I risk to get them? Do I just take the nearby exit and leave the carnage without engaging the gunmen? How fast could I and would make these decisions while facing my own death? That’s in the concert. The restaurant drive by…maybe even sitting in the corner, facing the windows might not have helped me. Lot of training and some luck needed for these situations IMO.

  14. You’re wise to assess the odds, Steve…but while a Glock .45 against 3 armed terrorists doesn’t sound like great odds, remember that a street cop with a Glock .45 prevailed against two armed terrorists in Garland, TX a few months ago. Your odds would be a WHOLE lot better than unarmed helplessness, and the potential murder victims, a/k/a bystanders, would be in far less danger from you than from such terrorists.

  15. Did anyone else notice this line in the article Dennis linked –

    “Celebrities from Cher to Donald Trump have gotten behind Trayvon’s case.”

  16. George, yes, that struck me before anything else in the article. My opinion of Trump has not been significantly great, but now bottomed out.

  17. So much respect for Mas that it pains me to see a picture of George Zimmerman’s smiling face on his blog. His prosecution was unjust and it certainly adversely affected him after, but to me he is nothing but a negative role model for armed citizenship. I see that Mas is very careful not to write anything positive about him here, but I still hate to see this implicit endorsement of him. Maybe if the picture wasn’t there it would be better.

  18. DavidY,

    I doubt anyone disagrees with your disappointment with Zimmerman’s actions post acquittal. In defense of Mas’s coverage of his presentation, much of his mission on this blog is to educate folks on what to expect in the aftermath of a armed confrontation. The pressures that will come and where they might come from.

    Zimmerman made many mistakes in the aftermath of his trial. Were these mistakes made because he was a badly flawed individual to begin with, or because of pressures placed on him that few people have the misfortune to experience? I don’t know. I do appreciate Mas’s reporting on just one more aspect of the motivations of those that might attempt to destroy an armed citizen in a deadly force encounter.

    Zimmerman did some things right, some thing wrong, but he will spend the rest of his life trying to understand why he was attack so mercilessly by certain people in the aftermath of defending his life. He will also spend his life trying to prove those attacks on him as unjustified.

    Thank you Mas, for sharing this tidbit we would never have heard otherwise. I pray that George Zimmerman will one day find the peace he had prior to this life altering event.

  19. Thank you Mas for bringing us some information we would not be seeing anywhere else. Obama is something and does not have all of Americans interests in mind. I did remeber when Trump won that large settlement against those guards and the state corrections department over a youth who had an illness and a questionable case at best. His unruly behavior caused his death along with his preexisting condition. Did not know he gave a chunk of it to Obamas campaign. Well that certainly profited him in future litigations such as Zimmerman and Ferguson.
    This certainly shows the importance of making certain we get the votes out for a conservative and not allow Hillary a chance.

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