Redditors agree: a recently leaked video that shows George Zimmerman on the night he was cuffed by police for shooting Travyon Martin disproves Zimmerman’s side of the story.
What’s beyond dispute is that on February 28th, Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman wasn’t initially charged with murder, and he claimed self defense—saying that Martin attacked him, shoved him to the ground and broken his nose. A police report from that night states that his jacket had grass stains from when Martin shoved Zimmerman to the ground.
But on the social news site Reddit, users went full-scale CSI on the video, dissecting it with painstaking details and noting plenty of details that seem to refute Zimmerman’s account.
“No cuts to the back of the head, no visible bruises, and no bloody nose,” wrote redditor americanpegasus.
A user who claimed to be a former EMT agreed, saying there are “lots of small blood vessels close to the skin in the head, face, nose,” meaning that “even minor injuries to them can bleed profusely.”
EbonicPlague posted a still from the video that might defend Zimmerman: a dark spot on his head appears to be a wound.
But another redditor seemed to refute that with a collection of stills that show the same spot from different angles, implying the dark spot is simply a shadow.
“In all the shots it is incredibly clear that his head is uninjured,” wrote itsaheadlumpyouninny. “The last shot shows that the possible injury you have shown is a shadow.”
Many users thought the video disproves Zimmerman’s claim of a broken nose.
“He would have black eyes visible from the moon,” noted DisproportionateRage.
“[H]e isn’t breathing through his mouth and isn’t walking with his head back,” added relax_live_longer.
One redditor found at least one detail that could corroborate Zimmerman’s claim of grass stains on his jacket after Martin purportedly knocked him down.
“If you observe at 0:35 one of the officers kind of does a quick run through Zimmerman’s jacket,” UdonUdon wrote. “After the officer pats the back of the jacket you can see him rubbing his fingers together like something is on it, and then he tries to rub it off with the back of his pants.”
But that idea was quickly refuted.
“At 1:05, [Zimmerman] faces squarely away from the camera,” agrey responded. “There are no signs of anything streaking or staining his very red jacket.”
What seems to be the most damning evidence against Zimmerman came from a redditor who seems to watch a lot of police procedurals on TV.
“one important thing to notice: the police are not wearing any type of gloves,” added quikjl. “they ALWAYS wear gloves when dealing with someone bleeding or leaking any type of body fluid.”
“You need to give that argument to the Martins’ lawyers. Thats a damn good observation and could build a reasonable claim with that,” wrote Remerez. “Especially if they cross questioned the police in the video and got a medical report, this fucker is gone for good.”
Screengrab from YouTube