Prosecution witnesses back Zimmerman

 

In the opening two days of the Florida murder trial for neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, defense attorneys have gotten more good responses from two of the state’s key witnesses than the prosecutors.

Zimmerman is on trial for murder in the second degree in the Sanford, Fla., shooting of Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

Sean Noffke, whose reasoned advice on George Zimmerman’s call to police has made him America’s most famous police dispatcher, testified that Zimmerman didn’t actually disobey an order as reports have portrayed.

Assistant State Attorney John Guy walked Noffke through the mechanics of taking and responding to a call. In the questions that followed Guy’s goal was to imply that Zimmerman exceeded the role of a neighborhood watch coordinator and that he did so with something like vengeance, given that the “f***ing punks” were always getting away.

Guy also hoped to plant the seed that after Zimmerman finished the call with the dispatcher, he set out to hunt Martin down. The suggestion was that by first agreeing to meet the police at the community mailboxes, then at his truck, and then just through phone contact, Zimmerman would have the freedom to roam.

But Guy may have tripped himself up when he asked Noffke why he didn’t order Zimmerman not to follow Martin. As Noffke said, for liability reasons, the dispatcher could not give commands, only suggestions. This essentially put a lie to the myth Zimmerman “disobeyed” the dispatcher.

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