The newest descriptions of the killing of young Trayvon Martin remind me of nothing so much as the scene in the movie "Shane" in which the gunfighter Jack Wilson, played with exquisite menace and malevolence by a young Jack Palance, stalks and kills the sodbuster "Stonewall." Wilson took care to make it look like self-defense, but it was murder, simple and premeditated.
In the case of Trayvon, he didn't even have a weapon, unless you count a can of iced tea. George Zimmerman, the newest evidence suggests, stalked him, probably provoking Trayvon to turn, confront him and "threaten" him--perhaps with a lethal squirt of tea?
In the stories I've read about this case, Florida sounds like the Old West of Shane's day, where the law might as well be a three-day horse ride away. In "Shane," the result of that lawless situation was that people resorted to engaging gunfighters. Hope it doesn't come to that in Florida--for George Zimmerman's sake.
I know I'm naive but.....something really, really needs to change. Perhaps a gunfight is not the answer but something needs to cause that paradigm shift.
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