There is a huge difference in wanting to make sure that the police officers had a chance to question Martin...
But there is no LEGAL way Zimmerman could have done that. He doesn't have the authority to arrest or detain anyone. Any attempt to do so would be classified as an assault. Essentially, Zimmerman admitted his intention to assault Martin on the streets to keep him from escaping justice for whatever crime Zimmerman imagined he must have committed.
Violence was only his last resort.
He has a history of resorting to violence unnecessarily, both before and after this incident. What makes you think his behavior with Maritn -- a total stranger whom he suspected was a criminal -- would be any more restrained than his behavior towards his own wife?
No, but his "neighborhood watch" training did, and the 911 responder did, and normal common sense does.
And that reason why is this situation, the person you are trying to follow turns around and assaults you.
No. The reason why is, following a person -- especially with a weapon -- could be considered harassment or threatening behavior. Confronting that person -- especially with a weapon -- makes you criminally liable since you are not a police officer and have no authority to confront anyone on private property that isn't your own.
This isn't just for neighborhood watch. Our rules of engagement as armed security guards made two things overwhelmingly clear:
1) We do not have the power to arrest, detain or deter criminals, only to report criminal activity to the proper authorities
2) Our weapons are IMPLIED deterrence, and only to be used in a clear life or death situation such as an active shooter or terrorist threat. It has nothing to do with BEING assaulted. It has to do with the guard/watch person having no real police power and putting themselves in a position to use the powers they don't have would actually make them guilty of criminal behavior.
I can tell you that if I, as an armed guard, saw a suspicious individual loitering around near my building, my duty is to phone the police and tell them there's a suspicious individual, here's his description, here's where I am. I am not to follow him around, I am not to engage him, question him, detain him, or threaten him. Any attempt to do any of those things would result in me being immediately fired and possibly prosecuted.
Here's the thing though: my duty changes if he is trespassing in the building, in which case I am authorized to detain him or throw him out, or at the very least follow him closely to make sure he isn't stealing something or vandalizing something. If George Zimmerman was operating on similar rules of engagement, then seeing Trayvon emerge from private property where he had been hiding would have indicated -- in his racist little mind -- that Trayvon had just finished robbing that house and was about to run for it. He thought he was being a hero and tried to stop him getting away. Instead Trayvon knocked him on his ass for being the meddlesome troublemaker that he was, and Zimmerman murdered him.
Actually all the evidence does point this way
No it doesn't. There is NO evidence that suggests Martin had any intention of confronting Zimmerman, and there is Zimmerman's own words that suggest he was in a confrontational state of mind from the beginning. Zimmerman's character is also evidence: in the years before and since, he has been in violent confrontations multiple times, almost always as the aggressor. Martin has no history of unprovoked aggression against total strangers. Between the two of them, then it is far more likely that the man with the history of violence and the stated intention to commit (what he thought was justified) violence initiated the confrontation than the teenager whose initial actions were purely defensive in nature and has no clear motive to engage him in the first place.
ALL of the evidence points strongly to Zimmerman being the aggressor. Factually speaking, his pursuit of Martin in the first place was an aggressive action.
Martin decided to walk about toward his chaser for no reason.
That depends on where Zimmerman was when Martin spotted him again. If Zimmerman had moved PAST the T when Martin spotted him again, Martin would have had to move TOWARDS the T to get away from him. But that's where Zimmerman decides to stop him from getting away and where the fight breaks out.