Whenever the following words appear in a story — George Zimmerman, arrested, domestic violence, weapons — I’m overcome with “shock and oh, brother.”
It’s a “not again!” shock that the killer of Trayvon Martin found himself posing for yet another mug shot.
The “Oh, brother” pretty much explains itself when accompanied by an eye roll, because anyone loosely paying attention to the circus that is Zimmerman’s life saw this coming by a mile.
The “this” this time is the arrest of Zimmerman last week. The lede of the Orlando Sentinel story sums it up: “After allegedly throwing a bottle of wine at his girlfriend Monday, George Zimmerman spent 14 hours in jail this weekend and now faces aggravated assault charges and must surrender all his firearms, officials said.”
Authorities found out what happened when they pulled over Zimmerman’s unidentified girlfriend for a routine traffic stop. According to a statement from Lake Mary, Fla., police spokeswoman Officer Bianca Gillett, “The driver stated she was just involved in a domestic altercation with George Zimmerman.” Zimmerman is out on bond. He’s scheduled to appear in court Feb. 17. Meantime, he must surrender his firearms.
What makes this time different from the others is that there is no dramatic 911 call to dissect.
In September 2013, two months after Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder for killing the unarmed Martin with a single gunshot to the chest nearly three years ago, his now-ex-wife Shellie called the cops on him. She told the 911 dispatcher that Zimmerman was “just threatening all of us with his firearm” and had punched her father in the nose. Zimmerman wasn’t arrested because neither Shellie nor her father pressed charges against him — a decision Shellie told TV host Katie Couric was motivated by concern that she would be jailed.
Then, two months after that run-in, the police were called in November 2013 by Zimmerman’s girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe. While on the line with 911, Scheibe yelled at Zimmerman, “You just broke my glass table, you just broke my sunglasses, and you put your gun in my … face, and told me to get … out!” She later tells the dispatcher, “He just pushed me out of my house and locked me out!”
Evidence of Zimmerman’s messy life was there long before his fatal encounter with Martin. Here’s how I cataloged what we already knew at the time of his second-degree murder trial:
In July 2005, he was arrested for “resisting officer with violence.” The neighborhood watch volunteer who wanted to be a cop got into a scuffle with cops questioning a friend for alleged underage drinking. The charges were reduced and then waived after he entered an alcohol education program. Then in August 2005, Zimmerman’s former fiancee sought a restraining order against him because of domestic violence. Zimmerman sought a restraining order against her in return. Both were granted.
Zimmerman said he did that whole tit-for-tat thing with Scheibe by calling 911 because “I just want everyone to know the truth.”
If people didn’t know the truth about Zimmerman before, they do now. He’s a latter-day O.J. Simpson who is one misguided action away from getting the justice he successfully evaded. After recent events, it’s simply a matter of when.
Washington Post
Jonathan Capehart is a member of the Post editorial board and writes about politics and social issues for the PostPartisan blog.
