90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, September 9, 2019

The Trayvon Hoax That Divided America Is About to Be Exposed

On Monday. September 16, Joel Gilbert will preview his new documentary, “The Trayvon Hoax,” in the 500-seat Ballroom of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The screening begins at 1 p.m. Admission is free, and Gilbert is encouraging all interested parties to come see for themselves what could be a game-changer in the way the media report racially-charged news. Gilbert’s findings are that significant.

Having written a book on the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin — If I Had a Son-- I have been following Gilbert’s progress with interest. In fact, I introduced Gilbert to George Zimmerman, the man who shot Martin. Those who have followed the case know that not since the Scottsboro boys has any ordinary citizen endured the kind of malicious and conspicuously false reporting Zimmerman has. My hope was that Gilbert would set the record straight.

Gilbert has done that and more. In the course of his relentless research into the shooting and subsequent trial, I can say without risk of overstatement that he has unearthed a legal fraud the likes of which I know no parallel. Not only has Gilbert discovered it, but he has also proved it six ways from Sunday, including DNA and handwriting analysis.

If I were Trayvon Martin’s parents or his family’s attorneys, I would be very nervous right now. If I were Florida state attorneys who prosecuted the case, I would be more nervous still. And if I were the media who covered this case — are you listening Matt Gutman and Lisa Bloom? — I would prepare to be mortified. The coverage of this case was a disgrace from day one.

To uncover this staggering fraud, Gilbert did what reporters used to do. He immersed himself in the milieu that produced Trayvon Martin. He mastered the patois of urban black Miami. He reviewed the thousands of text messages, tweets, Facebook and Instagram postings sent and received by Martin and his friends. He interviewed George Zimmerman and heard, from the only person who knew, Martin’s final words, words that revealed the cause of Martin’s tragic downward spiral.

Gilbert did some serious shoe leather reporting as well. He visited all the relevant Miami-area high schools, the neighborhoods where Martin and his friends hung out, the streets of Miami’s Little Haiti, and the town community where Martin died.

At the end of his research, Gilbert knew Trayvon Martin better than his parents did, literally. As their deposition revealed, they had no idea how Martin’s life had descended into a violent mix of street fighting, guns, drugs, burglary, and sex. Although both parents made good incomes, their separate lives created an abyss where...

Should women be permitted to protect their own bodies? Or should they be forced to passively endure an attack until an authorized protector from the government can ride to their rescue?
On September 3, Lachelle Hudgins wounded a robber who had attempted to steal her purse. While the mainstream media pan the attack as an overreaction to an attempted purse-snatching, Hudgins, who was there, saw it differently.

According to the video recorded by a local ABC reporter, five attackers approached her car in the wee hours of the morning. How was she to know the attack would end with only a stolen purse? “With so many men surrounding her car and trying to get in the car, she did the only thing she could think to do. She reached in her purse for her gun.” Hudgins said of the incident, “I saved my life.”

In all the current hysteria to “buy back” (translation: “confiscate”) guns, we should not overlook this question: Should women be permitted to protect their own bodies? Or should they be forced to passively endure an attack until an authorized protector from the government can ride to their rescue?

I can reasonably assume Ronnie Preyer’s opinion: He’s against women being armed. Or he would be if this serial rapist wasn’t shot to death by a Cape Girardeau woman fighting to protect her body from his attack. After Preyer raped her the first time, she dutifully called the police. A few days later, he returned to attack her a second time. This time, instead of a phone, she used a gun to protect herself.

Ricky Wright would likely join calls for sensible gun control after being shot in the face by Michelle Booker when he attempted to steal her car and drive off with her children inside. Justin Martin, were he alive, would also likely join the chorus for gun control, after being shot trying to invade the home of an 18-year-old woman with her new baby. Go mama bear! A 70-year-old grandmother in Philadelphia created yet another gun-control advocate when she wounded a 43-year-old home invader trying to...