Florida SYG Task Force Final Report

[NETim]

http://www.flgov.com/citizensafety/

[Palmguy]

The creation of the task force was ridiculous, in my opinion, but I am at least glad to see their primary finding:


1. The Task Force concurs with the core belief that all persons, regardless of
citizenship status, have a right to feel safe and secure in our state. To that
end, all persons who are conducting themselves in a lawful manner have a
fundamental right to stand their ground and defend themselves from attack
with proportionate force in every place they have a lawful right to be.

Don't really care for point 5 myself, the section of the statute that they are discussing is not ambiguous as they claim it is. This is here because a bunch of people were pissed off that Zimmerman was not arrested immediately (as if that means that LE can not investigate). I don't see what is so controversial that to arrest someone, there must be probable cause that the use of force was not lawful:


776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of
force.—
(1) A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified
in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such
force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined
in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer
identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force
knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used
in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and
charging or prosecuting the defendant.
(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of
force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force
unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.

[PPGMD]

Don't really care for point 5 myself, the section of the statute that they are discussing is not ambiguous as they claim it is. This is here because a bunch of people were pissed off that Zimmerman was not arrested immediately (as if that means that LE can not investigate). I don't see what is so controversial that to arrest someone, there must be probable cause that the use of force was not lawful:

The claimed problem with that statue revolves around the idea that the police showed up, saw an uninjured white guy, and the dead black boy seen in his before puberty picture. And simply said good job and left.

Here is my problem with that claim, Zimmerman was taken into custody, and questioned. They simply didn't find enough evidence to arrest him that night. And the ADA looked at it, and also decided that there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute.