"arrest" vs. "charge"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/3/2012 09:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>BTW, the original photos of Martin, from his family's lawyer, were taken
>when he was 14 or 15.  Recent photos show that he was a big guy for a
>17-year-old. None of that, of course, is relevant to the case, only to
>the emotions surrounding it.

Not especially "big" for a mid- to late-teenager these days, I think
-- six foot or six-one, according to a "police incident report"
[perhaps Zimmerman was "incidented"?] and the family
respectively.   What do high school basketball players run?  And not
husky -- The police say 160 pounds, the family 150; in the early days
I heard 140, but perhaps that was presumed from the younger picture.

Outweighed by Zimmerman, who varies between 190 pounds (family
friend) to 250 pounds (a 2005 police report, although he doesn't look
that heavy in the video) to unstated (the current "incident").

One wonders whether the 2012 police have increased Martin's weight
and elided Zimmerman's to make the story that Martin knocked
Zimmerman to the ground more plausible.  But then I have a suspicious
nature.  (For example, why, when Zimmerman was being brought to the
police station, did one of the officer twice look at the back of his
head?  To make sure that a faked injury -- perhaps one staged in the
preceding half hour -- would seem true, supporting a claim of self-defense?)

Numbers from http://tinyurl.com/6soceca   or
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/south/view/20120403facts_vs_rumors_in_the_trayvon_martin_saga/srvc=home&position=recent


While the Boston Herald is not my choice for paper of record (it's
remarkable how few libraries in the Boston area keep its files), I
would not mistrust the data here, particularly for the police report.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org