George Zimmerman has charges dropped in assault case – again

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/30/george-zimmerman-no-charges-assault-ex-girlfriend

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Prosecutors have dropped charges against George Zimmerman – again – in another domestic violence case involving a girlfriend of the man who sparked an international debate on race and gun violence after he shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012.

The state attorney’s office of Florida announced on Friday that it would not bring charges against Zimmerman following his arrest earlier this month on reported accusations that he threw a wine bottle at his girlfriend and broke her phone when she tried to break up with him.

This is the second domestic violence case against Zimmerman, 31, that has been brought and then dropped in just over a year, following his controversial acquittal at trial in July 2013 when he was found not guilty of the murder or manslaughter of Martin.

The state attorney issued a statement saying that the girlfriend in question in the latest incident, Brittany Brunelle, had recanted her report of Zimmerman’s alleged violence and also said that she was not scared of him, and therefore it was dropping the case.

Zimmerman was arrested on 9 January by the police in Lake Mary, near Orlando in Seminole County, Florida, for aggravated assault.

Brunelle told the police at the time that she did not want to prosecute, but police arrested Zimmerman anyway, suggesting there could be more violence in the relationship, according to an account of the arrest report in the Orlando Sentinel.

The argument between the couple happened when Brunelle was trying to leave him, according to the police report, and he allegedly threw the bottle at her and broke her cellphone, prompting Brunelle to drive away from Zimmerman’s Lake Mary home.

Prosecutors had to subpoena Brunelle to persuade her to go to the police department to talk about the case.

When she arrived, Brunelle gave the police a statement reportedly denying that Zimmerman had thrown the bottle at her and also that she had never been afraid of him.

In November 2013, Zimmerman was accused of pointing a shotgun at this then-girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, and locking her out of the house.

He was arrested but not charged in that incident. Between the domestic violence cases, Zimmerman was arrested and accused of pointing a gun at a driver during a road rage incident, but that case was also dropped.

Zimmerman was a volunteer neighbourhood watch patrolman in Sanford, Florida, in 2012 when he encountered Martin, walking through a residential gated community and shot him dead.

At trial, he argued that Martin attacked him and that he shot the teenager in self-defence, also bringing in the argument that Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law permitted him to use lethal force in a situation where he feared imminent serious bodily harm or death.

After the decision on Friday not to bring charges, Jeanne Gold, the chief executive of SafeHouse of Seminole, a domestic violence refuge in the county, said she wished the girlfriend had called her before deciding to drop the accusations against Zimmerman.

“We could have kept her safe, we could have given her support, legal advice, information, helped her with a plan. We still could. Even our windows are bulletproof. I’m not surprised this happened but I’m sad, it’s tragic,” she said.

As a former prosecutor herself, Gold said it is tough to bring charges when a witness recants, even though it is possible to bring a case to trial when there is no witness prepared to testify.

There appeared to have been a delay of four days between the incident and Zimmerman being arrested, which hinders the gathering of physical evidence, such as photographs of the aftermath of the incident, Gold said.

“Throwing a bottle at someone is an assault even if it didn’t hit them, just like pointing a gun at someone is an assault. I don’t know why she retracted in this case but these men can be very, very manipulative and controlling and threatening. There is a risk of lethality here,” she said.

Gold said Zimmerman did not seem to be being held to account for his anger issues.

Florida also has laws that allow a prosecution to go ahead if there is a pattern of violent behaviour, even if there has not been a previous conviction.

But domestic violence attorney John Guidry, based in Orlando, whose clients are 90 percent accused men, said that the police are going to arrest Zimmerman whenever he has a simple argument with a girlfriend and “he is a marked man”.

He said the bottle was not necessarily aimed at the woman.

“You are entitled to get angry and break things, that does not constitute criminal conduct, you have to have some intention to hurt the person,” he said.