George Zimmerman's wife arrested, charged with perjury

Seminole County jail mugshots of George Zimmerman
and his wife, Shellie Zimmerman. (Seminole County
jail, Seminole County jail / June 12, 2012)

By Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel

10:01 p.m. EDT, June 12, 2012

At her husband's bond hearing, Shellie Zimmerman was asked repeatedly about money. Among the questions: How much did the couple collect in donations through George Zimmerman's website?
"Currently, I do not know," Shellie Zimmerman replied. She and other family members described their financial situation as dire. Judge Kenneth Lester granted George Zimmerman $150,000 bond on the second-degree-murder charge he faces in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

But prosecutors say Shellie Zimmerman spent the days before that April hearing shifting tens of thousands of dollars out of her husband's account, then deliberately lied to the judge.

On Tuesday, she was arrested on a perjury charge and booked into John E. Polk Correctional Facility. It's the same jail her husband has called home since the deception was revealed earlier this month, leading the judge to revoke his bond.

"The prosecutor sent a strong message that you have to tell the truth in court because it is the whole basis of the American judicial system," said Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Trayvon's family, after learning of the new arrest.

In an affidavit, prosecutors revealed new details about Shellie Zimmerman's alleged efforts to hide money from the court.  READ MORE

Murder charge is filed in killing of Trayvon Martin

Prosecutor Angela Corey announces a second-degree
murder charge against George Zimmerman. (Gary W.
Green, Orlando Sentinel / April 11, 2012)

George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times

April 11, 2012, 5:25 p.m.

SANFORD, Fla. — For weeks, protesters around the nation have demanded the arrest of George Zimmerman.

A Florida special prosecutor made that happen Wednesday. She announced that Zimmerman — the neighborhood watch volunteer who admitted to fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager on a rainy night here in February — had turned himself in and would be charged with second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

"We did not come to this decision lightly," said Florida State Atty. Angela Corey at a news conference in Jacksonville.

Alluding to the intense publicity surrounding the case, she added, "Let me emphasize that we do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition."

Corey declined to discuss the details of the investigation that led her office to charge Zimmerman, who had claimed self-defense — and who had been free, though in hiding, for weeks. Nor would she say where he was being held, "for his safety as well as for everyone else's safety."  READ MORE

The US schools with their own police

Texas is a huge state. There are 1229 Independent
School Districts (ISDs) and Charter Schools in Texas
serving over 4 million students.READ MORE

January 9, 2012, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers) More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor.

Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle [school] has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons.

Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school.

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later. "We've taken childhood behaviour and made it criminal," said Kady Simpkins, a lawyer.

"They're kids." The very young are not spared. Texas records show more than 1,000 tickets were issued to primary schoolchildren over the past six years . Note: For a long list of bizarre arrests of children, for behavior not at all unusual, that have been reported in the mainstream media, click here.