How long does it take to find justice?

When people want to bury news, it trickles out on a Friday afternoon.

By the time most of the media has had time to masticate on the magnitude of the topic, it’s Monday morning and the protagonists have spent the weekend consulting a public relations specialist.

This is probably what happened in the case of Gescard Isnora, a former undercover detective with the New York Police Department. Isnora was fired March 23 for his role in the 2006 death of Sean Bell, a 23-year old man who was hanging out with his friends in Queens the night before he was to be married.

Bell’s death made national news when he died that Thanksgiving weekend.

People demanded the immediate arrests of those who shot Bell. Others chanted and marched for justice. Truth be told, many people were disappointed when Isnora and the rest of the officers that shot at Bell were acquitted in 2008.

Sometimes “justice” is not always in a legal sense.

Isnora may be a free man, but his firing means he lost his pension. In a sense his future was taken away just like Bell’s; however, Isnora will have to think about the consequences of his actions while Bell is resting peacefully.

Remember Isnora when donning a hoodie or marching in the name of the late Trayvon Martin.

Martin, a 17-year old Miami resident, was shot Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. when he went out to get a snack and a beverage. The person who admitted to shooting him, George Zimmerman, has yet to be arrested.

It is possible Zimmerman may not be guilty of murdering Trayvon. A grand jury has yet to hear evidence providing probable cause of the 28-year old Zimmerman’s culpability.

Celebrities, journalists and even Barack Hussein Obama II have lined in to comment about the case. In truth, I am no different than Roland Martin or Charles Blow or Jonathan Capehart, except that their platforms are larger.

Of course Martin’s parents deserve answers about what happened to their boy. The rest of us should demand answers of the men and women who passed the 2005 law that is currently used as a redwood crutch of Zimmerman’s defense.

The Orlando Sentinel, who has been out front of this story from the beginning, reported this week that there were on average 13 justifiable homicides per year in Florida from 2000-05. From 2006-10 that average jumped to 36 justified homicides each year.

Arthur Hayhoe, executive director of the Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence told the Tampa Bay Times he’s witnessed a handful of stories like Martin’s. But none of them have received as much attention from the public. "Most of these cases don't go beyond the local paper," he said. "There's been more dialogue in the last three days than we've gotten for seven years.”

I am betting that on the day Trayvon was supposed to celebrate his 18^th birthday, more people in America will be concerned with other things. Unfortunately, it’s likely Martin and Bell will have an additional similarity as it will be forgotten by many except for those who loved him, remembered the incident, or are dedicated news junkies.

However, Friday’s news in the Bell case is a reminder “Justice for Trayvon” might not come when we expect it, but it will come.  Because someone has their freedom, does not mean they are avoiding punishment.

Writing profanity laced e-mails to the Chief of the Sanford Police Department, like one Melbourne Beach man did, or calling for a $10,000 bounty for Zimmerman, as one black organization did, will not douse the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the Martin tragedy. Not even justice can do that.

Only time and consequences can.

What makes one suspicious?

The adult with a gun and the teenager with Skittles got into a scuffle. One of those gentlemen is dead, while the other is claiming self-defense.

How Skittles, a can of iced tea and $22 make someone threatening is a question a jury should decide. Whether George Zimmerman’s peers will have the opportunity to make that decision is still being investigated.

Zimmerman was the head of a Neighborhood Watch organization in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26. Trayvon Martin was a 17-year old fulfilling his younger brother’s request to grab some candy that Sunday evening.

This incident took place in a gated community of an Orlando suburb. Someway, somehow Martin’s presence in this neighborhood was enough to alarm Zimmerman to call police on a non-emergency telephone number.

Per various media reports, by the time police arrived, Martin was shot once and Zimmerman had blood coming from his nose and head.

It’s interesting that Martin was thinking about someone in the moments before he died. Maybe that was why his actions were suspicious. Who thinks about others these days, when it’s more convenient to think about ourselves?

Maybe Zimmerman’s defense of his actions will combine Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law with a quote from Malcom X. “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone, but if someone puts his hands on you, send him to the cemetery.”

The investigation is ongoing and should be complete in the next week. However, that did not stop the Martin family from hiring a pair of attorney’s and taking their case to the media. Ben Crump, one of two attorneys the Martin family hired, said race is the 600 pound elephant in the room because Zimmerman is white and Martin was black

I beg to differ: the “elephant in the room” is what makes someone look suspicious or threatening? Honestly, ask yourself that question.

Have we become so cloistered that something that if anything is amiss it’s automatically cause to feel threatened?

Could it be someone’s complexion? Maybe, their religion? How about their socio-economic status? Then again, their syntax could be off. And don’t forget people who appearance doesn’t fit our haughty standers of the norm.

Yes, all of those imperfections, and others, must be so threatening that rather than attempt to understand those differences we shutter in fear!

German philosopher Hermann Hesse said it better “if you hate a person you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”

One could speculate and say Martin probably didn’t fit the mold of non-threatening Negro, which is why Zimmerman shot him. But that wouldn’t make me any better than the people who are hoping the law can be contorted to convict the 28-year-old Zimmerman before his day in court.

Admittedly, the timing of the incident was not lost on me. That same night a heavily tattooed, uneducated black man was running riot in downtown Orlando. But, no one found LeBron James’ presence at the NBA All-Star game all that suspicious.

Maybe that isn’t a good analogy because, if nothing else, the Zimmerman incident illustrates the consequences of inadvertent stereotyping.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb