The operator is being polite and non-confrontational, as I'd imagine people in that position are trained to be, but if I were in that situation and someone associated with law enforcement said that to me in that tone, I would not take it as a mere "suggestion"; the operator was not happy with Zimmerman following the suspect and didn't want him to. Getting the words precisely right is difficult, but I think it could be fairly said the operator advised him not to follow him.

In my defense, I'll point out I also resisted when people argued that the video clearly showed he had no wounds. On another blog that I typically like, I warned the blogger he was getting into tin foil hat territory when he argued the video showed there were no wounds and therefore a police officer filed a false report and that he didn't think Zimmerman had ever really received first aid as stated in the report. I've also been skeptical of people who declare they can hear with certainty what Zimmerman said under his breath, when it just sounds garbled to me. I'm even beginning to suspect I can't necessarily trust an expert who says he's done such and such a test and has concluded with a high degree of certainty the voice screaming isn't Zimmerman.

One day, ABC news broadcast this video and declared there was no evidence of any wounds. A few days later, they show the same video, and say there's evidence of two gashes. .. or marks. .. or something. The only conclusion I've come to with any degree of certainty is that I cannot trust ABC news.

If a medical doctor or some expert in a relevant field who seems to know what they're talking about, or even my old friend who I haven't seen in years who specializes in image processing for a living, says oh yes that looks like a pair of such and such wounds, it looks like they've been treated with medical glue, they're typical of . .  then I'll sit up and take notice. But until then, I don't know what either that video or that still photo proves.

And just to point out, you and others have been rightly cautioning people against leaping to conclusions, and bearing in mind what we do and do not know. This is a laudable goal; a great deal of this case for me has been learning one thing after another that later turns out not be true. I've learned I really have to be skeptical about what I hear from both sides of the debate. But then if you're going to encourage people to resist jumping to conclusions, you should be consistent in that, and support them whether the conclusions they are resisting jumping to are ones you share or not.

Not being a defense attorney, I'm not inclined to be particularly sympathetic to Zimmerman, but geez, can't we manage to base our personal judgments on facts rather than rumor and speculation and some sense of fair play?

And since crime data is kept by the FBI and other jurisdictions and they make a distinction , I guess it's fair to ask what do they know as well, especially as there is a difference between white on black crime and Hispanic on bkack crime.

In a second incident,  he and his ex-fiance each filed for civil restraining orders against the other. Both requests were granted. There were no criminal charges or convictions.

Forensic enhancement wasn't needed. As I showed here, the injuries were noticeable from ABC's original footage.

776.041 Use of force by aggressor.--The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

Does that mean that if Zimmerman were have found to have "provoked" the confrontation (whatever that means), then stand your ground would no longer apply unless he reasonably believed he was in danger of great bodily harm or had clearly indicated he wanted to withdraw from the confrontation?

One of your comments was quite long. Since you spent a lot of time writing it, I saved it and can email it to you if you'd like.

He says "these a**holes always get away" way before they told him to stop following him. He says OK to that order and apparently momentarily stops and we don't know if he continued to pursue him after that since there isn't any public evidence that shows he did. People who assume he did are just using speculative reasoning.

And I agree that some of those unknowns are only tangentially relevant to Zimmerman's guilt in the case. My point was that many in the media are acting like they KNOW the answers to these questions, when we obviously don't know. Many have assumed that Zimmerman felt he was suspicious because he was black and wearing a hoodie (which paints him as a racist), and this goes against the primary reason Zimmerman said on the 9/11 tape, which was that he looked like he was on drugs.

1.    Claiming the "admittted and transcripted facts" are that "it was Zimmerman who continued to pursue and confront Martin after having done so for some period prior to the call." ho confronted whom is disputed and what happened and for how long prior to the call is not a fact.

2. Claiming Zimmerman carried & displayed a loaded firearm. The displayed part is disputed. He says it became visible while Trayvon was on top of him beating him

4.  Claiming Zimmerman provoked Martin: this is disputed

5.  Claiming Zimmerman's version is "ludicrous" and "nonsense." That is opinion and not factual.

6.    Mistating the law on self-defense and stand my ground, especially as to burden of proof.

Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah
Dispatcher: Ok, we don't need you to do that.
Zimmerman: Ok

There is nothing in the transcript that proves he continued to follow Travon after that.

If you listen to the call, you can hear him get out of his car which happens right after the dispatcher asks him " He's running? Which way is he running?" He may have gotten out of his car to see which way he was running. He then answers "Down towards the other entrance to the neighborhood." The dispatcher then asks "Which entrance is that that he's heading towards?" After he answers is when he's asked if he's following him and when he says "yeah" is told he doesn't need to do that. This entire exchange took about 15 seconds on the tape.