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Commentary: Despite Recanted Stories, Zimmerman’s Behavior Speaks for Itself

George Zimmerman’s girlfriend now says he should not face the assault charges she initially accused him of, but the picture of Trayvon’s shooter grows clearer.

It seems that among George Zimmerman’s ever-expanding claims to fame is an uncanny ability to persuade the various women in his life to recant their accounts of misbehavior and aggression against them.
The latest example came just this week, when Zimmerman’s girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, stated that she doesn’t want charges to be filed against him after all, following his arrest in November. He was arrested on charges of assault and battery after an intensely heated domestic dispute, according to a call from Scheibe at the time.
In that incident, Zimmerman was accused of pointing a gun at his girlfriend after what seemed like a harrowing dispute. He was arrested and released on bail awaiting further courtroom activities next month.
But now, Scheibe is suggesting that the incident was just one big mistake or at least a misunderstanding on the part of the police. "I believe that the police misinterpreted me and that I may have misspoken about certain facts in my statement to the police," she said in a statement. "I do not feel that the arrest report accurately recounts what happened."
That’s not altogether unlike an incident a few months earlier, when Zimmerman got the attention of the police after his estranged wife, Shellie Zimmerman, made an unsettling call to police, complaining that her husband had assaulted her father and threatened the two of them with a gun. She later decided not to press charges, although she subsequently described her ex-husband as behaving “like a monster” and “a ticking time bomb.”
While the two women have since recanted their initial contentions — one of them captured in a recording of a chilling 911 call — there are few who could reasonably believe that Zimmerman is nothing short of a deeply disturbed man who is capable of, well, God knows what.
Enough stories have emerged — recanting not withstanding — that have painted a clear picture of Zimmerman as a man who knows no boundaries in his moments of anger.
For most of Black America this is no surprise whatsoever. And the desire of his ex-wife and girlfriend to somehow wipe the slate clean after some pretty dramatic events rings particularly hollow and, well, lame.
For many who were heartbroken and sickened by last summer’s not-guilty verdict in the second-degree murder trial of the unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman’s post-trial behavior amounts to nothing short of a bittersweet I-Told-You-So moment. It can only be hoped that Zimmerman will one day be restrained in a way that he is no longer a threat to anyone.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of BET Networks. 

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(Photo: Joe Burbank-Pool/Getty Images)

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