Zimmerman: Part Three, Advice For Watchful Neighborhooders.

Mr. George Zimmerman was not on neighborhood watch duty the night he killed Trayvon Martin. He was driving to the market and saw the youth behaving suspiciously and followed him in his car and lost him and then got out to re-acquire the suspect on foot.  The rest is history.

Some say he shouldn't have followed the youth.  Some say he shouldn't have exited his vehicle. Some say he should have just left it up to the police.

I'm certain that Mr. Zimmerman, looking back, would have done things differently.  But I reject the idea put forth by one side that checking out suspicious behavior in your neighborhood is a bad thing.  There must be a way to be a concerned neighbor without putting yourself or others in danger. 

What this comes down to is both sides misunderstanding the other person's motives.  Martin thought the man following him was a stalker.  Zimmerman thought Martin was casing the neighborhood for a burglary.

The Curse of Noone's Garage

I set up a booby-trap once to surprise the kid sneaking into my garage.  This was years before I got into the security system business.  I lived in a rented house in south-east Portland and kept my supplies and tools in the back of the garage. 

At that time I did repairs for property owners.  The garage was separate from the house, and old and made of wood.  There were windows on the west side and east side, about three feet off the ground.  A lot of the glass was missing so the windows were boarded up.

One afternoon, I noticed sunlight sniggering at me through the pried-off boards of one of the windows.  Someone had entered and skulked about my paint cans and glazing putty.  Nothing was missing, but I was still angry.  I felt desecrated—the ghost of Tutankhamen could not have felt more desecrated, than I.  He had a curse protecting his property, though.  Being not as well versed in the supernatural as he, I had to make do with available materials.