I know plenty of officers, and been able to see them react under different situations… they are just like you and I. They think and talk just like anyone else. To me if a cop said “you dont need to do that”, probably means I dont need to do that! Only thing I NEED to do, is wake up alive and put food on the table for my family. If someones main reason for existence is anything other than that, they should not be allowed to make “probably” type decisions on their own for such an extreme example as we have here with Zimmerman.
The technicality of the words “dont need to” instead of “stop doing that” can be easily discredited trying to fight the thought process when Zimmerman was told to do so.
-are you an officer?
-are you professionally trained to deal with the situation at hand?
-at the time of being told “you dont need to do that” were you in physical danger or harm? <- Icing on the cake right there.
-at any point could you just return home without taking any actions?
…
To me its very hard to dig yourself out of a hole like hes in here, even with an out like “well you didnt blatantly tell me NOT TO do something”.