How is the acquittal of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate different from acquittal of George Zimmerman? Why is Trump so outraged?
George Zimmerman is a white man (actually, he identified himself as a “white Hispanic”) charged with killing a black teen-age boy. Garcia Zarate is a Mexican man charged with killing a white woman.Zimmerman claimed that he killed Trayvon Martin in self-defense. Garcia Zarate claimed that he never aimed the gun at Kate Steinle and didn’t deliberately fire the fatal shot. Rather, the gun went off by accident and the bullet ricocheted and struck Steinle.Trump is outraged by the verdict because he’s a racist, particularly obsessed with white blonde women being victimized by men of color. Had he been born in the Deep South late in the nineteenth century, he might have joined the Ku Klux Klan, where he would have found kindred spirits. Remember, he took out full-page ads in New York City newspapers demanding the death penalty for the five black and Hispanic men arrested for raping the “Central Park Jogger” before they had even been tried, much less convicted. Even now that DNA evidence has not only exonerated them but identified the real rapist, he continues to insist that the five men are guilty.Garcia Zarate has never been accused of a sex crime, but in Trump’s mind he’s a sexual predator who came to the United States specifically to prey on attractive blondes. This is in keeping with his claim that Mexico “doesn’t send its best people” to the United States, specifically calling Mexicans drug mules and rapists.He also sees the acquittal as a personal affront since he campaigned on an anti-undocumented immigrant platform and promised to build a border wall, which he insists would have kept Garcia Zarate out of the United States. But since Garcia Zarate has repeatedly been deported only to return, he may be more resourceful than Trump gives him credit for.