The Times had a good article...

...the other day about the Trayvon Martin case, "Race, Tragedy and Outrage Collide After a Shot in Florida," and a companion piece, "The Events Leading to the Shooting of Trayvon Martin." 

Here's a very brief combined excerpt (my emphasis):

Last August, the homeowners association decided to create a neighborhood watch, and a Sanford police official came to the Retreat to explain the guidelines: volunteers do not possess police powers; they should not be armed; and they should be the eyes and ears for the police — but not vigilantes.

The group chose as its neighborhood watch coordinator the very man who had invited the official to speak: a man with thinning dark hair and an average build named George Zimmerman. The next month, the newsletter for the homeowners association included a cartoon of a man peering through a magnifying glass, à la Sherlock Holmes, next to a call for help: “We have recently experienced an increased incidence of crime within the community, including three break-ins in the past month, which is why having residents committed to being members of the Neighborhood Watch and reporting suspicious activities is so important. We must send a message that we will not tolerate this in our community!”

To get involved, the newsletter said, “Call George Zimmerman.”

___

Zimmerman Calls 911 Around 7:10 p.m. Mr. Zimmerman tells an emergency dispatcher that he sees a “suspicious guy” near the clubhouse. “This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something,” he said. “It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”

Zimmerman Follows Trayvon A couple of minutes later, Mr. Zimmerman tells the dispatcher that the guy is running toward the back entrance. The dispatcher asks Mr. Zimmerman if he is following him. When Mr. Zimmerman says yes, the dispatcher says, “O.K., we don’t need you to do that.”

Mr. Zimmerman told the dispatcher that the hooded figure was now running. He jumped out of his car to follow him, the beep-beep of his car, as recorded on the 911 call, announcing the instant that he moved beyond his understood mandate as neighborhood watch coordinator.

The wind could be heard whooshing through Mr. Zimmerman’s cellphone as he tried to keep the visitor in view. Also heard is a garbled epithet that some have interpreted to be a racial slur, though his father insisted that his son would never say anything like that. Dispatcher: “Are you following him?”

Mr. Zimmerman: “Yeah.”

Dispatcher: “O.K., we don’t need you to do that.”

Mr. Zimmerman: “O.K.”

He and the dispatcher arranged for Mr. Zimmerman to meet a police officer near the mailboxes at the development’s clubhouse, and the call ended with a “thank you” and a “you’re welcome.”

___

The Sanford police have said that once Mr. Zimmerman declared that he had shot Trayvon in the chest in self-defense, they were barred from arresting him by the state’s now-famous Stand Your Ground law, the broadest protection of self-defense in the country. It immediately requires law enforcement officials to prove that a suspect did not act in self-defense, and sets the case on a slow track.

So here's my take, in a nutshell: Whatever else happened, George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin against the instructions of the 911 dispatcher, got out of his car with a loaded weapon and shot Martin to death. All of that was avoidable and unnecessary.

Now a 17 year-old kid is dead. 

Isn't that reason enough to arrest Zimmerman?