I am not particularly inclined to wade into this matter. It is just a tragic thing, but one that is now in the courts.
I feel for clo's apparent disposition, Z strikes me as a meddling almost maniacal armed dude up to no good, looking for a chance to assert himself as some sort of neighborhood savior. From what I've seen, I hope that such individuals do not end up wearing badges in these United States. But that is just me, and my sources are just tabloids.
M seems to be a kid that, in the absence of senseless tragedy very well may have become a fine young man. Seems he had some issues, nothing crazy IMO (I hold the bar for crazy pretty high based on circumstance) and basically he, his potential, his life was erased largely owing to the meddling badgering by some self-appointed savior.
That said ... FL has laws, among them are gun laws, and among them are stand-your-ground laws, and among all of that on matters of such gravity is the notion of reasonable doubt.
The morality and proclivity that precipitated the events may suck, but they were legal. Advice might have been given to not pursue or follow, but to do so was not criminal. A fight may well have been picked (in some way, perhaps just a jerk-ass 'Hey N***, what are you doing here?) ... but ultimately a physical scrap followed, Z looks to have been losing that scrap, so he shot the guy dead. It seems, to me, that is legal in FL.
I have no plans to move to FL, but it seems to me that reasonable doubt about whether Z feared for his life is solid. That equals aquital. Had we had witnesses to what actually got the physical thing going, it would be different, but we simple don't. If Z had walked up and started pushing, kicking, grabbing M ... then it seems manslaughter is a near lock.
I don't know if manslaughter is a rulin the jury can move down to (at times in some jurisdictions they can do that sort of thing) ... in which case one could see vacating the murder charge, but recognizing that his following-stalking-personally armed-against advice from authority leading to death is more like a manslaughtery type of thing.
He didn't hunt the guy down to kill him, he did a series of behaviors against reasonable judgement (dispatch told him not to do this) negligently in a manner that caused death (one doesn't get into pushing matches or verbal sparring with strangers in the night with a loaded gun on their hip).
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