Welcome to Gaia! ::

Of course it's taken lightly, the victim is a 16 year old male. In this case, there's probably only any sort of prosecution because of the involvement of the other male.
The general attitude society has towards this sort of thing is typically "gee, they held you down and she gave you a b*****b and you're upset about it?".

It probably would have been prosecuted the same way if the victim was female.

Rape is notoriously hard to prosecute for both genders, assuming the victim even comes forward, which is already rare. It's too easy for rapists to simply claim that the victim wanted it and is lying about the rape claim afterwards.

It does seem likely the victim is facing more social stigma for coming forward - men have a lower rate of reporting for sexual assault and rape because of just that reason. Hopefully it won't affect the case, if only because statutory rape is much more open and shut.

Well... yeah of course it is. Literally anyone educated on the subject will tell you that.

He stalked the guy, several miles, to his house, followed him around corners, then confronted him and when he started to lose the fight- regardless of whoever started it, which almost all accounts say it was Zimmerman- he then shot him to death.

An unarmed 17 year old died in his own front yard because some lone wacko thought he was a murderer/bank robber/store clerk which, holy balls, you don't have a right to randomly hunt people down unless you actually saw them commit a crime, which he didn't even see anyone commit a crime. He just assumed he was a criminal based on how he looked.

Potential racism and bigotry aside, Zimmerman should have just called the police, and walked away. You only take matters in to your own hands when it's absolutely necessary, a guy walking down the street with skittles in his hands is absolutely a threat to no-one, at that point in time, and unless you have a clear sign of a threat, I.E. a gun, which even that is legal to carry in most places, there's no reason to call the police let alone follow the person.

If someone started following me to my house I'd get pretty creeped out too. I had a guy do it once, and I lost him by getting on to the free way and going super slow. He eventually had to fly past me, but I'm not kidding you, he slowed down right next to me for 10 seconds and I was on a bike. I literally stopped for 10 minutes on my bike and he just sat there, then I started going again, his car started moving. Weird a** s**t. Anyways, that's not an okay thing to do.

Zimmerman problably wasn't evil, but he did have a hero complex, and randomly hunting down the first black dude you see and going, hey mang, how about I shoot him in his own front lawn, is pretty ridiculous.

The reason zimmerman got away was an overzealous prosecutor who accused him of being racist and literally used modified sound bytes in court. They pretty much had to let him go barbecue of that. She was trying to make a name for herself and failed epicly. That's why they should have got him on 3 charges, and went for a lesser one, like manslaughter. Intent is key, and his police phone call made it seem like he genuinely cared. It's not like you call in a hit to the police right before you do it, so it's clearly not like a gang thing or anything, right? But he was a dumbass, and being too much of a dumbass is illegal, hence why drunk driving, negligent manslaughter and the like are illegal.

At the very least he should be in some kind of facility away from society if he thinks you defend people by hunting down 17 year olds to their house and shooting them in chest after losing the fight.