I have purposely avoided this incident like the plague. It is just a terrible, terrible story from all angles. My goodness, how can almost anyone comment on this story without making comments that are not seen as dangerous, insensitive, racist, uninformed, biased or a host of other things.

To think of watching a teen child walk out a door to go someplace and then get a phone call your child is dead is unimaginable to me. It's a horror no parent wants to contemplate. At one time even horror writer Stephen King commented he had a story in his head (Pet Semetary) he could not finish because it was too horrific for him to do so.

The "what if" I ask is what if this night was just a horrible, terrible occurrence of where all kinds of factors were uncontrollably thrown together beyond anyone's humanly control? The writer George Pelecanos is so good at doing this in his novels; where seemingly good/decent people are at a point in their lives where a person's uncharacteristically bad act meets with circumstances that change many lives for the worse when not intended and the act haunts everyone for the rest of their lives as in his novel The Turnaround.

(This is mentioned because ABC news has just released photos of injuries to Zimmerman's head.)

There are just so many aspects to this tragedy. So many. Columnist Leonard Pitts has written some excellent pieces on this - I strongly suggest people search them out - so far, to me, he has asked probably the most powerful question that has yet to be answered and that is this: just what was Trayvon Martin doing that ended up with his death? Now, I don't mean the part about there being burglaries in the neighborhood and this young man was suspicious, but what in America has brought us to this point where this young man was actually doing to lead up to his death?

And after today in Florida, what if George Zimmerman is actually a decent person where events overtook everything? What if the man really had all the best intentions and he's truly sincere about his remorse?

I wish people looking at this tragedy would more carefully examine how many layers there are and how many influences there may have been upon the two people that night.

Our entire country needs to be examined - how can we not be concerned and outraged over a culture where a young man, a young son, leaves a home and ends up dead. But at the same time, as a parent, I have watched my own children when they think they are not being watched act in ways differently from when away from parents. I know how I acted as a young man out in this world when away from the influences of my parents and mentors.

This story is filled with so many dangers, it is actually very difficult to discuss in places it should be discussed. In my work environment, it is THE topic to avoid.

My point is not to cast blame or to suggest who is at fault for this tragedy - though I will suggest America is partly to blame - for I was not there, but to suggest there are so many factors and what if, it is just like a night of a tale woven like George Pelecanos - where things went terrible for all the wrong reasons that converged at the wrong time and ended in a terrible tragedy.