Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the NAACP was quoted as saying, “Today, justice failed Trayvon Martin and his family,” “We call immediately for the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the civil rights violations committed against Trayvon Martin. This case has re-energized the movement to end racial profiling in the United States.” A petition launched by the NAACP on their site to the Attorney General to pursue Federal bias charges against George Zimmerman has already received over a million signatures. Anyone can go on their site and sign the petition.

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NAACP Chief Ben Jealous                                                            Rev. Al Sharpton of The National  Action Network

Since the beginning of the killing of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman’s supporters have donated over $450,000.00 to a fund he set up on his website. The Trayvon Martin Foundation, which was set up by volunteers, young and old, Black and White, has thus far raised about $150,000.00. Trayvon’s parents have been heartbroken by the verdict, which seems by default to indicate that Trayvon is responsible for his own death, had no right to self-defense, and deserved what he got. Trayvon Mother, Sybrina Fulton and his father Tracy Martin, have made statements through their attorneys Daryl Parks, Benjamin Crump, Natalie Jackson, and Jasmin Rand. They have, however, thanked support on social media, but they have not been seen in public since the verdict.  This has been exacerbated by egregious statements and commentaries that Zimmerman’s lawyers have made about the teenager both during the trial, in a press conference immediately following the verdict, and in a media blitz by defense lawyer Mark O'Mara, remarking that Trayvon caused his own death and that had Zimmerman been Black and Trayvon White, Trayvon would never have faced a trial for shooting Zimmerman in the heart. Most people agree that the comment is utterly absurd, but that it also reflects the kind of insensitivity and recklessness that led to Trayvon’s death in the first place. Donations of any amount can be made to the Trayvon Martin Foundation. You can also support the family by continuing to share links, keeping the issue alive, and sign petitions seeking justice for Trayvon Martin. Under the United States Constitution, Trayvon Martin was pursuing life, liberty, and happiness, quietly on his way back from the store. He owed no one any explanation as to where he was going or what he was doing. And certainly no one had the right to trigger a confrontation with him based on the way he looked and then killed him. It is not reasonable to expect that a person can bring a loaded automatic weapon to pick a fight, shoot someone to death, and then try to justify the killing by claiming that they were getting punched and beat up, even though Zimmerman's so called injuries that night were nowhere near great, serious, or harmful, the very basis of a self-defense plea.

People in cities around the country erupted in marches and demonstrations from New York to LA, protesting the not guilty verdict in the shooting death of Trayvon Benjamin Martin, days after his sixteenth birthday at the hands of 28 year George Zimmerman on the dark and rainy evening on February 26, 2012 after 7:00 PM in a gated community where the teenager was visiting his father in Sanford Florida. One key point that the news media consistently fail to mention in their coverage is that demonstrators from Chicago, to Florida, to DC, to San Francisco, Oakland, and at least two dozen other cities totally reflect the current demographics of the country, Black and White, women, men, and children, youths, mothers, fathers, and grandparents, Hispanics, and Asian.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at a conference yesterday, indicating that his Justice Department will pursue a Civil Rights investigation into the death of Trayvon, and decide whether or not to file a federal civil rights case based on racial profiling. A criminal Civil Rights case can be charge under Federal laws if it the evidence shows that Zimmerman profiled Trayvon because of his race and subsequently shot and killed the boy. The Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network and other Civil Rights leaders planned a march for August 24th to protest the verdict.

Crowd demonstration in front of the Seminole County Courthouse 

Where the Zimmerman's verdict was read

Yahoo News Photo

1.The prosecution case was impeded by some of the law enforcement witnesses who appeared bitter and more than willing to assist the defense even if they had to agree to speculate or to volunteer information, such as the detective who testified that Zimmerman asked about her cross, and the other one who told the jury that Zimmerman was mick. One after another the law enforcement and official State witnesses went out of their way to boycott the prosecution’s case.

 

2. Detective Serino a 15 year veteran on the force who interviewed George Zimmerman three days after the murder of Trayvon Martin appeared unconvinced by Zimmerman’s story. Yet, he did all he could to help the defense during his cross examination. Veteran trial lawyers have all expressed astonishment at the way police law enforcement went out of their way to undermine the prosecution’s case. In addition, these are police officers and detectives whose very art is to lie at trials to get the State a conviction. These are professional liars who lie like rugs, but yet, for obvious reasons, they went into that courtroom intent on helping the defense.

 

3. The State Medical Examiner was inept on the witness stand reading notes, and whining he could not remember anything. He was a disaster for the State case. 

1. Racism kills, no matter how hard everyone tries to deny or ignore it. It is true that the prosecutor in all criminal cases carry the burden to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt and in a murder trial the bar is even higher. However, the burden of proof is not beyond all doubt. The prosecutors failed to explain to the jury the importance of circumstantial evidence and tie their circumstantial evidence in this case to the other evidence that they had.

 

2. Trayvon Martin was racially profiled George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012, the night of Martin’s unfortunate tragic death. This is not in contention. The racial profiling of Trayvon by George Zimmerman is explicit in the various calls Zimmerman made to Sanford Police as a neighborhood watch volunteer before and on the night he killed Martin. Defense attorneys, Don West and Mark O’Mara successfully got Judge Debra Nelson to rule that the prosecution could not mention “racial profiling,” but only the word ‘profiling’, which makes absolutely no sense. So, race sat there as the elephant in the middle of the courtroom during the trial. But not really, because, it was the defense than then used the racial aspect of the murder to their advantage. The played all of the angles, littering the trial with racial stereotypes and biases. After   insinuating that Trayvon was a thug who caused his own death, Zimmerman’s defense went on to assassinate the character of the dead teenager with a series of innuendoes implying that he had no business walking in the gated community at 7:00 PM in the rain, and moving on to calling a White woman to testify that she had been burglarized by young Black males, as if Trayvon somehow deserved to die as a message or reparation for everything young Black males in this country have ever done wrong. It was the biggest display of disgrace that has been showed on TV in any broadcasted high profile trial.

 

3. Trayvon Martin had no way of knowing that he was documenting his imminent death when he was on the telephone with his friend Rachel Jeantil, as he walked back home from the Seven Eleven store with Skittles and Ice Tea in his hands that night. He told Rachel what was going on because he was scared. A 17 year old boy would not have told his teenage friend that he was scared and running had it not been true, and Rachel Jeantil could not have come up with that dialogue if she was paid to do so. Trayvon’s conversation with Rachel could not have been more extemporaneous. He told Rachel Jeantil that he was being followed by a creepy ... While the use of an expletive in the term might be offensive to some people, it is not a racial remark. If you look at it, a short while later after he thought that he had lost Zimmerman because he told Rachel so, he said on the phone, “S… the N…" is behind me,” which shows that his use of the term “creepy a…cracker” was not intended to be racist. As a result, Rachel Jeantil’s testimony could not be more important or true.

 

4. Similar to the police, the jury was willing to believe Zimmerman’s version of what happened that night, despite all of the discrepancies and holes big enough in his story to drive a truck through. This is rather understandable since people commonly show the ability to suspend their own judgment and disbelief when they want to believe somebody, no matter how absurd or disjointed a story may be.

1. In addition to the self-defense jury instructions, the judge also included an entire section of “Stand your Ground” in the Jury instructions, even though Stand your Ground, the new Florida law promoted by the Right Wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) on behalf of the NRA (The National Rifle Association) to expand the ownership of gun and render the enforcement of gun laws virtually ineffective, was never part of the case. In fact, Zimmerman and his lawyers had waived his “Stand your Ground” immunity hearing, which could have prevented him from going on trial, had he prevailed in such a hearing.

 

2. Worst of all, the prosecutors succeeded by law including a lesser charge of manslaughter just before the Judge started to charge the Jury with instructions for deliberations. This clearly backfires since the State never said one word in their case in chief about manslaughter during the trial, not even in their closing argument and rebuttal. This prompted the jurors to send a note asking for further clarification on the charge of manslaughter almost 15 hours into deliberations. And when Judge Debra Nelson sent a note back answering the jurors’ question with a question of the Court’s own requesting that the jurors specify their question, it became evident that the jurors abandoned considerations on the manslaughter charge and delivered their verdict about an hour later at 10:01 PM on Saturday July 13, 2013.

 

3. Zimmerman was clearly well schooled in self-defense law and other police tactics, and had time to prepare his story while waiting for the police to arrive after he shot Trayvon Martin.

 

4. Furthermore, Zimmerman could not have been straddled the way he said he was and still being able to pull his concealed weapon tucked in a holster behind his back.

 

5. Zimmerman was found by police with a loaded semiautomatic weapon with only one spent bullet. The spent bullet was the one he used to shoot Trayvon Martin in the heart,which indicate that Zimmerman was in fact carrying his weapon fully loaded with an extra live bullet ready to fire in the chamber. Zimmerman was carrying two flashlights that night. All things being equal, it Zimmerman was clearly driving around in his SUV armed, dangerous, and ready to kill. “They always get away,” he said on his call to the dispatcher before uttering a series of profane epithets in reference to Martin, whom he had no idea who he was or why he was there. In fact, as a neighborhood watch person, Zimmerman was supposed to be looking out for Trayvon’s well-being, as well as everyone because Trayvon had every right to be where he was and walked at anytime and anywhere he needed or decided to be since he was doing nothing wrong. The only logical explanation for the unjustified shooting death of Trayvon Martin is that George Zimmerman must have pulled his gun on Trayvon when Rachel heard Trayvon’s headpiece fall to the ground, and that seeing the gun prompted Trayvon to start fighting for his life.

 

6. Common sense would dictate that there was only one person yelling on that 911 tape, and it was Trayvon Martin. The yelling for help on the 911 call ended with the gunshot. The person who died was the one yelling. The yelling was so painful that no one could just stop like that unless it was the person who got killed.

 

7. As for both prosecutor John Guy rhetorical question in his closing rebuttal and defense attorney Mark O’Mara’s outrageous insertion, “had the role being reversed and George Zimmerman was left dead on the grass that rainy February night, Trayvon Martin would have long ago been on trial and would be by now rotting in prison.

 

8. Finally, never mind that Trayvon had every right to be where he was, but not the police, nor the prosecutors, certainly not the defense, no one seems to think that Trayvon Martin had any right to defend himself that night. It has never been mentioned by anyone.

 

The real tragedy is that none of this had to happen if this lying-in-wait to kill somebody neighborhood watchdog who told Shawn Hannity on Fox News that he would not change a thing because he believes that it was all God’s plan, if only he had approach Trayvon and introduced himself by talking to the boy like a human being, he would have found out that it was just a kid trying to get home. Would it not be justice if Zimmerman never got to enjoy his new found undeserved freedom because he could be kept fighting enough court battles (the pending perjury charges, wrongful death, hopefully a federal civil rights lawsuit) for the next so many years to cleanse his hands of Trayvon Martin’s blood? Justice comes in all shapes and forms, and sometimes when you win you lose.

 

      

 

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (File Photo)

Related Articles: Zimmerman's Defense Played the Race Card

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