Thread: Outrage prompts U.S. probe into killing of Florida teenager

By Barbara Liston | Reuters – 9 mins ago.



ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Responding to an international petition, celebrity tweets, and spreading public outrage, the Justice Department opened an investigation on Monday into the shooting of a black teenager by a neighborhood watch captain who escaped arrest.

More than 435,000 people, many alerted by tweets from celebrities like movie director Spike Lee and musician Wyclef Jean, signed a petition on Change.org, a social action website, calling for the arrest of the shooter, George Zimmerman.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the FBI announced swiftly that they have opened an investigation into the shooting in Florida of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed when he was killed. "The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation," the Justice Department said in a statement.

The campaign to draw attention to the case is the third largest in Change.org's history, and surpassed a petition of about 300,000 signatures credited last year with persuading Bank of America to drop plans for a $5 debit card fee, said Megan Lubin, a Change.org spokeswoman.

The victim's family lawyer, Ben Crump, said public pressure was behind an earlier promise by the Justice Department to review the case. And some Florida legislators are moving to consider a change in the law to prevent a recurrence.

"People all over the world, more than 400,000 people, said we demand you make an arrest. That's what is building pressure to look at it," Crump said.

The shooting occurred February 26 when Zimmerman spotted Martin walking home from buying candy and iced tea at a convenience store.

Zimmerman, patrolling the neighborhood in his car, called the 911 emergency number and reported what he called "a real suspicious guy."

"This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about," Zimmerman told dispatchers, adding, "These *******s. They always get away."

The dispatcher, hearing heavy breathing on the phone, asked Zimmerman: "Are you following him?"

"Yeah," Zimmerman said.

"Okay, we don't need you to do that," the dispatcher responded.

But several neighbors subsequently called 911 to report a scuffle between Zimmerman and Martin. While some of the callers were still on the phone, cries for help followed by a gunshot can be heard in the background. "I recognized that (voice) as my baby screaming for help before his life was taken," Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, told Reuters.

"STAND YOUR GROUND"

Police declined to arrest Zimmerman, and turned the case over to prosecutors where it remains under review. Police cited Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, enacted in 2005 and now in effect in at least 16 other states.

Dubbed "Shoot first (ask questions later)" by opponents, the Florida law allows a potential crime victim who is "in fear of great bodily injury" to use deadly force in public places.

The landmark law expanded on legislation, known as the Castle Doctrine, that allowed use of deadly force in defense of "hearth and home." Passed under former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2005, it overturned a centuries-old doctrine that required the potential victim to retreat and avoid confrontation if possible, according to Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a Washington-based advocacy group. "No one could argue that Zimmerman could not have safely retreated and avoided this conflict, and I think that is the critical element here and why these laws are so dangerous," Everitt said. "He (Zimmerman) does not have a duty to retreat in Florida."

Crump said Zimmerman should not be protected under the Stand Your Ground law. "It's illogical, you can claim self defense after you chase and pursue somebody," he said. "That's a courtroom defense. That's not something the police accept on the side of the street."

Five years after Florida's Stand Your Ground law was enacted, a 2010 review by the St. Petersburg Times found that reports of justifiable homicides had tripled, and a majority of cases were excused by prosecutors or the courts. Meanwhile, the petition drive, started by a friend of Trayvon's mother, has been signed by people across the globe from Canada to Thailand, Lubin said.

Celebrity tweets over the weekend made #Trayvon a trending topic on Twitter, she said. Additional celebrities tweeting and posting on Facebook about the case include singers Clay Aiken and John Legend, film director Michael Moore and actress Mia Farrow. "This is a great moment for the entire nation to become educated in these Stand Your Ground laws," Everitt said. "It's unbelievably dangerous and really takes us to a situation where the rule of law is beginning to erode on our streets and vigilantism is being actively encouraged by these laws."

http://news.yahoo.com/outrage-prompt...GVzdAM-;_ylv=3

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White House says Trayvon Martin, the teen killed by neighborhood watchman, is local issue
By Olivier Knox | The Ticket – 6 hrs ago.

The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama won't be getting involved in the case of Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old Florida high school student shot dead last month by a Hispanic neighborhood watchman in an incident that has sparked a national uproar. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Trayvon Martin' s family. But obviously we're not going to wade into a local law-enforcement matter," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing.

Asked how the case differed from the 2009 incident between Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and white police Sergeant James Crowley—which led Obama first to declare that the police had "acted stupidly" by arresting Gates for disorderly conduct and then to invite the two antagonists to a "beer summit" at the White House—Carney sidestepped the question. "I don't have any conversations to report to you," he said.

Carney said the local FBI office was in touch with local law enforcement and was monitoring the case.

Here is how ABC News summarized the case: "Martin, a black high-school junior, was making his way home with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea on Feb. 26 when George Zimmerman spotted him, called a nonemergency dispatch number to report Martin looked intoxicated, followed him, and then minutes later after an altercation, shot him."

Zimmerman claimed self defense and has not been arrested or charged with Martin's shooting.


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/w...202833737.html

I would really like to hear that 911 call and more witness accounts. The article definitely makes it sound like an unjustified homicide, for sure... but I'd like to hear the tone of his voice on that call... either way, a young man is dead and that is horrific no matter which way you look at it. God be with his family.

I disagree with it being about race, at least I don't think that's why they chose not to arrest him... most ppl who hate black people also hate spanish people (that's the case around here anyway). But you are right... it should have been investigated and he should have been arrested on the spot until they could conclude the investigation. Not arresting most certainly makes it look like there is racial bias but the article also says that floridas justifiable homicides had increased significantly... maybe ALL those cases need to be looked at again.

That stand your ground law is crazy... I mean, on one hand I get it... on the other, it definitely makes it way too easy for someone to claim self defense.

Originally Posted by hblueeyes

I am shocked at the response of the local PD that stated on the news that they did not think the incident warranted an investigation. Someone is shot and killed and it does not warrant an investigation? What crap! Even if this innocent child did not die, it definitely needs to be investigated. Sounds like in that neighborhood, all you must do is call the police,say someone looks suspicious, and that gives you the right to kill them in cold blood. My heart aches for this family. I believe that in this case, race played a big part in his death and the shoddy police work.

Me

From what I heard I think the neighborhood guy is mentally ill. He formed his own association which was not registered nor trained in the neighborhood watch program and has been known before to overreact or act inappropriately. If anything, I think it would be more against the age of the victim, than the race.....meaning a young/teen out looking for trouble rather than a black guy walking around the neighborhood. Either way, how can they call it self defense when the victim is being pursued for "no good reason". Mr. Neighborhood watch man was pursuing. If he had just stayed in his car and just observed, then possibly he could stretch it to self defense IF he were "attacked". Not the case.

Originally Posted by justme23

That stand your ground law is crazy... I mean, on one hand I get it... on the other, it definitely makes it way too easy for someone to claim self defense.

From what I read of it, I can't say I think it's crazy but it doesn't appear to apply here.

If one is being harassed by a group of thugs and shoots them....that is what the law's intent is....then it would be "self defense" and "justifiable" IMO. Not the case here.

You're right... I don't think it applies here either... that's why I said he should have been arrested until they could conclude an investigation... I'd still like to hear that 911 call, though... I think hearing the tone in his voice would make it easier to say he egged it on himself... which I do believe he did, actually.

Why Trayvon Martin’s Killer Remains Free
Florida’s self-defense laws have left Florida safe for no one—except those who shoot first.
By Emily Bazelon|Posted Monday, March 19, 2012, at 5:29 PM ET

The story of Trayvon Martin’s death is heartbreaking. If you have missed the facts: The 17-year-old, who is black, was walking to a friend’s home in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., when a neighborhood-watch volunteer*, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, spotted him. Zimmerman, whose father says he identifies as Hispanic, called the cops to report a suspicious person. They told him not to follow. “They always get away,” Zimmerman told dispatch in a 911 call released Friday, and he kept tracking Martin. Zimmerman had a gun. Martin was carrying only an ice tea and the Skittles he’d just bought at the store. The two had a struggle that no one saw. Hearing shots, neighbors called 911. In one call that’s hard to listen to, a woman anxiously says she can hear someone calling for help while in the background, a terrified, wailing voice pleads, "No! No!"

Zimmerman shot and killed Martin, but he said he did so in self-defense. The shocker of this case so far is that the Sanford police say they don’t have enough evidence to dispute Zimmerman’s claim and arrest him. Martin’s mother told the Today show Monday morning that her son was killed “because of the color of his skin,” and his parents want the FBI to investigate. With these facts, you can see why. UPDATE, March 20, 2012: On Monday evening, the Justice Department announced it will investigate Martin's killing.

How did we get to a place where Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, which seems barely plausible, could prevent his arrest? The answer starts with the “Stand Your Ground” law that Florida passed in 2005. The idea was to give people who think they are being threatened the right to use force: They can protect themselves without first trying to retreat. The history behind that controversial idea is actually about gender, not race. It involves the intersection between the fight against domestic violence and the agenda of the National Rifle Association.

Let’s back up, with the help of Jeannie Suk, a Harvard law professor who wrote an article in 2008 that I’ll rely on for the next few paragraphs. In the 17th century, English common law held that people whose lives were threatened in a public place could use deadly force to defend themselves only after retreating as far as possible. It was up to the king and his men to keep the peace, and everyone else was supposed to stand aside. There was only one exception: If someone broke into your house, you could kill him without retreating.

This is called the Castle Doctrine, after the old saying that a man’s house is his castle. It makes intuitive sense—a limited exception to the duty to retreat that leaves the rule in place. But when the Castle Doctrine made its way to America, Suk says, some courts expanded it. Now someone under attack could "repel force by force" if he was attacked "in a place where he has a right to be." That’s how the Supreme Court put it in 1895. This is amazingly called the “true man” doctrine, from a line in an 1876 case : “A true man, who is without fault, is not obliged to fly from an assailant, who by violence or surprise, maliciously seeks to take his life or do him enormous bodily harm.”

Not all the states adopted the true man doctrine. And 100 years later, courts and legislatures faced a new problem: What to do with women who said they were victims of domestic violence and had killed their husbands to save themselves? Did you have a right not to retreat if the person coming after you lived under the same roof? At first, the answer was no, to the fury of feminists. Then in 1999, the Florida Supreme Court said a woman who shot and killed her husband during a violent fight at home could successfully call on the Castle Doctrine to argue self-defense. “It is now widely recognized that domestic violence attacks are often repeated over time, and escape from the home is rarely possible without the threat of great personal violence or death,” the court wrote.

Suk calls this revision of the true-man rule to encompass domestic violence transformative, and you can see why. The new rules made for more shooting and less retreating. And they set the stage for Florida to ditch the duty to retreat entirely, which the legislature did in passing the nation’s first Stand Your Ground law in 2005.

Florida’s new law did three things: It further loosened the restrictions on using deadly force at home. It scrapped the duty to retreat in public places. And it gave people who use self-defense civil and criminal immunity. Pushing for these changes, NRA President Marion Hammer focused on women and their need to protect themselves. “You can’t expect a victim to wait and ask, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Criminal, are you going to rape me and kill me, or are you just going to beat me up and steal my television?” she said.

Prosecutors opposed the Stand Your Ground law, and they still complain about it. "It is an abomination," former Broward County Prosecutor David Frankel told the Sun Sentinel in January. "The ultimate intent might be good, but in practice, people take the opportunity to shoot first and say later they had a justification. It almost gives them a free pass to shoot." The quote comes from a story about a former sheriff’s deputy, Maury Hernandez, who killed an unarmed homeless man in a Haagen-Dazs shop on a Saturday afternoon. Hernandez, who was with his children, said the man aggressively asked for money and then tried to assault him. Witnesses said Hernandez warned the man several times before taking out his gun and firing multiple times. The police said they wouldn’t charge Hernandez for the shooting because he claimed he was under attack.

It’s that decision not to press charges that makes Stand Your Ground laws, which a bunch of other states have adopted, a crazy departure from the past. It’s one thing to raise self-defense at trial. It’s another to have what the Florida Supreme Court calls “true immunity.” True immunity, the court said, means a trial judge can dismiss a prosecution, based on a Stand Your Ground assertion, before trial begins.

At least there’s supposed to be a hearing before that happens, at which the defendant has the burden of proof. And yet as the Hernandez and Martin’s case shows, Stand Your Ground laws often lead prosecutors to decide against so much as bringing charges. According to the Sun Sentinel, “In case after case during the past six years, Floridians who shot and killed unarmed opponents have not been prosecuted.”

Now the death of Trayvon Martin is the latest in that line. Maybe this is the kind of case that is so sad and so tinged with racism that Florida will think hard about the very scary place where their self-defense laws have taken them. Maybe.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...osecuted_.html

I read an article - which I am looking for ... that stated that the shooter had a bleeding cut on his head, facial abrasions, and the back of his shirt and pants where wet, which would support his position of "self-defense".

Trayvon Martin's final phone call: 'He said this man was watching him'
By msnbc.com staff

A 17-year-old boy whose death has sparked national outrage fearfully told a friend over the phone moments before he was shot and killed that he was being followed, ABC News reported Tuesday. "He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," the female friend of Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death on Feb. 26 in Twin Lakes, Fla., told ABC. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run, but he said he was not going to run."

Martin, who is black, was unarmed when a neighborhood watch captain spotted him walking home after buying candy and iced tea from a convenience store. Call logs from Martin's phone confirm he spoke with the 16-year-old friend interviewed by ABC News minutes before his death, the news station reported. She was not identified, and spoke through an attorney.

More than 435,000 people, many alerted by tweets from celebrities such as movie director Spike Lee and musician Wyclef Jean, signed a petition on Change.org, a social action website, calling for the arrest of Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman, who has claimed he acted in self-defense. On Monday, the Justice Department and FBI announced they opened an investigation into the shooting.

Grand jury called in Trayvon Martin case

Although Martin initially told his friend he wasn't going to run, he eventually did, she said, but the stranger managed to corner him.

"Trayvon said, 'What, are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again and he didn't answer the phone."

After that, the line went dead, she said. According to ABC News, other than screams on 911 calls as Martin and Zimmerman scuffled, those were the last words Martin said.

Zimmerman called police 46 times

Zimmerman, meanwhile, called 911 dozens of times in the months that led to the fatal shooting, The Orlando Sentinel reported Monday evening. The Seminole County Sheriff's Office released six calls he had made, four of which called police to report "suspicious" persons -- all of whom were black -- in or near the Retreat at Twin Lakes enclave, the paper said.

The other calls were about a neighbor's open garage door and children playing in the street at dusk, reported The Sentinel. None of the newly released calls are related to Martin's shooting.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...s-watching-him

Trayvon Martin’s Murder: Was the Motive Self-Defense or Racism?
George Zimmerman claims he was defending himself when he shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The Sanford, Fla., police department is now accused of protecting a man many say was overzealous.
By Madison Gray | March 19, 2012

Only two people know for sure what happened in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., on the night of Feb. 26: Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old high schooler, and George Zimmerman, 28, at whose hands Martin died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

But because Zimmerman — at least for now — remains a free man, justice has been called for in the racially charged case, in which an unarmed black teenager was shot by a white neighborhood patrol volunteer. He claims he was defending himself, but others say he was overzealous and lethally reckless.

Martin was in the gated community with his father as they visited the home of family friends. He had gone to a nearby 7-11 for snacks and was on his way back to the house when he was spotted by Zimmerman, who called police to report a “real suspicious guy.” He told the dispatcher that Martin “looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something.” He described Martin as having his hand on his waistband, carrying an object, and coming towards him. “And he’s a black male…Something’s wrong with him…These a**holes, they always get away.”

Despite being told by the dispatcher not to chase him, Zimmerman went after Martin. According to several 911 calls from the neighborhood, the two wrestled and screams for help went out from one of the two. Then after a single shot, Martin lay on the ground, dead. The object in his hands were a bag of Skittles and an iced tea.

When police came to the scene, Zimmerman dropped his weapon and told them he shot Martin in self defense. He has not been charged. Sanford police did not press charges against Zimmerman, telling the teen’s family that he had a “squeaky clean” record. He is a licensed gun owner studying criminal justice.

But the Miami Herald reported Zimmerman had called police 46 times between Jan 1 and the night of the shooting, and that his particular focus on his patrol watch was black males. He had also once been arrested for battery on a police officer as he interfered with a friend being arrested. However, others say Zimmerman was a conscientious volunteer who warned neighbors in the community about suspicious characters roaming about after several burglaries had taken place. Some of the residents have said that he is responsible for thwarting several crimes.

Since the incident, a controversy has ensued over whether the Sanford Police Department is protecting Zimmerman, as Martin’s family’s lawyers are charging, or whether he acted appropriately under Florida’s concealed carry gun laws and through the state’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow residents to use deadly force against a threat without trying to retreat. What is known is that Zimmerman was not tested for alcohol or drugs, customary police procedure after a shooting. Moreover, several witnesses have come forward saying Martin could be heard on the 911 tapes screaming for help.

FBI officials have been asked to investigate the incident and say they are “monitoring the matter.” On Monday, a rally took place demanding justice in front of Seminole County Courthouse, one of several protest held across Florida since Martin’s death. Several more are being planned. Angry nationwide reaction has come down on Sanford’s police department, which has a history of racial incidents, for not charging Zimmerman.

Martin’s family is angered, not only over his death, but also over police inaction toward Zimmerman. They feel the killing was racially motivated. “He committed no crime,” said Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton. My son wasn’t doing anything but walking on the sidewalk, and I just don’t understand why this situation got out of control.”

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/19/...#ixzz1pfzHntXS