Did a wannabe cop murder a seventeen-year-old boy with racist and malicious intentions?
The controversial ruling in the trial of George Zimmerman sparked protests all around the nation and laid a foundation for the "Black Lives Matter" movement. But this trial is an example of how courts and juries base their rulings on the law rather than on the suspected morality and intentions of the events.
The Death of Trayvon Martin
On the night of February 26, 2012, a seventeen-year-old boy named Trayvon Martin was walking in the Twin Lakes community in Sanford, Florida, after buying Skittles at a nearby convenience store. Trayvon was walking back to his father's house in the Twin Lakes community. Trayvon was in Sanford because he was serving a 10-day suspension at his school. As Trayvon was walking, he was spotted by George Zimmerman. The Twin Peaks community had been hit with a string of burglaries earlier in the year, prompting them to start a neighborhood watch program and elect Zimmerman as the program coordinator. Seeing Martin as a suspicious individual, Zimmerman started following him and called the authorities' non-emergency line: "We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy …" He described an unknown male "just walking around looking about." "This guy looks like he is up to no good, or he is on drugs or something." The dispatcher then asked Zimmerman if he was following Martin. When Zimmerman answered, "yeah," the dispatcher replied, "We don't need you to do that." After responding, "Okay," Zimmerman asked the police to call back once they reached the neighborhood and ended the call. After this call ended, police could only formulate the rest of the events based on George Zimmerman's testimony. Zimmerman claimed that he approached Martin and was attacked by Martin and beaten on the floor. He claimed that he screamed for help as Martin was on top of him, smashing his head into the concrete pavement and punching him repeatedly in the face. Zimmerman claims that this event directly led to him pulling out and discharging his weapon on Trayvon Martin, eventually leading to his death. After the police arrived on the scene, Zimmerman immediately admitted to firing his Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm gun and killing Martin, who was pronounced dead minutes later by the reporting officers. He also claimed that he had fired by means of self-defense. When placing him under arrest, officers noticed that Zimmerman's back was wet, covered with glass, and was bleeding from the nose and back of his head. After questioning, George Zimmerman was released by the Sanford police because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense. Additionally, under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited from making an arrest even when lethal force was used in self-defense.The Trial of George Zimmerman
On April 11, 2012, George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin after the state of Florida filed an affidavit of probable cause, stating that Zimmerman profiled and confronted Martin and shot him to death while Martin was committing no crimes. Zimmerman turned himself in and once again claimed he acted in self-defense. The trial began in early July of 2013. The prosecution was led by Attorney General Angela Corey, the defense was led by Mark O'Mara, and the trial was presided by Judge Debra Nelson. The prosecution based their case around George Zimmerman and how he was a wannabe cop that was sick and tired of seeing his neighborhood being attacked by burglaries. They used a quote of Zimmerman's taken out of the call transcripts with the police, "these fucking punks...these assholes, they always get away." They used this to establish that Zimmerman was angry and acted based on incorrect and racist assumptions about an African American child. The defense based their case around the wounds of George Zimmerman after the encounter. They presented the blood dripping from Zimmerman's nose and head and established that Trayvon Martin pinned George Zimmerman to the ground and presented a threat of imminent danger to his life. They planned to use the voice recordings of a person screaming for help heard on a 911 call made by a neighbor of Zimmerman during the encounter and ask experts to link voice recordings to Zimmerman or Martin, but this was blocked by Judge Nelson days before the trial. They also used a report by the coroner that showed that Trayvon Martin had some marijuana in his system at the time of death. They connected this to Martin's anger and rage against Zimmerman. Experts were also called up to testify that after examination of crime scene photos and blood drop analysis, George Zimmerman's claim that Trayvon Martin was on top of him and beating him was consistent with the study and its findings. On July 13, 2013, after over 16 hours of deliberation, the jury found George Zimmerman "not guilty" on the charge of second-degree murder. While we don't know why George Zimmerman believed that Trayvon Martin was a suspicious person, the acts that Zimmerman committed against Martin were justified entirely by the court of law.