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SANFORD, Fla. – A capacity crowd packed into a church here Tuesday night as NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous and others pushed for the arrest of a neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed an unarmed black teen in late February.
Martin family photoA Florida grand jury will investigate the controversial shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla.
Martin family photoA Florida grand jury will investigate the controversial shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla.
The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, 17, was "a senseless murder as far as we are concerned here in the community," Seminole County NAACP President Clayton Turner told the crowd at the start of the town hall meeting at Allen Chapel AME Church. Turner said the meeting's purpose was to insure alleged shooter George Zimmerman is "brought to justice," to win the dismissal or resignation of the local chief of police and make sure the Department of Justice comes to investigate and "takes over" the Sanford Police Department.Said Jealous, "Any police chief who has so mishandled a situation like this has to go. We will stand our ground as our ancestors did … We will insure that justice is carried out here in Sanford."The NAACP president urged residents to return to the church at noon Wednesday to share their personal experiences of potential police mistreatment and to tell others who've been mistreated to bring their stories.Turner said City Manager Norton Bonaparte Jr. and Mayor Jeff Triplett had been unable to attend because they had been summoned to Washington by Attorney General Eric Holder.George Zimmerman: Neighborhood watch captain involved in shooting death of Trayvon Martin
Orange County Jail via Miami Herald via APThe heated meeting came hours after details emerged about Trayvon's final minutes of life.The teen was talking to his girlfriend on his cellphone when he was shot dead, and a log of that conversation shows the teen was an innocent victim singled out because of his race, his family's lawyer said earlier Tuesday.Attorney Benjamin Crump released phone records that show Trayvon was on the phone Feb. 26 at 7:12 p.m. for four minutes, moments before he was shot. At a news conference, Crump played a recording of the 16-year-old girl who was in Miami talking to Trayvon and heard most of the confrontation between the teen and George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who claims he killed him in self-defense."This claim that Trayvon Martin was the aggressor is preposterous," he said. "What Zimmerman said is completely contradicted by the phone log.""The dots have all been connected, arrest George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin in cold blood today," Crump said.Top officials in Sanford said Tuesday that the decision not to arrest Zimmerman was made by the responding officer alone, who released Zimmerman after he claimed to have acted in self defense.It was only after a growing public outcry expressing a lack of confidence in the Sanford Police Department's actions following Martin's death that city leaders called on the Justice Department to review the deadly shooting, City Manager Bonaparte Mayor Triplett said.Following a meeting with Justice officials in Washington, Bonaparte and Triplett said they would await the findings of a wide-ranging Justice review, announced late Monday, before concluding whether the city acted appropriately in its initial decision not to arrest Zimmerman in the deadly February shooting."We have a lot of strife in our community right now,'' Triplett said at a Capitol Hill briefing where he and Bonaparte appeared with Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla. "If we've made an error, I want someone to tell me. There will be no stone that won't be overturned.''Zimmerman, 28, claims he shot Trayvon last month in self-defense during a confrontation in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. Police have described Zimmerman as white; his family says he is Hispanic and not racist.Zimmerman spotted Trayvon as he was patrolling his neighborhood on a rainy evening and called 911 to report a suspicious person.Crump said Tuesday that Trayvon had walked to a nearby 7-Eleven to get skittles and a drink for his stepbrother, and other snacks to watch the NBA All Star game on TV.The lawyer, who took an affidavit from the girl, quotes the girl on the cellphone as saying that Trayvon was walking home from the store and had temporarily taken refuge from the rain. He then began walking again, when he tells her, according to Crump, "I think this dude is following me.""She tells him, 'baby, be careful, just run home,' " Crump said.According to the girl, Trayvon says, "I think I lost him" then moments later says, "He is right behind me again. I'm not going to run, I'm going to walk fast."Crump said "she hears another voice, 'What are you doing around here?' Trayvon says, 'Why are you following me?' " At that point, according to the girl, Travyon is pushed and his voice changes."She hears the altercation, suddenly, someone just hit the phone, because that's the last she hears," Crump said. She did not hear the shooting.Phone logs show the conversation occurred five minutes before police first arrived on scene. The young woman's parents asked that the 16-year-old girl's name not be used."She is traumatized beyond anything that you can imagine," Crump said.The case has garnered national attention as details of the shooting have leaked out.The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI have stepped in to investigate.Florida State Attorney Norm Wolfinger on Tuesday released a prepared statement saying he would have a county grand jury hear evidence on the case on April 10.His office, with the help of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, is reviewing and collecting evidence in the case, his statement said."I respectfully request that the public remain patient as this process moves forward," said his statement.Representatives from the Justice department's community relations service "will be in Sanford this week to meet with civil rights leaders, community leaders and local law enforcement to address tension in the community," a statement said."We are looking at a real blatant miscarriage of justice," Sharpton said Tuesday. "The DOJ raises a level of objectivity and takes away from the local politics that may be at play with the police and prosecutors."He added that Trayvon's case is part of long narrative of racially charged incidents.Earlier Monday, students held rallies on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee and outside the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center.An online petition urging local authorities to prosecute Zimmerman has drawn more than 500,000 signatures at website Change.org.On Friday, officials released the 911 call that Zimmerman made to report a suspicious person. Against the advice of the 911 dispatcher, Zimmerman then followed Trayvon."These a**holes always get away," Zimmerman says in a call to a non-emergency number.Dispatcher: "Are you following him?"Zimmerman: "Yeah."Dispatcher: "We don't need you to do that."Crump said Tuesday that voice experts are running through the 911 tapes to see who was yelling for help.He said people should ask themselves why they didn't run a blood alcohol test or a background check on Zimmerman. He said they ran both tests on Trayvon.Tracy Martin said Tuesday that he had warned his son that being a black man in America could be dangerous."I've always let him know we as African Americans get stereotyped," Tracy Martin told USA TODAY. "I told him that society is cruel."Tracy Martin said he wants Zimmerman arrested and tried in court."My child was profiled," he said. "He was stereotyped. We aren't letting our son die in vain."Zimmerman's father, Robert Zimmerman, released a statement last week to The Orlando Sentinel that said the media's portrayal of George Zimmerman and the series of events that led to the shooting "are false and extremely misleading."He said "George is a Spanish speaking minority with many black family members and friends. He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever.""Our entire family is deeply sorry for the loss of Trayvon," Robert Zimmerman said in the statement. "We pray for the Martin family daily. We also pray that the community will grieve together and not be divided by more unwarranted hate."Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law is getting new attention in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case.The state passed the law in 2005 that stated "a person being attacked has no duty to retreat, they may return force with force, and are protected from criminal prosecution for using force through immunity," according to National Conference of State Legislatures.Recently, several "stand your ground" or "shoot first" laws have emerged. At least 30 states explicitly state there is no duty to retreat, according to the organization.State Rep. Dennis Baxley, who sponsored Florida's law, told the Associated Press it wasn't written to give people the power to pursue and confront others."That's not what this legislation does," Baxley said. "Unfortunately, every time there is an unfortunate incident involving a firearm, they think it's about this law, and it's not."Fla. State Sen. Oscar Braynon, who represents Miami Gardens where Trayvon Martin lived with his mother, said he is calling for hearings or a select committee to take a fresh look at the law.He said since the law was enacted the number of justified homicides in the state have skyrocketed. He said in 2005 the state had 43 cases of justified homicides. In 2009, the last complete year available, there were 105."I think there is vigilante justice happening and I think people are getting shot," he said. "This is an unintended consequence of the law."The federal investigation into Martin's death is expected to be a wide-ranging inquiry that will review law enforcement's response to the shooting, as well as whether Trayvon was targeted because of his race, said a federal official, who declined to be identified because the official is not authorized to comment on aspects of inquiry publicly.The Justice Department launched its investigation in the wake of calls for federal action by numerous civil rights advocates and the Congressional Black Caucus.Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., caucus chairman, has urged federal investigators to treat the shooting as a hate crime."This case compromises the integrity of our legal system and set a horrific precedent of vigilante justice,'' Cleaver said.Local community members and Florida NAACP officials have been working to bring attention and justice in the Trayvon Martin case for weeks, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said Tuesday."This is at least the third instance in the last several years where a black man has been assaulted or killed and justice has not been delivered," Jealous said of Sanford's history. "There is a context … that really screams for the DOJ (Department of Justice) to look at this case and the police department."He added that Trayvon's story is "part of a pattern of the local police department letting people get away with assaulting and even killing black men and boys."In 2006, two security guards -- the son of a Sanford police officer and and a volunteer for the police department -- shot and killed a black man after saying they got into an altercation with him, according to the Sentinel. Officials later learned the black man had been shot in the back and that the guards had not identified themselves. Both men were never charged in the death, the paper reported.In 2010, a Sanford police officer's son, Justin Collison, was accused of punching a homeless black man and officers on the scene let Collison go, according to the Orlando Sentinel. After a YouTube video surfaced of the incident, Collison was charged and then Sanford Police Chief Brian Tooley was forced into retirement, the paper reported.At the Capitol Hill briefing, the Sanford city manger said Zimmerman was initially detained for questioning and asked to re-enact the events surrounding the shooting before he was released by the responding officer."He was questioned,'' Bonaparte said. "He re-enacted the incident in which he claimed self-defense and the Police Department did not detain him any longer.''Bonaparte did acknowledge, however, that Zimmerman was apparently part of a network of local neighborhood watch groups that are trained by the Sanford Police Department and urged "not to engage'' with possible suspects or people they encounter.But Brown said she was "not satisfied'' with the initial handling of the case, adding that the shooter was not tested for possible substance abuse immediately after the incident and that proper steps were not taken to preserve possible evidence at the scene of the shooting."People need to feel that the system is fair,'' Brown said. "It just wasn't handled right.''Cleaver, the Congressional Black Caucus chairman, said the local criminal justice system in Florida "did not work the way (it) should have worked.''"I will not ever listen to the (911) tapes again,'' he said. "It's too heartbreaking. This 17-year-old bundle of hope and potential is shot dead as you hear him begging.''Contributing: Kevin Johnson in Washington, D.C.; Melanie Eversley in New York; Carolyn Pesce in McLean, Va.; Associated Press.
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