Trayvon Martin: Murdered Walking While Black

Seventeen year-old Trayvon Martin was walking alone in a gated community in Orlando Florida when he was brutally gunned down by a white “neighborhood watch” captain.  There is no way in hell a black neighborhood watch captain would still be walking around free and un-charged nearly a month after having shot a white child dead in a gated community.
The following is text from a petition to SUPPORT THE PROSECUTION OF THE KILLER OF TRAYVON MARTIN:

From the family of Trayvon Martin, Petition is @ Change.org

“On February 26, our son Trayvon Martin was shot and killed as he walked to a family member’s home from a convenience store where he had just bought some candy. He was only 17 years-old.

Trayvon’s killer, George Zimmerman, admitted to police that he shot Trayvon in the chest. Zimmerman, the community’s self appointed “neighborhood watch leader,” called the police to report a suspicious person when he saw Travyon, a young black man, walking from the store. But Zimmerman still hasn’t been charged for murdering our son.

Trayvon was our hero. At the age 9, Trayvon pulled his father from a burning kitchen, saving his life. He loved sports and horseback riding. At only 17 he had a bright future ahead of him with dreams of attending college and becoming an aviation mechanic. Now that’s all gone.

When Zimmerman reported Trayvon to the police, they told him not to confront him. But he did anyway. All we know about what happened next is that our 17 year-old son, who was completely unarmed, was shot and killed.

It’s been nearly two weeks and the Sanford Police have refused to arrest George Zimmerman. In their public statements, they even go so far as to stand up for the killer – saying he’s “a college grad” who took a class in criminal justice.

Please join us in calling on Norman Wolfinger, Florida’s 18th District State’s Attorney, to investigate my son’s murder and prosecute George Zimmerman for the shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin.”

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Trayvon Martin: Murdered Walking While Black
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17 thoughts on “Trayvon Martin: Murdered Walking While Black

  1. 2

    Have been following this for a while now, I am wondering if federal investigators need to get involved in this since the local police and state attorney general don’t want to do anything.

  2. 3

    Florida has a ‘Stand your Ground’ law that pretty much legalizes murder of an unarmed person. The premise of the law is absurd. It needs to be changed NOW. There have been several other murders since this law was enacted, but I believe it is the first time a child was killed. I hope the feds can at least charge him with violating Treyvon’s civil rights!

    1. 3.1

      From piecing together the 911 tape and the witness statements, the most likely story is that Zimmerman saw Martin walking down the street looking at houses, so he called the cops and was told a patrol car was on the way and not to pursue. Zimmerman said “they always get away,” and jumped out of his car to question Martin. Martin saw a guy almost twice his size rushing him and decided to run for it. Zimmerman chased him down and grabbed him. Martin screamed for help, and struggled and hit Zimmerman to free himself. Zimmerman then shot Martin. He says Martin was reaching into his waistband, so he thought he had a gun and shot in self defense.

      Florida’s very broad self defense statutes are a problem, but this is way worse. It looks like the police made a bad call on the scene thanks to knowing the shooter and the victim being an unknown black male, failed to do even a perfunctory investigation, then decided they had to defend their conduct. Even if the story as told by Zimmerman were true, he was a civilian who chased and grabbed someone on the basis of him looking suspicious and running. This is not a legally valid reason. It stretches even standing your ground laws to absurdity to say you can pick a fight with a stranger, then shoot them when they fight back because you feel threatened.

      1. I regret that I’ve not joined my voice before now in support of the close family of this young man, Trayvon Martin, but I’ve been hoping that the state attorney general should have been prosecution, and have initiated the arrest of the murderer. Since that hasn’t happened, I signed the petition to which you’ve linked -thank you-, and shared on FB & my blog.

        I hope the high level scrutiny paid attention to this shall make the constituency of Sanford, Florida realize that racial preferences are wrong. It is the racism institutionalized in that community that permits the racism institutionalized in the police force and district attorney’s office.

        This is so obviously not defensible under “Stand Your Ground”, it being that the murderer chased the victim down, that the police officers and district prosecutors responsible for lack of appropriate response ought to lose their jobs. That’s likely only to happen if the citizens of Sanford, Florida push for it, as they are the employers of that police force, and electors, presumably, of the district attorney.

        …which leads me to think that bags of Skittles are better to be sent to leaders of community institutions other than the police force.

    1. 4.1

      Absolutely revolting. I’ve signed the petition but don’t know what else to do from here in the UK. Maybe write to the state department?

      absolutely write letters.

      and, well, there’s always the option of joining the “send the police chief a bag of skittles” thing. yes, it’s silly, but these sort of things make opposition to what’s going on literally tangible. and when they are successful enough, they get on the news, amplifying the signal and shining a spotlight on the cops who are refusing to do anything.

      anyway, here’s the address:

      Sanford Police Station.
      815 West 13th Street.
      Sanford, Fl 32771.

  3. 5

    There is no way in hell a black neighborhood watch captain would still be walking around free and un-charged nearly a month after having shot a white child dead in a gated community.

    When I blogged about Trayvon last week, this is one of the comments I got:

    Why does it have to be he was shot just because he was black? Maybe he was shot because a MORON had a gun and thought he was a cop!! Needless to say he Fucked up….but to say he killed someone just cause he was black is moronic in itself…

    Heads in the sand.

    Then there was the letter that George Zimmerman’s father wrote to the press, which was full of “my son is not a racist.”

    1. 5.1

      To be fair, it’s not like this never happens to white people. It’s just that it happens to black people way more often despite whites being a much larger segment of the population. We’re talking more than an order of magnitude in the risk.

      Also, there’s the issue that other black people who lived in the development were apparently afraid to go on walks thanks to Zimmerman’s rather broad warning about black people skulking around casing the place.

      http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/17/v-fullstory/2700249/shooter-of-trayvon-martin-a-habitual.html

      It would be bad enough without the racial angle, but that’s not looking good for Zimmerman, either.

        1. Of course, that’s practically a badge of honor because that is the way the Americana lynch mob rolls. See Amadou Diallou, Oscar Grant, Eleanor Bumpers, Margaret Mitchell, Eulia Love, Aiyanna Jones, Sean Bell…

          1. “…when he was brutally gunned down by a white “neighborhood watch” captain.” Zimmerman is Hispanic, which I know is Caucasian in the completely illegitimate race classification nomenclature but in most of your work you refer to Hispanic people as brown-I’ve been reading your “Moral Combat” and realize that the race/ethnicity continuum is complex-but why do you here refer to Zimmerman as white not brown? The racial hatred between people of African descent and those of Spanish descent may be more intense than that between that of people of European descent and African descent.

            Are you opposed to the racial classifications Caucasian, Negro, Mongol etc.? I prefer the use of ethnic nomenclature but even that is difficult since so many people are of such mixed descent-it’s all so fascinating. I just adore all of the diversity!

            Thank you so much for all that you do! You are truly a credit to the human race and one of my heroines!

  4. 6

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/05/police-convicted-katrina-bridge-shootings

    It took years for the slow-motion injustice system to finally convict some of the corrupt police in New Orleans. And no doubt there are plenty who murdered civilians who are walking around free.

    Someone may try to say, “That’s Louisiana, not Florida!” No, it’s the deep south. Both are relevant to one another.

    Despite Trayvon Martin’s murder being a single incident that plenty is known about, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the injustice system do nothing.

  5. 7

    I just like to say that this case and many others like it that have occurred over the course of my lifetime completely incense me towards the system of law enforcement (selective law enforcement) and those who are members of that system, more aptly named the “Injustice System.”

    Trayvon Martin was an exceptional young man whose life was snuffed out by a violent criminal racist (may the rest of your life be a living hell, George Zimmerman) but because the injustice system is filled to the brim with other violent racists, like those of the Sanford, Florida PD, they get off scott free. Hopefully we will be able to remedy this one-many careers should be ended over this all to American racist tragedy!

    1. 7.1

      Re., your initial question about why this post identified Zimmerman as white — most of the early reports identified him thusly, e.g., even the L.A. Times today:
      “Police identified Zimmerman as white, but his family says he’s Hispanic.” He may very well self-identify as white (as many Latinos do ala the U.S. census where they can choose their ethnic identification) while appearing to be Latino. Historically in the U.S. one-drop of “Latino blood” (unlike black blood), otherwise know as the law of hypodescent, doesn’t make you “Latino”. And the father might be cynically highlighting his “Latino identity” in order to deflect the firestorm of criticism over his racist motivations.

      1. The father is cynically highlighting his son’s Latino identity in so many words. “My son can’t be racist; he’s Hispanic.” Pretty much what the guy says in his letter.

  6. Zan
    8

    A black neighborhood watch captain? Yeah, I’d like to see one of those. THAT’S what doesn’t happen enough. That’s what there needs to be more of.

    That’s why the whole “what if the situation were reversed?” analogy doesn’t work.

    First you gotta picture a black person being a neighborhood watch captain, looking for suspicious activities, and reporting them to police when they are observed.

    When I see more of that happening, I’ll might buy into the whole “what if the situation were reversed” thing.

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