Abstract

In this paper, I’m going to explain why I think the system failed Trayvon Martin and his parents by not indicting George Zimmerman for his death. I go into detail about both the victim and the murderer and present my reasons on why Zimmerman should have been indicted for this crime. In order for the readers to gage a better understanding of why George Zimmerman got off when I believe he should not have, I also examine the statue that ultimately let Zimmerman walk free and how this is not the first time a murderer walked free under the statue.

The Incident

In Sanford, Florida on the night of February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old African American high schooler was fatally shot by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, a mixed Latin American man was 28 at the time of this incident. On this night, in the gated community Martin was temporarily staying at, he had walked to the liquor store and had purchased skittles and an Arizona tea. Martin had his hood on as he was walking back home when he came across Zimmerman, one of the night watchmen for the gated community. Apparently, the two had an altercation where Zimmerman considered himself “threatened” and fatally shot Martin, who was unarmed. People seemed to think this was a racially driven crime due to the nature. Zimmerman should not have shot Martin, especially because he was unarmed. He was racially profiling him. To state that this is what played a part in why Zimmerman killed Martin is a bold statement, of course. It will not hold unless there is evidence of this. Since this incident happened in an upper scale, majority white neighborhood, Zimmerman most likely assumed that Trayvon Martin did not live in the area. If Martin had been a caucasian kid, Zimmerman would have most likely assumed that he resided in the neighborhood due to the demographics of the area and Martin probably would not have died.

The Victim

The victim’s full name was Trayvon Benjamin Martin. He was born February 5, 1995 in Miami Gardens, Florida and died that night in Sanford on February 26, 2012, just 17 years old. The reason Martin was in the neighborhood that night was because he was serving suspension for having a bag with remnants of marijuana in addition having a pipe at school. He accompanied his father on a visit to his father’s fiancee’s “townhouse home” in the gated community, The Retreat at Twin Lakes. At just nine, Martin had saved his father’s life when their apartment caught fire. His father had sustained burn injuries to his legs, causing him to become immobilized and Martin pulled him out of the apartment. When Martin started high school he aspired to become a professional football player. Martin’s coach had stated that although he considered Martin one of the best players on the team, he was “a shy kid” and also that he always had his hoodie on. Martin’s goals changed when he started to explore his interests in planes and aviation after he had entered an aviation program in the summer of 2009 run by the “youngest person to fly solo around the world”, Barrington Irving. When Irving was asked about Martin, he had said that he was a “polite youth.”

A white supremacist group hacked had Martin’s twitter after he died and leaked selected tweets and posts that were damaging to his character, trying to make him look like a bad kid. A picture of Martin wearing a grill, as well as a picture of Martin holding up his middle finger circulated the internet in a desperate attempt to paint a picture that he was a bad and violent kid. This was important because at Zimmerman’s trial, Martin’s social media was going to be used to determine if, whether or not he was violent or had violent tendencies. If the court determined that he had, then that would work in favor for Zimmerman. It is interesting how those “bad” images of Martin were repeatedly circulated throughout the media instead of pictures of him playing football, or with his friends or family since they all loved him and had great things to say about him. (One family member even noted that Martin was not a fighter and that he would very much rather walk away from a fight, rather than get into any altercation). Even a picture that was also on his social media of him dressed up looking proper in his prom suit was conveniently left out when the [just] two others got out. Even after hacking his social media and discovering tweets that had cuss words in it, in his email account, emails regarding scholarship opportunities and SATs were found. Despite the effort the media and critics of Martin had put forth trying to make Martin seem like a bad kid, there was no doubt that he was a good kid who had a bright future… until Zimmerman eventually ruined it.

The Murderer

George Zimmerman was born in Manassas, Virginia on October 5th, 1983. He has a dense criminal record despite being only 31. He has had over seven encounters with the law involving incidents ranging from domestic violence, violence towards a police officer and multiple incidents involving threatening people [with guns].

There are significant signs that suggest the shooting of Martin was a biased crime committed by Zimmerman. For example, for a while, Zimmerman had the confederate flag as his profile picture on Twitter. In our modern day society, people who raise and praise the confederate flag are seen as racists because the people that fought under the confederate flag during the civil war were advocates for racism, segregation and even slavery. Zimmerman also took to his Twitter to insult President Obama, calling him an “ignorant buffoon.” Referring to African Americans as apes or monkeys of some sort, is not a “new thing”. Usually people who use this tactic as an insult have malicious intention and intend it to be a racist comment.

“It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals: ‘that the negro is not equal to the white man’. The Confederate flag, we are told, represents heritage, not hate. But why should we celebrate a heritage grounded in hate, a heritage whose self-avowed reason for existence was the exploitation and debasement of a sizable segment of its population?”- Gordon Rhea, southern historian.

Another comment George Zimmerman made on his Twitter in response to a critic on Twitter was, “We all know how it ended for the last moron that hit me. Give it a whirl cupcake.” He is quite obviously referring to Trayvon Martin, who he shot and killed. He seems to show no remorse, or feel no guilt whatsoever for his actions. In addition to showing no remorse for his actions on Twitter, apparently, he also showed no emotions during his trial. He showed up to his trial over 100 pounds heavier than he was when he first shot Trayvon Martin. There was speculation relating to this stating that he might have done this to win a little sympathy from the jurors by creating “a doughy” (FOXNews 6/10/13) appearance. The reason why this was so strange is because even though the defense claimed that he had gained all of that weight due to stress, apparently he seemed to be very “comfortable.” Any other person in their right mind would probably be even more stressed out at having gained such an immense amount of weight in such a small amount of time. The fact that the jury did not notice how calm he seemed and how he already seemed to have no remorse for his actions should have been a red flag right then and there.

Just like people were researching so hard into Martin’s past trying to paint him out as a bad kid in addition to trying to figure out if he had violent tendencies, the justice system should have done the same for Zimmerman. Zimmerman has had seven total encounters with the law, none in which he ended up being formally charged for. One of the incidents, he had a confrontation with a police officer in which he violently “shoved” him yelling profanity at him. Three other incidents were with his then girlfriend or then wife calling the police on him due to the fact that they felt legitimately scared for their lives, all incidents involving violence on Zimmerman’s part as well as him with a gun. On September 9, 2013, Zimmerman’s then wife had told police that Zimmerman had assaulted her father and threatened them both with a gun. On November 18, 2013, Zimmerman’s then girlfriend had told police that he got violent, started breaking her things while subsequently pointing his shotgun at her. Zimmerman had to take anger management classes due to that incident. On January 9, 2015, authorities booked him under assault charges because he had allegedly thrown a wine bottle at his then girlfriend and had assaulted her with a “deadly weapon.” Zimmerman seems more violent than Martin, yet obviously none of this was taken into account at his trial. Now, this does not prove that he is racist but this does prove that he does have a pretty extensive history of violence in addition to anger problems which he seemed to have incorrectly directed at whoever was near him. If prosecutors had looked more intensely at Zimmerman’s past and had analyzed his character further, I am more than certain evidence of racism would have been found. All of his racist, biased behaviors came to light after the crime so they were in his personality somewhere.

The Trial

On July 13th, 2013, the jury found Zimmerman not guilty. In Florida, a jury only consists of six people unless the crime is at the point where the death penalty may be considered. Questions were raised about whether or not the jury was adequate because five out of the six jurors were “considered white.” The only juror that was not white, was of a mixed race. One juror actually stated that it would be hard for her to make the decision to send someone to jail just because of the fact that her husband owned guns. The state tried to strike her from the jury but the judge went ahead and denied the strike, letting her onto the jury. Nowadays it is way too easy for bias to cloud people’s judgements, causing people to forget about justice. When it is all said and done, it comes down to the single fact that the jury acquitted a man who killed a child; an unarmed child.

The state tried to push the fact that this was a bias crime, but the reason it did not hold up in court was because there apparently was not enough evidence to prove so. Zimmerman was acquitted under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law” which authorizes the use of lethal force if one feels his life is in danger. There was said to be no evidence against Zimmerman’s testament that he felt his life was in danger so his statement held forth. What is especially confusing, is how Zimmerman felt so threatened by a 17 year old kid with no weapon. Why didn’t the jury think about that more? How much harm can an unarmed 17 year old kid half your size do to you? Of course, Trayvon Martin was probably already a little frustrated due to the fact that he was not doing anything wrong and someone had called the police on him based on the way that he looked. Before Zimmerman had approached him, the only thing that would have made Martin look even remotely threatening was the fact that he had his hood on. He had skittles and an Arizona tea in his hands. There was said to be a string of burglaries in the neighborhood which is why Zimmerman probably called the police on Martin however, is it fair to assume that Martin was involved in suspicious activity simply because he was walking too late at night which was an added bonus to the fact that he was black? I do not think so.

Articles around the internet have stated that George Zimmerman was justified in targeting Trayvon Martin because of the string of burglaries in his neighborhood that were occurring where the perpetrators were young black teenagers. From the minute he saw Trayvon Martin, he was racially profiling him. The fact that Martin was a young black teenager who fit the description of the perpetrators made it easier for him to justify why he approached him, against the police’s orders not to approach him. Zimmerman called the cops when he saw Martin, and the cops had specifically instructed him not to approach Martin, however he did not listen. Just because these robberies and home invasions were happening around this time, it still was not right for him to assume that Martin was one of them. Had he listened to the police officers he was on the phone with, the entire situation could have been avoided. The police would have arrived, spoken to Martin, and would have come to realize that he did not mean any harm and that he was simply coming back from the liquor store, hence the Arizona tea and skittles in his hand. He was unarmed and Zimmerman was not. Although Zimmerman did gain weight for the trial, are we really supposed to believe that a 17 year old kid could essentially overpower this grown man? There really was not sufficient enough evidence to prove the fight between the two happened because it was raining that night and investigators concluded that blood and such could have been washed off of Martin as his body lay there in the rain.

The Law

During Zimmerman’s trial, the jury only got to hear on side of the story, which is why he was released under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law” which states that if one feels legitimately threatened for their life, if lethal force is used in self defense, then one is permitted to use it. Many people including murderers and gang members and drug dealers have been exonerated due to Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law.” According to Times Magazine, “Those who invoke “Stand Your Ground” to avoid prosecution have been extremely successful. Nearly 70% have gone free. Defendants claiming “Stand Your Ground” are more likely to prevail if the victim is black. 73% of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59% of those who killed a white.” It is safe to assume that these facts are not written into the “Stand Your Ground” law, so the law is clearly being abused and used as a tool to fuel racism and inequality when trying perpetrators. We can question all we want why Zimmerman walked free when he obviously initiated contact with Martin after killing him but Zimmerman is now part of a statistic among others who did the same exact thing under that law.

Florida’s Hate Crime law, however states that the punishment of the perpetrator will be “enhanced” if it can be proved that the crime was “based on the race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, mental or physical disability, or advanced age of the victim,” (Fla. Stat. Ann. § 775.085 (2010)). The rest of the law talks about how it is unlawful for anyone to burn crosses on the lawns of any other’s property and also that the defacement of any sacred place such as a church, a synagogue or anything like is unlawful. Fla. Stat. Ann. § 775.085 (2010) is the only part of Florida’s bias crime law that Zimmerman would have been able to be charged under, however, there was a “lack of evidence.”

The Bottom Line

Trayvon Martin and his family received no justice for Martin’s murder. The system failed to see Zimmerman for the kind of person he really was. The fact that in court, all anyone was able to hear was one side of the story, more should have been done to examine his character. People lie under oath all the time, and how would you expect to go free if you admitted in court the reason you shot and killed a 17 year old kid is because you thought that he was somebody he wasn’t. That does not bring him back and it certainly does not justify his actions.