Thursday, March 22, 2012

Trayvon Martin

On February 26, 2012, a 17 year old African American named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida. The shooter was George Zimmerman, a 28 year old white man. Zimmerman admits killing Martin, but claims he was acting in self-defense. Almost a month after Martin's death, no arrests have been made and Zimmerman remains free.



The day Trayvon was killed, he was walking home from a convenience store with a bag of skittles for his little brother and a can of iced tea. Zimmerman called the police to report Martin's "suspicious" behavior, which he described as "just walking around looking about." Zimmerman was in his car when he saw Martin walking on the street. He called the police and said: "There's a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he's up to no good, on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around looking about." Zimmerman kept complaining about the suspicious behavior and even after the police told him to stop following Trayvon, he continued to.


Zimmeran was not even a registered member of the Neighborhood Watch group but he violated basic Neigborhood Watch guidlines by carrying a 9 millimeter handgun. The sound of the gunshot that killed Trayvon was on the 911 tapes and it is clear George Zimmerman murdered an innocent young man. Zimmerman claims he killed him for self-defense however he cannot prove that Trayvon was doing anything suspicious. On top of that, Trayvon was unarmed and had no criminal record.

I think that George Zimmerman is a racist and was racial profiling. Trayvon was wearing jeans, white tennis shoes, and a hoodie. Zimmerman saw him and said he looked odd and suspicious. If a white person was wearing the exact same thing I don't think Zimmerman would have thought twice about the guy. I think that if the shooter was black and the victim was white the case would be handled differently and the shooter would already be in jail. 


It is really upsetting to think that Trayvon's parents have to live their lives thinking about how the murderer of thier son is walking around free. Zimmerman needs to be put in jail for the horrible deed he did and justice needs to be served. Rest in peace Trayvon.

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