Shooting of Trayvon Martin - Page 33

Sunday evening, Feb. 26: It was raining in central Florida while the NBA All-Star game and the Oscars were about to begin on TV.

A 17-year-old high school junior from Miami Gardens serving a 10-day suspension went to 7-Eleven to get candy. It was the third time Trayvon Martin had been disciplined at school, so this time his parents sent him to a quiet, racially mixed gated community in Sanford, Fla., with his dad to get his priorities straight. He was African American and wore a hoodie.

George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer who routinely called police to report anything awry, had just made dinner and told his family he was headed to Target. He was Hispanic and wore a holstered Kel Tek 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

The brief encounter between the two at the Retreat at Twin Lakes community would leave one dead and the other in hiding, give rise to a social movement and, at least temporarily, cost the local police chief his job. During the next 30 days, the name "Trayvon" would be tweeted more than 2 million times.

In a fast-paced world of 24-hour cable news and nonstop social media, what happened that night has become both common knowledge and a blur of unattributed rumor accepted as fact. A controversial police report incited conspiracy theories and failed to definitively resolve what everyone wants to know: Who picked the fight? At least three agencies, including the FBI, are investigating.
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The protagonists in the saga gripping the nation are Zimmerman, a man with a history of going after suspects in hot pursuit, and Trayvon, a chronically tardy teenager who was making plans for college and got suspended for having an empty baggie containing marijuana residue. Their story begins when Zimmerman got out of his vehicle and chased Trayvon.

But in the tale pieced together from 911 calls, witnesses, police, Zimmerman's family and a girl who was on the phone with Trayvon during the last minutes of his life, a crucial one-minute gap remains a mystery: Who approached whom? Who threw the first blow?

And a special prosecutor in Jacksonville, Fla., is now tasked to investigate the key question: Did Zimmerman justifiably take Trayvon's life to save his own?

Trayvon was a lot like most teenagers: He spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone. That Sunday, he talked for nearly five hours.

Earplugs in his ears, Arizona iced tea in hand and a cell phone, Skittles and $22 in his pockets, he chatted the whole way back from the store. It started raining harder as he walked, so he pulled up his hood and sought shelter at a building in the townhouse complex, the girlfriend he was on the phone with later told attorneys.

At 7:11 p.m., Zimmerman, who was in his truck, spotted Trayvon. The neighborhood had had a rash of burglaries, attributed to young black men, and Zimmerman was wary of someone he did not recognize walking along the path through the back of the townhouses, his father later told a local TV station.

Zimmerman called police. It was the fifth time in a year that he had alerted authorities to the presence of a black male he found suspicious, records show. This one, he said, looked high and had something in one hand while he kept the other in his waist as he peered at houses.
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"Hey, we've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," he told the police operator. "This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around looking about."

Trayvon saw something suspicious, too: He was being followed.

A T-Mobile phone log provided by the family's attorney shows Trayvon's girlfriend called him again at 7:12 p.m., just moments after they had hung up. "I think this dude is following me," Trayvon told her, according to her account.

The girl said she offered Trayvon advice: "Run!"

Trayvon did just that.

At 7:13, two minutes into Zimmerman's call, he tells the police operator: "S --, he's running."

A beeping sound is heard, indicating that he opened his car door. Zimmerman went after Trayvon and, out of breath, muttered profanities. He lost sight of him.

"Are you following him?" the operator asked.

"Yeah."

"OK, we don't need you to do that."

Zimmerman spent almost two more minutes offering directions to the operator. He said he would meet police by the mailboxes and then, just before hanging up, apparently thought better of it. "Actually, could you have him call me, and I'll tell him where I'm at?" he said three minutes and 50 seconds into the call. At 7:15, he hung up.

The two met up along a dark paved path that runs between the back of two rows of townhouses.

The girlfriend said she heard the two exchange questions: "Why are you following me?" and "What are you doing here?"

Zimmerman's dad told an Orlando TV station that it went more like, "Do you have a f --ing problem?" to which George Zimmerman replied no and reached for his phone to call police again.

Zimmerman, a married insurance underwriter who studied criminal justice at Seminole State College, told police that Trayvon approached him from behind as he was returning to his car. He told police, his family and his attorney that Trayvon decked him in the nose hard, causing him to hit the ground. Then, he says, Trayvon started punching him and slamming his head on the concrete.

The girl who was talking to Trayvon said she heard a scuffle until the line went dead at 7:16.

Although Sanford police would not reveal the times, 911 tapes show that the first of the residents' calls came while Zimmerman and Trayvon were fighting. Desperate wails are heard in the background of at least one call. Two witnesses say they saw the encounter, but their stories contradict each other.

One man interviewed by a local Fox news station, who asked to be identified only as John, said he saw the man wearing a red jacket -- Zimmerman -- on the ground, being beaten by someone on top of him -- Trayvon.

But last week another unidentified man told CNN that he saw a larger man on top and a boy underneath. There wasn't much movement, he said.

Zimmerman's father told Orlando's Fox 35 TV station that as his son was being beaten he tried to move from the concrete onto the grass. In doing so, he said, the gun his son kept in a holster on his waist was exposed.

"Trayvon Martin said something to the effect of 'You're going to die now' or 'You're gonna die tonight' " Robert Zimmerman said. "He continued to beat George. At some point, George pulled his pistol and did what he did."
Calls for help

Seven calls came in to 911.

"They're wrestling right in the back of my porch," one caller said. "A guy is yelling, 'Help.' ... I'm pretty sure the guy is dead."

"I saw a man lying on the ground and he needed help, screaming," a 13-year-old boy told 911. "I heard a loud sound, and the screaming stopped."

Selma Mora Lamilla said she heard no fighting, only the wail of a child and the distinct crack of gunfire that silenced it. She ran outside her back porch, where she said she saw Zimmerman standing above Trayvon, apparently holding him down.

"I asked him, 'What's happening here? What's going on?' " Lamilla said. "He said, 'Just call the police.' Then I saw him with his hands over his head in the universal sign of: 'Oh man, I messed up.' "

The police arrived at 7:17. Trayvon was dead.

The first officer to arrive was Timothy Smith, who said he found a white man in a red jacket and jeans standing and a black male in a gray hooded sweat shirt facedown in the grass.

Smith later wrote: "Zimmerman stated that he had shot the subject, and he was still armed. ... Located on the inside of Zimmerman's waist band, I removed a black Kel Tek 9mm PF9 semiauto handgun and holster. While I was in such close contact with Zimmerman, I could observe that his back appeared to be wet and was covered in grass, as if he had been laying on his back on the ground.

"Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and back of his head."

Officer Ricardo Ayala and Sgt. Anthony Raimondo attempted CPR on Trayvon until Sanford Fire Rescue arrived. A paramedic pronounced Trayvon dead at 7:30.

Zimmerman was handcuffed and placed in Smith's patrol car. Sanford Fire Rescue administered first aid.

"While SFD was attending to Zimmerman, I overheard him state, 'I was yelling for someone to help me, but no one would help me,' " Smith wrote.

That someone shouted is corroborated by 911 callers, who reported hearing screams for help just before they heard gunfire.

But it is unclear which of the two cried for help. All the callers now believe the person who cried is the one who ended up dead; the parents of Zimmerman and Trayvon are each convinced that it was their son screaming for help.

Zimmerman was taken to the Sanford Police Department in handcuffs. A time stamp on the precinct security camera video shows he got there at 7:52 p.m. An officer patted him down.

The video shows no obvious sign of injury or bloodstains on his clothes, although one shot shows an officer examining the back of Zimmerman's head, then wiping his hands on his pants.

Meanwhile, police fingerprinted the dead teen, who carried no identification. He had never been arrested, so 12 hours passed before anyone knew his name.

"I have never seen a crime scene cleaned up so fast," Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin, told the Miami Herald. He came home that night just before 11 p.m. and saw no trace of a crime. It was not until he called police the next morning that a detective went to the townhouse where his girlfriend lives to break the news.

Zimmerman, meanwhile, had been questioned by police and released without charges.

Police stressed that Zimmerman was interviewed at least three times and gave a videotaped statement. Zimmerman, whose father is a retired Virginia magistrate, never asked for an attorney or changed his story, former Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee said.

The investigation began with detectives interrogating Zimmerman and patrol officers canvassing the 911 callers.

One caller said he had seen a man with a white T-shirt on top of the other. Neither Zimmerman nor Trayvon wore white.

Another caller, Lamilla's roommate, Mary Cutcher, phoned police after the gunshot and said the black man was standing over another man, which would have been impossible, because Trayvon was already dead.

Investigation

Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators were at the gated community last week, re-interviewing witnesses. The probe also is expected to lean heavily on audio experts to try to determine whether it was Trayvon or Zimmerman crying in the first 911 call.

Several days passed before police released a report with an account that said Zimmerman had blood on his nose and the back of his head, fueling suspicion that the department was attempting to bolster Zimmerman's story and defend the lack of an arrest.

The report lists the height and weight of every person, including the 911 callers. The only person whose size is not noted is Zimmerman. At 5 feet 9, Zimmerman was much shorter but heavier than Trayvon. The report listed lists Trayvon at 6 feet and 160 pounds, though his family said he was actually 6 feet 3 and weighed, at most, 150 pounds.

Although some people thought they heard two shots, a review of the confiscated weapon showed only one shot was fired, a police spokesman told the Miami Herald. The Seminole County State Attorney's Office was called the night of the shooting, as is routine with all killings, but no one from the office went to the scene. It is unclear who gave the order to let Zimmerman go.

Although police publicly said there was no probable cause to arrest Zimmerman, it was later revealed that investigators had requested an arrest warrant from the State Attorney's Office, which held off for further review. The case has since been reassigned to a special prosecutor in Jacksonville.

The Sanford police and the Seminole state attorney have referred questions to special prosecutor Angela Corey. Her office said it will not answer inquiries about the case.

Much of the evidence, such as the autopsy report, which would show results of Trayvon's toxicology test, are not yet public record. Police have declined to release Zimmerman's statements or that of the witnesses. The Ft. Lauderdale funeral director who handled arrangements for Trayvon's family told reporters that he saw no bruises or blood on the teen's knuckles. Police said Zimmerman provided medical records to support evidence of his injuries.

In an interview two weeks after the incident, Chief Lee, who has since stepped down from his post, said witness statements and physical evidence backed up Zimmerman's version of events. He suggested that based on the timing of the call, he believed that Trayvon went out of his way to approach the person tailing him and mouth off.

My dear friend Kathryn Milofsky arranged for me to speak with Trayvon Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, and her attorney Benjamin Crump, today just before Passover. We had invited Trayvon's parents to our Passover seder, but as that could not be worked out I was grateful to speak to Ms. Fulton and offer her whatever words of comfort and healing I could muster.

The opposite turned out to be the case. It was I who found the conversation healing and inspirational and decided therefore, after asking her permission, to share it in a column this holiday weekend, holy to both Christians and Jews, even as I battle against the receding sun which will bring in the Sabbath and Passover and make it forbidden for me to write.

The conversation was not taped and I am writing from memory and I ask everyone's forgiveness, especially Ms. Fulton, if I have committed any errors. The quotations I have for Ms. Fulton are likewise done from memory.

Ms. Fulton thanked me for the column I wrote about her son in The Huffington Post. After expressing my heartfelt condolences on the tragic loss of her child, I asked her if she felt disappointed that some segments of our society may not understand the depth of her anguish.

She said that the key to understanding how she and her family felt was human empathy. Anyone who is a parent could appreciate what it might mean to lose a child, especially when they died under such appalling circumstances. To compound the pain, the feeling that there is no justice magnified the pain infinitely. She said that this was not an issue for the black or white communities or the political right or left. It was a human issue, an issue for all parents, an issue that concerns anyone who appreciates life and opposes senseless tragedy.

"I look at my older son, who is 21 years-old. And I see Travyon in him. And I keep on expecting Trayvon to come home. But he doesn't come home. And now, I have one son on earth, and one son in heaven. And I miss him."

I asked her if she felt any anger to George Zimmerman:

I have no time for anger. I don't want to grant it a place in my heart. I simply want justice. I don't hate him and I'm not angry at him. But my son died and we deserve to know what happened. It's not for the police to determine justice. It's for the courts. And we'll stand by what the court says. But that's what I'm focused on. We want an arrest. But it's not out of anger or hatred. I have too much to do to be sidetracked with any of that. But when your son dies and there isn't even an arrest, it makes it so much harder.

She uttered these words in a pained tone. She did not raise her voice. There was no malice or rancor. She spoke passionately and with deep conviction.

I asked her if she felt anger at God over her son's tragic death? She immediately quoted Proverbs 3:5, citing both chapter and verse: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

She said she was finding comfort in the verse. She does not question God. She was asking for understanding. "At first, I kept on asking why me, why Trayvon. But now I know that God has called Trayvon. He was chosen. His name is now known throughout the country and throughout the world. He is a symbol of the fight against injustice. People understand that there has to be fairness and righteousness. And they're learning it from Trayvon."

I told her that I was amazed that she quoted that verse. The first Hebrew word in the verse is Betach -- trust. It's my name, Boteach. And because my family name translates literally as Trust, I had chosen that verse as my main verse for my junior high school yearbook, and had adopted it as a mantra by which I had attempted to lead my life.

I asked her if she believed in America as a place of fairness and justice. She said she did. "But that's why this case is so important. If Trayvon can die and no one pays a price, it can be someone else's child next time. This isn't only about our family, it's about all families. It's about all children. Trayvon is everyone's child."

As she spoke I was reminded of Martin Luther King's famous words, "A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I asked her how her family was coping. She said the tragedy had drawn the entire family closer. They were sharing many family meals, they were comforting each other, finding solace in one another.

Forgive me for sounding clichéd, and I am writing quickly so what is in my heart is being translated directly on to the page. I must tell you, I found her words, her voice, her demeanor, her compassion, and conviction and uplifting. Here was a mother who had buried her son under the most tragic circumstances. Yet she spoke without rage, hatred, or spite. She spoke of feeling God's presence in her heart and in her life. She said that other parents had to understand her campaign. That if anything like this had happened to their children, they too would shake heaven and earth to demand justice.

Before ending the conversation, I told her that since I was a boy, when my mother was going through a painful divorce and she was befriended and loved by an African-American co-worker at her bank, I had always felt a kinship with the black community. I told her that the black and Jewish communities are united not by a shared history of pain or suffering, but a shared history of spiritual promise and social redemption. That through all our trials and tribulations our two communities had always turned to God as the rock of our salvation, finding solace in His loving embrace. She echoed the sentiment and spoke of the all-encompassing presence of God in her life.

We agreed that we would G-d willing meet up when she was in New York. As I ended the conversation I felt as though I had been speaking with a giant, a woman of extraordinary heart, though it be shattered into a million pieces.