Shooting of Trayvon Martin

On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American high school student. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed race Hispanic man was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily living and where the shooting took place. Zimmerman shot Martin, who was unarmed, during an altercation between the two. Responding to an earlier call from Zimmerman, police arrived on the scene within two minutes of the shooting. Zimmerman was taken into custody, treated for head injuries, then questioned for five hours. The police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest. The police chief also said that Zimmerman had a right to defend himself with lethal force. As news of the case spread, thousands of protesters across the country called for Zimmerman's arrest and a full investigation. Six weeks after the shooting, amid widespread, intense, and in some cases misleading media coverage, Zimmerman was charged with murder by a special prosecutor appointed by Governor Rick Scott. Zimmerman's trial began on June 10, 2013 in Sanford. On July 13, 2013, a jury acquitted him. On 24 February 2015, the United States Department of Justice announced that "there was not enough evidence for a federal hate crime prosecution." Parties involved- Trayvon Martin: Trayvon Benjamin Martin was the son of Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, who were divorced in 1999. He was a junior at Dr. Michael M. Krop High School and lived with his mother and older brother in Miami Gardens, Florida. On the day he was fatally shot, he and his father were visiting his father's fiancée and her son at her town home in Sanford, Florida. She lived in The Retreat at Twin Lakes, a multi-ethnic gated community where Martin had visited several times before. According to his autopsy, Martin was 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighed 158 pounds (72 kg) at the time of his death. George Zimmerman: George Michael Zimmerman was born in Manassas, Virginia and is the son of Gladys (née Mesa) Zimmerman, born in Peru, and Robert Zimmerman Sr., a retired Virginia magistrate. At the time of the shooting, Zimmerman was employed as an insurance fraud investigator. He had been working toward an associate degree in criminal justice at Seminole State College. In one of his interviews with the police, he said his goal was to become a judge. At the time of his arrest on April 11, 2012, Zimmerman's height was reportedly 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) and his weight 185 lb (84 kg), according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office Inmate Booking record. Zimmerman's height was shown as 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) and his weight at 200 lb (91 kg) on the Sanford Police Department Offense Report for February 26, 2012, the night of the shooting. Zimmerman and his wife moved to The Retreat at Twin Lakes in 2009. Sanford Police Department: Bill Lee had been chief of the Sanford Police Department for ten months when the shooting occurred. Prior to Lee becoming chief, the department had been accused of protecting relatives of police officers involved in violent incidents with blacks, and the Martin case increased distrust between the police and Sanford's black community. On March 22, Chief Lee temporarily stepped down from his position because of public criticism over his handling of the Trayvon Martin shooting. In April, the Sanford City Commission refused to accept Lee's resignation and stated that "Lee's spotless record showed there needed to be further review to determine if he failed in his duties." Lee was fired on June 20, 2012 by Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte. Lee responded by saying "I continue to stand by the work performed by the Sanford Police Department in this tragic shooting, which has been plagued by misrepresentations and false statements for interests other than justice.On June 26, 2012, the lead investigator of the case, Christopher Serino, was transferred out of the Sanford Police Department's investigative unit and reassigned to the patrol division at his own request. Serino said he felt pressured by several of his fellow police officers to press charges on Zimmerman when he believed there was not enough evidence to do so, and that one of the officers pressuring him was a friend of Martin's father. In September 2012, Orlando TV station WFTV released a leaked memo in which interim police chief Richard Myers blamed the police department spokesperson, Sgt. David Morgenstern, for having mishandled the Travyon Martin case and removed him from his spokesperson position. Martin family attorneys: Benjamin Crump, the lawyer representing the interests of the Martin family, operates a law firm in Tallahassee, Florida, with his partner Daryl Parks. The firm has eight lawyers who focus on wrongful death, malpractice, personal injury and civil rights. The Martin family was also represented by Natalie Jackson, an Orlando civil rights attorney. Background of the shooting: The Retreat at Twin Lakes is a 260-unit gated townhome community in Sanford, Florida. The population in the development at the time of the shooting was about 49% non-Hispanic white, 23% Hispanic (of any race), 20% black, and 5% Asian, according to Census figures. Both George Zimmerman and Tracy Martin's fiancée were renting homes in the development when the shooting occurred. At the time of the shooting, Martin had been staying with his father's fiancée at The Retreat. From January 1, 2011 through February 26, 2012, police were called to The Retreat at Twin Lakes 402 times. Crimes committed at The Retreat in the year prior to Martin's death had included eight burglaries, nine thefts, and one shooting. Twin Lakes residents said there were dozens of reports of attempted break-ins, which had created an atmosphere of fear in their neighborhood. In September 2011, the Twin Lakes residents held an organizational meeting to create a neighborhood watch program. Zimmerman was selected by neighbors as the program's coordinator, according to Wendy Dorival, Neighborhood Watch organizer for the Sanford Police Department. Zimmerman had made nearly 50 calls to police between 2004 and 2012 to report various local disturbances, such as loud parties, open garage doors, potholes, and children playing in the street. Following break-ins in the neighborhood in 2011, Zimmerman's calls to police increasingly focused on reporting people he suspected of criminal activity. During the months leading up to the February 26, 2012 shooting, Zimmerman called the police several times to report people he believed to be suspicious. On each of the calls, Zimmerman only offered information about their race when specifically asked by the dispatcher to do so, reporting that the people were black males. According to friends and neighbors of Zimmerman, three weeks prior to the shooting on February 2, Zimmerman called police to report a young man peering into the windows of an empty Twin Lakes home. By the time police arrived, the suspect had fled. On February 6, workers witnessed two young black men lingering in the yard of a Twin Lakes resident around the same time a new laptop and some gold jewelry was stolen from her home. The next day police discovered the stolen laptop in the backpack of a young black man whom Zimmerman identified as the same person he had spotted peering into windows on February 2. Zimmerman had been licensed to carry a firearm since November 2009. In response to Zimmerman's multiple reports regarding a loose pit bull in the Twin Lakes neighborhood, a Seminole County Animal Services officer advised Zimmerman to "get a gun", according to a friend, rather than rely on pepper spray to fend off the pit bull, which on one occasion had cornered his wife. Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee acknowledged that Zimmerman had a legal right to carry his firearm on the night of the shooting.