No Justice for Trayvon Benjamin Martin

There was no justice for 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who went to a convenience store for tea and Skittles between 7 and 8 p.m. and was going home to watch the NBA finals with his father and his father's girlfriend in Florida.

He died that night at the point of a gun. His crime? Being born with black skin and wearing a hoodie sweatshirt. He was unarmed.

A neighborhood watch volunteer armed with a gun, George Zimmerman, followed Martin in his car. He called police, and the dispatcher told him not to follow the teenager. Zimmerman got out of his car and followed Martin anyway. He created the life-and-death situation that killed an unarmed teenager.

At first Florida law enforcement wasn't even going to charge George Zimmerman with a crime. After African-Americans began protesting en masse, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder. A jury of six Florida women found him not guilty.

Apparently, the case didn't even turn on Florida's stand-your-ground law. It simply turned on the dubious claim of self-defense. Apparently, Trayvon Martin was scared that this weirdo was following him for no reason. So he attacked Zimmerman, or so Zimmerman claimed. 

Zimmerman claimed the young man screaming for help was him. I strongly doubt it was him. A man's voice doesn't fully mature until he's 35 years old. The young man screaming for help was Trayvon Martin, as his mother testified.

I think Trayvon's father initially testified that the voice was not his son's because he was in denial and disbelief. Maybe he'd never heard his son sound that terrified before. Maybe dwelling on the circumstances of his son's death or the fact of his son's death was something he just could not do just then. In any case, he eventually came to realize and testify that the recorded voice was his son's voice.

Zimmerman's racial profiling caused him to follow Martin. What else could it have been? The hoodie? That, again, is racial profiling. The police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to follow Martin. 

If Martin had run, and he probably could have outrun Zimmerman, would Zimmerman have shot him in the back? He probably should have run. Maybe prosecuting a man who shot an unarmed teenager in the back would have been easier.

As it is, Zimmerman's lawyer said, Zimmerman has received death threats. In public, he wears body armor.

"He can't get a job. He's a pariah," one of his lawyers stated.

What's amazing is that the MARTIN family has received death threats! Can you imagine? Their son is dead for no good reason and they are receiving death threats? Why?

Meanwhile, the Martin family is allegedly considering a civil suit for wrongful death. I hope they pursue such a case. It worked in the O.J. Simpson case when Johnny Cochran, his lawyer, got him off in the criminal trial.

The Department of Justice is considering a civil rights suit against George Zimmerman. 

Regardless of what happens, George Zimmerman will always have to look over his shoulder. For the life of me, I can't figure out why the grieving family of Trayvon Martin would have to look over their shoulders. Haven't they suffered enough?