He looked like he might be on drugs and “up to no good.”
“It’s raining. He’s just walking around, looking about,” Zimmerman told the dispatcher. “He’s just staring looking at all the houses.”
Later, he lamented: “These a**holes always get away.”
Zimmerman is the neighborhood watch volunteer in the Central Florida town of Sanford who on Feb. 26 shot and killed Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claimed the teen started an altercation, and then -- in fear for his life -- Zimmerman pulled a weapon from his waistband and fired. He has not been charged.
Family members and attorneys believe the Sanford Police has bent over backward to protect Zimmerman out of a sense of kinship for a man who had devoted his spare time to law enforcement.
In an interview this week with the Miami Herald, Police Chief Bill Lee said the 911 calls would prove the incident was not a case of racial profiling, because when asked whether the suspect was white or black, Zimmerman did not know. However the recording clearly shows that when asked, Zimmerman said, “He looks black.” And then a few moments later, “He’s a black male.”
His family filed a lawsuit to force the Sanford Police Department to release the 911 tapes to clarify the murky circumstances. A hearing had been scheduled for Monday, and in the face of mounting national pressure the Sanford Police decided to release the tapes late Friday. They first allowed the slain teen’s family and attorneys to listen.
According to the recordings posted on the city’s website, Zimmerman was perturbed because Trayvon looked a bit out of sorts. Other callers reported hearing someone calling for help and then a blast that silenced the wailing. One call, so close that the cries for help could be heard, contains two sounds, first a muted bang that family attorneys believe was a warning shot, then the louder crack of close-range gunfire. Sanford police said Sunday that a check of the weapon showed only one shot was fired.
The first call came from Zimmerman.
“He’s just looking at all the houses,” Zimmerman said. “Now he’s just staring at me.” Then Zimmerman said the suspicious person, who appeared to be black and in his late teens, had his hand in his waist band. “Something’s wrong with him. He’s coming to check me out.”
As he narrates where the man was headed, the dispatcher asks, “are you following him?” Yeah,” Zimmerman said. “We don’t need you to do that.” [Source]
"These a**holes always get away". Yes they do. But they might not this time Mr. Zimmerman.
Glad to see that the main stream media like NBC (they waited until the weekend) and CNN have finally caught up to this story. It always takes them awhile (they have to check out the sensibilities of their audience, first ), but eventually they catch up to the rest of us.
The thing is, the media in A-merry-ca will jump all over a story where there is perceived injustice somewhere else in the world, but not so much here in A-merry-ca. They are especially afraid of stories that involve the uncomfortable subject of race. God forbid we mess up the beautiful kumbaya post-racial vibe that we have been enjoying of late. *sarcasm off*
At the end of the day it's bloggers and the social media that always drives these stories,because the producers who work in the main stream media and their puppet masters do not have the guts to do it. It's only after the public outcry becomes loud enough to embarrass them that they give in and feature these types of stories in their programming.
Troy Davis, the Scott Sisters, Jena, and on and on it goes.
But hey, that's why we are here; because CNN doesn't always cover our world.
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