Under the “Stand Your Ground” laws that have been enacted in many states anyone can do what George Zimmerman did in Sanford, Fla.: shoot someone (preferably a Young Black Male) to death and then claim self-defense. Of course, it won’t work too well if the shooter is black and the victim is white. Oh, and after the “kill” the shooter should bop him or herself upside the head with that trusty Glock … just hard enough to raise the self-defense knot right above the left eye.

In spite of the fact that the shooter in this case will, in all likelihood, stand trial on state or federal charges, Southern “justice” being what it historically has been, there’s no assurance of a fair and unbiased jury being selected—or of a conviction … even if the evidence is overwhelming. This is why so many blacks were lynched in America a century ago: whites knew they could carry out their murderous acts with impunity. And, to quote an NAACP slogan: in America, “much has changed, much has not.”  

The emerging facts surrounding Trayvon’s death are so glaring as to be mind-boggling. Most important among them is the fact that when Zimmerman told a police dispatcher that he was following a Young Black Male (who, according to Zimmerman, “appeared to be on drugs”), the dispatcher responded, “We don’t need for you to do that.” At that point Zimmerman should have gotten back into his vehicle and simply followed Trayvon until police arrived, but he continued his pursuit; a deranged white man on the hunt of the elusive Young Black Male. Zimmerman even said, “These assholes always get away.” But not this time.

Supposedly, a number of break-ins had occurred in the gated community that served as Zimmerman’s hunting and killing grounds, and while no suspects had been arrested or even spotted … it was assumed by him and others that the dreaded Young Black Male—the fall guy for all our nation’s collective neighborhood fears—was responsible for them.

But I was an idealist. And being a prosecutor seemed to be the perfect solution to long-standing concerns that African-Americans had about both civil rights and public safety. In the segregated neighborhood in Chicago where I grew up, blacks made the same claims about law enforcement that they do now. The times that my neighbors were not complaining about how the police treated them, they were complaining that the police were never there when they needed them.

These claims seemed contradictory, but they were both accurate. And unfortunately things have not changed much, 30 years later, when the United States has one black president and 1 million black people in prison.

The citizens of Sanford, Fla., need the police right now. And they are not there. There are more African-Americans in the criminal justice system than there were slaves in 1850. Yet no law enforcement official has found the time to arrest George Zimmerman, more than a month after he followed Trayvon Martin, got out of his car to confront him, and then shot him dead.

Thomas Baker was on his normal early morning jog in Town ‘n’ Country, Florida, when he got into a fight with two hooded teens, ages 18 and 16. Carlos Mustelier, the 18-year-old, punched Baker, according to police reports. That’s when Baker pulled out his .45-caliber semiautomatic, for which he had a permit, and shot at Mustelier eight times. Mustelier died. The 16-year-old was not hurt. Neither teen was armed. Neither had a criminal record. Baker and the teens were in fact neighbors. Because of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, prosecutors declined to charge Baker in the killing. “It was a terrible thing,” Baker told the Tampa Bay Times. “He was a good kid,” a friend said of Mustelier, who was “spoiled” by his mother.

Irving Santana
September 2010
Pennsylvania

Marqus Hill had his concealed-gun permit in Pennsylvania revoked in 2005, when he was charged with attempted murder. Hill reapplied for his permit after he was acquitted. Pennsylvania denied his request, but he was able to get a permit in Florida. Thanks to a loophole by which Pennsylvania honors Florida permits, he was again allowed to carry a gun in Pennsylvania. That loophole had fatal consequences for Irving Santana. When Hill saw a couple of unarmed teenagers trying to break into cars in Philadelphia, he brought out his loaded gun and shot 18-year-old Santana 13 times. Hill will face trial for murder in June. He is claiming self-defense under Pennsylvania’s Stand Your Ground law, saying he feared for his life and thought one of the teens was armed.

Sanford police received nearly 15 reports of burglary and theft from Retreat at Twin Lakes homeowners last year. 

Trayvon Martin probably wasn’t aware of the rash of crimes in the complex that housed his father, his father’s girlfriend, and his baby brother, when he set out for a bag of Skittles and iced tea on the last day of his life.

And he’d likely have no way of knowing that the Neighborhood Watch leader, George Zimmerman, would see him walking home from the store that February night, deem him suspicious, and call the police. He’d have no way of knowing what would happen next to him, or that his name would soon be known the world over.

“How could anyone look at that baby’s face and think he was a criminal? How could they just see him as black, and not as somebody’s child,” said Marion Evans, Trayvon’s grandmother.

For the most part, the nature of Zimmerman’s calls make him sound more like a curmudgeon than a vigilante protecting the Retreat at Twin Lakes, the 260-unit gated community where he lived and where he shot Martin.

In November 2006, according to the log, Zimmerman placed a non-911 call to report a late model red Toyota pickup “driving around the neighborhood” and the apartment complex for several minutes.

In June 2009, he called to report that people were misbehaving in the community-pool area, jumping over the fence and trashing the bathroom.

The now controversial killing of Trayvon garnered virtually no mainstream media attention in the days immediately after he was fatally shot, but that all changed when the teenager’s parents decided to hire civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and his law firm to get more answers on exactly how and why their son died.

“They called me the same day they were notified that their son was dead,’’ Crump told The Daily Beast. “When I heard their unarmed teenage son was shot to death, I just knew there’d be an arrest shortly. There wasn’t an arrest 48 hours later, and then I knew we’d have to take this outside of Sanford if we wanted justice.’’

Trayvon’s parents were told by the Sanford police that Zimmerman wasn’t arrested in their son’s death because the facts of the case did not dispute his claim of self-defense.  

For Crump, taking the Trayvon Martin story outside of Sanford simply entailed dialing up a few well-placed friends such as the Rev. Al Sharpton. Crump worked closely with the civil rights leader in 2006 on another racially charged case—the controversial death of a 14-year-old, African-American inmate of a Florida boot camp.

Zimmerman’s record becomes spottier over the following years as he had a handful of run-ins with the law. In July 2005, Zimmerman was arrested after a tussle with law enforcement outside of a bar near the University of Central Florida. It was a first offense, and Zimmerman got off with a pretrial diversion program.

In August of the same year, a petition for injunction was filed against Zimmerman by a woman who cited domestic violence, and Zimmerman responded with his own petition. Both injunctions were issued.

In 2007, records show Zimmerman married Shellie Nicole Dean, a cosmetologist. The next year, he struggled with credit-card payments to Capital One, ultimately reaching a settlement for $2,135.82. Capital One later reported that Zimmerman was failing in his payments.