On Saturday, July 13, George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in a second-degree murder trial. Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a young Black man, in cold blood on the streets ofSanford,Florida, on February 26, 2012. After killing Martin, Zimmerman roamed free for 44 days before the angry response of millions of people forced the state to take action.
The sequestered jury of six women, all white except for one, came back with a not guilty verdict after only two days of deliberations. The verdict is a travesty, a continuation of the complicity of the racist, so-called criminal justice system that refused to treat the murder as a crime and has now left a vigilante free to roam the streets. The system of racist brutality carried out against poor people and people of color in communities fromFloridatoNew YorktoCaliforniatoTexasand elsewhere is on the offensive.
The acquittal of George Zimmerman means there will be more George Zimmermans. They have encouraged the growth of racist vigilante attacks on Black people. This is a pattern of racist violence that allows the cops to get away with murders like those of Oscar Grant, Alan Blueford and Manuel Diaz and countless others.
http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/justice-for-trayvon-martin.html