Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson is “tired of burying young black boys,” and considers Trayvon Martin’s death “a classic example of racial profiling quickly followed by murder.”

She is also the U.S. Representative for Florida’s 17th congressional district where Sanford, Florida, is located and personally knows the Martin family. Frederica Wilson has only been in office since January, but she has been using her presence on the House floor to hold America accountable for the lack of action on Trayvon Martin’s cold-blooded murder. She has promised to speak to the House every single day “and announce to America how long justice for Trayvon Martin has been delayed” until George Zimmerman is arrested. Her passionate speech at Tuesday’s session was a call to action asking us to “stand up for Trayvon Martin, stand up for Justice, stand up for our children.”

Her words and committment to the cause of justice provide much-needed hope during this trying time. For more of her thoughts, watch her speech at Wednesday’s session.

 

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5 Reasons Zimmerman's "Stand Your Ground" Defense Won't Work in Trayvon Martin Case

As a former federal prosecutor and a former attorney general, I want to talk about the Trayvon Martin story because it disturbs me as a prosecutor, and it deeply disturbs me as a mother of a teenage son. Let me say a word first as a prosecutor.

You've heard of this story -- Cenk Uygur, Keith Olbermann and others in the news media have covered this -- Trayvon Martin was the 17-year-old Florida high school football player who was shot and killed last month. He was visiting with his father and family friend in a gated community. He was walking back to the home from a convenience store in the rain in the early evening three weeks ago, carrying skittles and a can of iced tea.

Trayvon's killer, George Zimmerman, was the volunteer "watchman" for the gated community. That night, as Zimmerman followed Trayvon, he called 911 because he thought the teenager in the hoodie was suspicious. Zimmerman is 28-years-old, a criminal justice major, who had called the Sanford police department 46 times since he took on the role as guardian for the community.

Zimmerman claims that in shooting Trayvon he acted in self-defense based upon a 2005 law called "Stand Your Ground."

Here's what the law says: 

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity, and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

This law is part of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)'s cluster of pro-NRA bills that shot through legislatures in the past few years. Florida's law was the first and 17 states now have a version of this law, many with virtually identical language.

The way the bill is written, in order for the defense to work, the prosecutor has to rebut Zimmerman's claim that he acted in self-defense.

Basically, the prosecutor has to prove that it was unreasonable for Zimmerman to believe that Trayvon Martin was about to kill him or greatly injure him.

Officer reports reveal that Zimmerman claimed he was jumped from behind by Trayvon and he acted in self-defense.

Here are the five main pieces of evidence that address the likelihood of that defense:

1. The call from Zimmerman to law enforcement, and the officers telling Martin not to pursue. Zimmerman whispers what many have described as a racial slur under his breath.
2. There is a 911 call where you can hear a voice yelling for help and a firearm shot.
3. Trayvon's father identified his voice on that 911 call on Al Sharpton's Politics Nation program on MSNBC.
4. The account of the girlfriend, who says Trayvon told her by cellphone that he was being followed.
5. Trayvon was not armed and weighed between 75-100 pounds less than Zimmerman.

The evidence that we know of -- the public evidence -- establishes that Zimmerman was the pursuer, and not the victim.

So, without having heard directly from Zimmerman himself or knowing any other evidence, it seems to me it is 'probable' that Zimmerman's "Stand Your Ground" defense will not fly. Based just upon what we can see from the public record, Zimmerman should be arrested.

There's something even more troubling about this case to me, as a parent.

I keep looking at the pictures of the baby-faced handsome young man. His voice on that 911 tape crying for help is agonizing for any parent to hear.

I have a wonderful teenage son too. He wears hoodies, carries his cell phone and likes skittles. If this were my son, by god ...

But let's face it, this would not happen to my son. This happened to Trayvon Martin because he's black.

My heart breaks for Trayvon's parents. Imagine it were your son on that 911 tape, begging for someone to help.

Would you be satisfied with George Zimmerman being a free man?

The Sanford police department needs to take action.

And in fact, in the last hour, the Sanford city commission voted 3 to 2 that it had no confidence in Police Chief Bill Lee Jr. They can't fire him, so now Lee needs to take the next step and resign.

If the Sanford police department or the state does not take action, a much larger power -- the U.S. Department of Justice -- hopefully will.

NAACP President Turner Clayton said today that the Department of Justice had already taken a first step, with Eric Holder "summoning" Sanford's mayor and city manager to Washington.

One thing is for sure: this is not the end of this story.

Cross-posted at "The War Room" blog. Follow "The War Room" on Twitter and Facebook.

>via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/5-reasons-zimmermans-stan_b...

 

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Trayvon Martin And

The Failure

To Intervene

BY KASHMIR HILL,  Forbes Staff

Trayvon Martin's desperate calls for help went unanswered

Much has been written about the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old boy who was pursued and then shot by 28-year-old George Zimmerman because he “looked suspicious” while walking back from a trip to a convenience store to buy Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea. Much of the coverage has focused on the race issues (Martin was black and Zimmerman is Latino), the local police department’s suspect decision not to pursue charges against Zimmerman, the wisdom of Flori-duh’s “Stand Your Ground” lawwhich allows people to use (deadly?) force when they feel threatened, and the role that social media has played in bringing the case into the national spotlight to ensure that Martin’s killer faces further scrutiny and prosecution.

While much has been written about the failure of institutional forces to act, not much has been said about the failure to assist Martin in the final moments of his life, and the ghost of  Kitty Genovese in the yards of that central Florida neighborhood three weeks ago.  Mother Jones’comprehensive backgrounder on the tragic case includes 911 calls that the Sanford Police Department belatedly released, under pressure from the media and civil liberties groups. In some of the calls, you can hear someone in the background — presumably Martin — screaming for help. “There’s someone screaming outside,” says one female caller, fairly calmly. “It sounds like a male. I don’t know why. It sounds like he’s yelling ‘help.’”

Approximately a minute into that call, you hear a gunshot, and the anguished screaming of a desperate teenage boy stops.

The dispatchers say that they’d received many calls from people in the houses surrounding the yard where Zimmerman and Martin struggled in the minutes before the shooting. In one 14-minute call, a former schoolteacher sobs when she realizes that someone is dead: “I can’t believe someone was killed. He was saying help. Why didn’t someone come out and help him?”

Because they were huddled in their homes, on their phones, calling the police.

 Our culture of fear is a strong one, and the instinct for self-preservation is certainly understandable. The neighbors are not culpable for not intervening in the way that the police department is for its failure to intervene later to ensure justice was served in Martin’s death. But it’s tragic that no one helped Martin when his life hung in the balance.

“I would have helped if I could have,” the schoolteacher adds, her voice breaking. “I wish I could have done something…When someone calls for help, don’t you wish you could have helped them?”

“Hindsight is 20-20. The whole thing happened too quickly. You weren’t the only one that heard… Many other people in your neighborhood called,” says the dispatcher.

“The people back there, their porches are right there,” she replies, still crying. “They were three feet away. They could have run out and helped the person.”

“Calling 911 was the best way to help this man,” says the dispatcher.

It was certainly the safest thing to do for those involved, but far from the best way to help Trayvon Martin.