ORLANDO, Fla., (Reuters) – The case of an unarmed black teenager shot dead by a white neighbourhood watch captain who police have failed to arrest will go before a grand jury, Florida prosecutors said yesterday.
State prosecutor Norm Wolfinger made the announcement as the victim’s family lawyer said 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was on his cellphone with a girlfriend, giving her a chilling, minute-by-minute account of what was happening in the moments before he died.
Police in the central Florida town of Sanford where Martin was gunned down have not arrested neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. They did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment on the case, which has sparked widespread public outrage since the release of 911 emergency tapes last week. Family lawyer Ben Crump said the girlfriend’s testimony shed new light on the killing and would show that Zimmerman targeted Martin because he was black.
“This confirms that Trayvon Martin was killed only because he was a young black man who was profiled by Zimmerman,” Crump told Reuters. Phone records show the girl, who Crump would not identify because she is a minor, had been talking to Martin off-and-on all day on Feb. 26, and can provide convincing evidence that he was behaving normally, Crump said.
“Her call connects the dots to completely destroy what Zimmerman said (to the police) about ‘this kid was up to no good,’“ Crump said. “This kid was simply trying to walk home and get out of the rain while he talked to his little friend. And that’s all he was doing. He was completely innocent.”
Martin was walking home from a convenience store, where he went to buy snacks shortly before the NBA All-Star basketball game, when Zimmerman spotted him. Zimmerman called Sanford Police to report a suspicious person in the neighborhood and then, while armed with a handgun, followed Martin despite the police dispatcher telling him not to.
