Trayvon Martin case and its legal implications

¶ … TRAYVON MARTIN'S MURDER

Trayvon Martin

Reflecting Upon Trayvon Martin's Murder

Reflecting Upon Trayvon Martin's Murder

George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012. He shot Martin in Sanford, Florida. Trayvon was 17, African-American, and male at the time of his death. When George Zimmerman shot Trayvon, Trayvon was not armed. George Zimmerman was 28 years old at the time. Zimmerman was a member of his neighborhood watch and his neighborhood was a gated community. Gated communities are typically for people who are very wealthy and the majority of the population in these communities is Caucasian. Zimmerman is Latino. Zimmerman was visiting his fiancee, a resident of the gated community. He saw Martin walking in the area outside the community and he called the Sanford Police Department. Instead of waiting for the police response, Zimmerman confronted Martin and a conflict ensued. The result of the conflict was the fatal shooting of Martin. Zimmerman claimed that Martin accosted him so he shot the adolescent in self-defense.

Initially, Zimmerman was not charged because of Florida's Stand Your Ground Law. The Stand Your Ground Law states, simply, that a person is within their rights to use force, including deadly force, when under attack during a criminal activity so as to protect themselves. When the deadly force is used because of a real threat, a person has the legal right to use deadly or fatal force and not retreat. If the circumstances and evidence prove that this person was under attack rightfully, then the person will not be subject to criminal or civil charges. Upon further investigation, investigators and police found that Zimmerman did not disclose numerous relevant details and was later formally charged.

Zimmerman later admitted that he believed Martin to be suspicious because Martin was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, also known as a "hoodie." Zimmerman perceived Martin as a threat because he was a young African-American male in a wealthy neighborhood. Nothing else about Martin was evident at the time when Zimmerman reported his presence to the Sanford Police. Zimmerman's fiancee is Caucasian. Zimmerman, though Latino, does not have a Latino last name and some members of the community and press argue that Zimmerman could be mistaken for Caucasian as well; this is called "passing," a term developed during Reconstruction to describe African-Americans (primarily) who because of their skin tone and feature were often mistaken for whites, and took advantage of the misperception.

Zimmerman's actions reflect stereotypes of blacks in America. He was visiting his presumably financially secure fiancee within the confines of her gated community. Many rich people live in gated communities to keep people who are not rich and not white out of their neighborhoods. There is a lingering mentally in America among white Americans, as well as other kinds of Americans, that all black Americans are poor and dangerous criminals. Zimmerman likely adopted the values of the class of his fiancee, a world he was about to marry into, and took his paranoia out on this innocent young man who was minding his own business. Unfortunately, it has been a long standing practice of Americans to mistakenly and hastily murder African-Americans. It is a tradition that has been in practice for more than a century.

What is interesting in this case is that Martin was shot by a Latino, another ethnic group of the United States; in fact; Latinos are soon projected to surpass white Americans as the majority ethnic group in the United States. Typically, it is whites who shoot blacks for simply existing and believe that their existence warrants enough suspicion to shoot first and ask questions later. Here in the Trayvon Martin case, one minority murdered another minority in the same manner and under the same kind of pretense as a conservative white person might murder a black person recklessly. Even in the 911 call to the police, before the conflict between the men even began, Zimmerman referred to Martin with certain familiar expletives and slurs as recorded by the dispatcher. (Alverez, 2012)