TRAYVON MARTIN: THE 911 TAPES

By now, many people know of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black teen who was shot to death by George Zimmerman,  who was a self-appointed local neighborhood crime watcher, who broke many rules of the National Neighborhood Watch.

Trayvon, from Miami, Florida, on the evening of February 26, was visiting his father, in the Retreat at Twin Lakes, a gated community located within the metropolitan area of  Sanford, Florida.

Zimmerman considered Trayvon suspicious, followed him, with his licenced Kel-Tec 9 mm automatic pistol in hand, and in the next few minutes, Trayvon was lying dead on the ground from a gunshot wound to the chest—with nothing but a bag of Skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea in his possession.

The following 911 tape documents a call made by Zimmerman, who considered Trayvon “suspicious” because of break-ins that have occurred in the neighborhood:

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something,” Zimmerman told the dispatcher. “It’s raining, and he’s just walking around looking about.” The man tried to explain where he was. “Now he’s coming towards me. He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male…Something’s wrong with him. Yup, he’s coming to check me out. He’s got something in his hands. I don’t know what his deal is…These assholes, they always get away.”

Clip Of Zimmerman Calling Trayvon Martin A Coon

Read the transcript of Zimmerman’s police call here.

The voice of the dispatcher is heard on the tape admonishing Zimmerman  “Are you following him. Okay, we  don’t need you to do that.”

While walking on his way back to his father’s residence, Trayvon is on the phone with his 16-year-old girlfriend, and he tells her he is being followed by a suspicious male who outweighs him, confronts him, and puts Trayvon’s life in deadly peril:

Trayvon Martin Final Moments Captured During Phone Call With Teenage Girl

“He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man,” Martin’s friend said. “I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run, but he said he was not going to run.”

Eventually, he would run, said the girl, thinking that he’d managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin.

“Trayvon said, ‘What are you following me for,’ and the man said, ‘What are you doing here.’ Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again, and he didn’t answer the phone.”

The line went dead. Besides screams heard on 911 calls that night as Martin and Zimmerman scuffled, those were the last words he said.”The girl was  so distraught after the killing that she spent a night in the hospital, the lawyer said.

“She was really traumatized over this. They were dating. … It’s a situation where to know you were the last person to talk to the young man who was one of the most special persons in the world to you,” Crump said.”

SOURCE

In the following 911 tape, a woman calls. She hears screaming for help, then a gunshot.

The following tape is of another woman who hears the violence outside, and she calls 911.

The following are more calls made by residents that night:

Sister And Brother Report Seeing Trayvon On Ground And Hearing Shot

Male Neighbor Reports Wrestling/Gunshots After Shooting

When confronted by the police, Zimmerman invoked the Florida self-defense “Stand Your Ground” law which eliminated the longstanding legal requirement that a person threatened outside of his or her own home retreat rather than use force. Adopted primarily in Florida in 2005, Stand Your Ground laws, drafted and promoted by the National Rifle Association, have since been enacted in some form in more than 20 states and authorizing the use of deadly force. There is nothing in this statute that authorizes a person to pursue and confront someone, which opens you up to attack, as well as being in the position to destroy the life of a person who you suspect of intent to commit harm or a crime. But, this Florida law allows, sanctions, and condones vigilantism, to chase someone with intent to do bodily harm:

776.013 Home protection; use of deadly force; presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm.—

With the carrying of a concealed handgun, and a licence/permit to carry it, the ante to use deadly force is upped, and death can and will ensue.

Read the text of the Florida Stand Your Ground Law (“Justifiable Use of Force”)  here.

George Zimmerman cannot invoke  F.S. §776.013 as a defense since his actions and his own words indicate he was engaging in another activity which negates the use of Stand Your Ground:   Statute F.S §784.048 (Florida State Stalking Laws).

National attention on this incident grows, even though much of America only found out about Trayvon’s death by mid-March. International attention has been focused on this incident as well.

That Zimmerman saw Trayvon as suspicious, a possible criminal, a surefire threat, is indicative of the invisibleness that confronts every Black American citizen. Black Americans are the invisble Other in America. It is not about hoodies, it is not about being dressed in a beautiful dress with the hair perfectly coiffed, it is not about wearing a business suit, it is not about working a nine-to-five-:  it is about a malicious and callous disregard for the humanity of Black American citizens. It is the subconscious desire to equate blackness and Black citizens with wrong, evil, less-than—the perpetual anti-neighbor, the anti-citizen, the non-human. When non-blacks see, approach or come into contact with Black Americans, they see only the  “surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination–indeed, everything and anything”— except Black citizens.

The marginalization of their humanity. The invisibleness of their existence—until they are seen in a place where they are considered as having no right to be there. No right to walk among the living. No right to live unmolested by racist stereotypes, myths and lies.

Then again, America has always been a nation that condones the annihilation of her Black citizens.

This nation does not live in the Colonial days of the Revolution, the frontier days of 1806, nor Gunfight at the OK Corral. But, where Black citizens are concerned, such mentality never ceased and is ongoing. The history of mass sexualized gendered rapes, lynching, disenfranchisement, restrictive racial covenants, social and economic violence, and racial segregation speak to such a venomous hatred of Black citizens.

The purpose behind such Florida laws is for self-defense, and anytime you leave your home, business, or vehicle, you have done more than put your life in jeopardy.

You also put another person’s life in jeopardy as well.

After the 911 calls, police arrived at the scene. No tox screen for drugs or alcohol was done on Zimmerman. After being questioned by the police, Zimmerman was released.

Fours weeks later, he is still free.