Restaurant patrons on Rodeo Drive watch from their tables as demonstrators rally on Wednesday to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, in Beverly Hills, California.
AFP/Washington
Race was a factor in the death of an unarmed black US teen shot by a neighbourhood watch volunteer who has been acquitted, the victim’s father said yesterday ahead of weekend protests over the case.
The mother of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin meanwhile called for calm in the wake of Saturday’s acquittal in Florida of George Zimmerman, but said the US legal system had, to some extent, failed her son.
The case, which has revived a debate about race in America, is widely regarded as the most racially sensitive issue to come to the fore in the country since Barack Obama, the first black US president, was elected.
“Was he racially profiled? I think that, if Trayvon had been white, this wouldn’t have happened,” the teenager’s father Tracy Martin said in an interview on NBC’s Today show. “So, obviously, race played some type of role.”
Martin was fatally shot on the rainy night of February 26, 2012 during an altercation with the 29-year-old Zimmerman in a gated community in Sanford, Florida.
Zimmerman said he acted in self-defence.
A jury of six women, all but one white, cleared him of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.
Critics of Saturday’s verdict argue that Zimmerman racially profiled the youth – who had no criminal record – and was able to kill him with impunity because of a biased criminal justice system.
But Zimmerman – who has a white father and a Peruvian mother – has insisted race was not a factor in the incident.
Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton, speaking during the same interview, criticised the US legal system, but acknowledged the case had at least been aired in court.
“I think it failed Trayvon to a certain degree,” she said. “I think we let the process take its course.”
But she added: “We didn’t get the verdict that we were looking for because we wanted him to be held accountable.”
Martin’s father said he wanted Washington to step in. The Justice Department is currently investigating whether Zimmerman can be pursued on civil rights grounds.
“We would like for the federal government to look into it and weigh all of the options,” he said. “As parents, we just feel that there could have been something more done.”
US Attorney-General Eric Holder, while mum on the prospect of a federal case against Zimmerman, has called for a review of so-called “stand your ground” self-defence laws.
In Florida and several other states, statutes assert that citizens can use lethal force – rather than retreat – if they sense their lives are threatened, wherever they might be.
Zimmerman’s attorneys did not specifically invoke the law in his defence.
Thousands protested in major US cities in the wake of the verdict in the case, which transfixed the nation for weeks.
A National Justice for Trayvon Day is planned for this Saturday, with rallies expected outside federal buildings and court houses in more than 100 cities across the country as civil rights leaders press for action.
Fulton called on those taking to the streets to show restraint and avoid violence.
“We’re not saying for them not to protest because they have a right to protest, they have a right to be heard,” she said. “But we just want to make sure that it is peaceful, that nobody gets hurt, that nobody gets arrested.”