National Outrage: Trayvon Martin Killing.

The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI are looking into the matter. Sanford, Florida is the center of the controversy. A young teenager was gunned down by a neighborhood watch captain. The public outcry has now stirred the debate once again about racial profiling and gun laws. The White House express regret. The person, George Zimmerman 28, who fired upon teenager Trayvon Martin, 17 is for now a free man. Zimmerman is fearing for his life after incident.

The conservative media is trying to ignore the story and white supremacists are cheering for more incidents like this to happen.



That was the 911 tape in which the shooter was warned not to apprehend Martin. Below is the picture of the teenager, and George Zimmerman, the shooter. Zimmerman is White (Hispanic).

 From the New York Magazine, the detailing of the controversy.

In what is becoming an increasingly well-known sequence of events, on February 26, during halftime of the NBA All-Star Game, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin walked to buy Skittles and iced tea from 7-Eleven in Sanford, Florida. On his way back to his father's house in a gated community, Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who had just called 911 to report Martin as "a real suspicious guy." Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Latino man, claimed self-defense and has not been arrested or charged, but now finds himself at the center of a prickly national conversation about race, guns, and more. What started as a local news story has, thanks in large part to Internet outrage, become an unavoidable, albeit unresolved, story covered everywhere from leftist blogs to CNN and the New York Times.

Over the weekend, police released eight 911 calls related to the case, sparking a new round of press attention. In the recordings, Zimmerman, who called the police nearly 50 times in the last year, can be heard saying, "This guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something." Martin, he said, had "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." He added, "These assholes, they always get away."



The dispatcher tells Zimmerman not to follow Martin, but in subsequent calls from neighbors, a struggle can be heard, followed by a gunshot. Mother Jones has a very detailed rundown of the case, and the tangential issues it raises, including, but not limited to, Florida's self-defense laws, the checkered past of the Sanford police, gun control, and potential federal government involvement.

A petition from Martin's family to the local D.A. has been signed online more than 400,000 times, and received a huge boost this weekend as the media homed in on the disturbing details. The New York Times reported on the story for two straight days in its national news section, in addition to a Saturday column by Charles Blow. "This case has reignited a furor about vigilante justice, racial-profiling and equitable treatment under the law," Blow wrote, "and it has stirred the pot of racial strife."

USA Today and the Washington Post also featured detailed reports over the last few days, as did both New York City tabloids. Local Florida publications have been on the story since the beginning, although they lack the reach of the nation's biggest newspapers. But before it was in the hands of influential columnists, the story had already become unavoidable online. As early as March 8, Huffington Post reporter Trymaine Lee was spreading the story, following up seven times since. The site now has a dedicated section and banner for "The Trayvon Martin Tragedy."

The details behind Martin's death have spread socially too. "Trayvon Martin didn't die so we can create a race war, he died so we can promote better understanding," Russell Simmons tweeted, pointing to a Facebook page with thousands of followers. Following suit, Google traffic has skyrocketed in the last few days:

 

And Martin has become a fixture on cable news, as well — with one exception: The progressive blog Think Progress reports that through this afternoon, CNN had dedicated 41 segments to the killing, compared to MSNBC's thirteen, and just one on Fox News. Political implications aside, this story is now officially too big to ignore.

Update: Asked about the shooting this afternoon, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "We here in the White House are aware of the incident, and we understand that the local FBI office has been in contact with the local authorities and is monitoring the situation." He added, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Trayvon Martin's family, but obviously we're not going to wade into a local law enforcement matter."

The conservative media isn't covering the story and white supremacists online praised the shooter. This is what we're living in as American citizens. Florida has passed a controversial law called "Stand Your Ground". A firearm owner can use deadly force if the person felt threatened by an alleged attacker. Also did the shooter utter a "racial slur" while on the phone with the police dispatcher? The controversial phrase "fucking coons" was played and they can't confirm or deny it but it's clearly a slur in the video posted below.




There were more 911 tapes. The witness.



As of October 1, 2005, Florida became a "Stand-your-ground" state. The Florida law is a self-defense, self-protection law. It has four key components:

1. It establishes that law-abiding residents and visitors may legally presume the threat of bodily harm or death from anyone who breaks into a residence or occupied vehicle and may use defensive force, including deadly force, against the intruder.
2. In any other place where a person “has a right to be,” that person has “no duty to retreat” if attacked and may “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 to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”
3. In either case, a person using any force permitted by the law is immune from criminal prosecution or civil action and cannot be arrested unless a law enforcement agency determines there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.
4. If a civil action is brought and the court finds the defendant to be immune based on the parameters of the law, the defendant will be awarded all costs of defense.

Once again, Republicans caters to the extremes. They're busy wrapping their asses and eventually their necks in preparedness/defense of these culture wars. This firearm law is a prime example of the Republicans and its allies in the conservative movement catering the gun lobbyist groups such as Gun Owners of America and the National Rifle Association. These laws abashedly give a gun owner authority to shoot and kill an apparent threat without even posing an imminent threat. Picture this if this was a white person being killed by a Black watch captain and the "stand your ground" defense was used. It's a shame though, a young life cut and another fearing that his future is uncertain. If the law doesn't get him, he'll forever be ridiculed by the media or the family of this young teenager.