Zimmerman Found Not Guilty in Killing Black Teenager Trayvon Martin

Demonstrations calling for justice in the racist shooting death of Trayvon Martin in central Florida have continued. The 17-year-old was killed by a white vigilante., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Zimmerman found not guilty in killing black teenager Trayvon Martin

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A six-woman jury in Florida has said that George Zimmerman’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager was justified, acquitting him of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

The controversial verdict was read on Saturday night after three weeks of testimony and 16 hours of deliberation, rejecting the prosecution’s contention that Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, had deliberately followed Martin for suspecting him as a criminal and shot him to death after a fight he started.

Zimmerman, 29, said the fatal shooting, which took place on February 26, 2012, in the small city of Sanford, was in self-defense.

“You have no further business with the court,” Judge Debra S. Nelson told Zimmerman after the verdict, informing him that his GPS monitoring would be cut off.

Protesters had gathered outside the Seminole County Circuit Courthouse through the day with some carrying signs reading “racial oppression” and “Justice for Trayvon.”

Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the parents of the boy who was killed a few weeks after his 17th birthday, were not in the court.

A month after the incident, President Barack Obama intervened to calm nerves over what many believed amounted to racial profiling. “If I had a son,” Obama said, “he’d look like Trayvon.”

Zimmerman was arrested six weeks after the shooting when pressure mounted from civil rights groups and demonstrators who demanded action.

Under pressure, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida removed local prosecutors from the case and appointed the state attorney from Jacksonville, Angela B. Corey, who charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder.

Self-defense laws in Florida allow someone with a reasonable fear of great bodily harm or death to use lethal force, even if retreating from danger is an option.