This country should be outraged by the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old black youth shot by a self-appointed neighborhood crime watcher. Racial profiling, a tepid police inquiry and a gun-happy self-defense law play into angry protests that have drawn in even President Barack Obama.
Getting to the bottom of the event won’t be easy. That’s why outside investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the state of Florida make sense. These inquiries won’t — and shouldn’t — stop public rallies and marches that have the salutary effect of keeping up the pressure for answers.
The racial overtone is unmistakable, an element that all Americans should ponder. Would Martin have attracted attention if he were a white kid? Does a natural concern for neighborhood security automatically mean all black youths are suspects?
One unusual feature is a Florida self-defense law, also on the books in some 20 other states, though not California. The so-called “Stand Your Ground” statute gives a citizen the right to lethal self-defense even if the confrontation is avoidable, as the Martin run-in may have been.
The Martin case has put on display some of this country’s rawest divides over race and crime. It will be the job of investigators to provide answers that may cool the public’s anger, if it isn’t too late already.
San Francisco Chronicle (March 28)
Agree with the article completely. But with the myriad of bad laws, bad cops, bad self-styled security guys who bring a weapon to work when he was not supposed to have one, and a now outraged America, did anyone stop to think this crime happens every day of the week all over the world and in the USA to Blacks, and even Whites, and to other religious denominations and cultures? Nothing is heard about all these crimes – much -but even for a small report in the “Police Blotter” section of the newspaper. Gangs dominate crime in most states and drug cartels have long arms to do their work inside the US. Killings are a way of life. Innocents are murdered, of course. As the article said, the US federal authorities are investigating and watch; because Zimmerman will eventually be arrested on aggravated or some level of murder. Goes to prove some states’ laws are about as ridiculous as their congress and legislature who passes these “laws”.
Questions should arise as to why this story was kept from the public until nearly a month after it had happened on February 26.
Also, just last week, 7 black teens beat up an Hispanic teen, but where is the outcry over this?
The outcry is about how the police failed to properly investigate the crime. How they automatically believed Zimmerman and released him after 30 minutes without doing any investigation. How they did not notify Trayvon’s family for four days that he had been found dead.
This is about how a unarmed black teenager is being vilified by some on the right. This is about a person who is dead now who’s only crime was walking while black.
That is what the outcry is about.