George Zimmerman was a 28 year-old volunteer neighborhood watcher in Florida who shot and killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin on 26 February 2012, launching a media brouhaha that ignited arguments over gun laws and racial profiling.
The incident itself achieved little notice at the time. Zimmerman was a security-conscious resident of an Orlando, Florida suburb. He was an unofficial neighborhood watchdog, with a history of calling the local police force to report what he considered suspicious behavior. On a Sunday evening in February, Zimmerman spotted Martin, who was walking home from a neighborhood convenience store. Zimmerman called the police and was told he didn't need to pursue Martin.
A short time later, some kind of altercation led to Zimmerman using his pistol to kill Martin. The story became national news a month later, after Martin's parents hired an attorney and went public with the question: "why wasn't Zimmerman arrested?" Local police cited Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law as justification for letting Zimmerman walk, but a more vocal group suggested that Zimmerman had racial motives for pursuing Martin, who was black, and that further investigation was justified.
A widely-publicized photo of the racially-mixed Zimmerman only muddied the waters (his father is of European descent, and his mother is of Peruvian descent). A national debate ensued, detached from what few facts were known about the case. Florida authorities launched an investigation and appointed a special prosecutor, and in late April of 2012 Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder.
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VIEW GEORGE Zimmerman's neighborhood watch guide: PDF
Wendy Dorival, who coordinated neighborhood watch programs for the Sanford, Florida, Police Department in 2012, testified Tuesday that George Zimmerman was specifically told not to pursue suspicious people in the gated community where he lived.
Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder for killing Trayvon Martin, 17, in the Retreat at Twin Lakes that night. He told police he was pursuing the teenager because there had been an uptick in crime in the area. A confrontation ensued, and Zimmerman said he was forced to kill Martin in self-defense.
Dorival said she worked closely with Zimmerman, because he helped organize the program for his neighborhood. She told him a neighborhood watch volunteer should act as the "eyes and ears" of the police -- but not like a vigilante.
"If you see a car driving around in circles, and you don't recognize the car in your community, that might be suspicious," said Dorival. "If people are walking around in areas that not typically walked on, that could be suspicious."
Dorival gave all the neighborhood watch volunteers from Zimmerman's neighborhood a presentation explaining their role in helping law enforcement. See the neighborhood watch informational presentation for yourself here:
