South Florida Peaceful but Passionate Following Zimmerman Trial Verdict

South Florida peaceful but passionate following Zimmerman trial verdict

MIMAI HERALD STAFF

Posted on Sunday, 07.14.13

BY EVAN S. BENN, AUDRA D.S. BURCH AND DANIEL CHANG

South Florida awoke to a relatively peaceful Sunday morning following Saturday night’s not guilty verdict in the murder trial of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who killed Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin with a bullet through the heart during a violent struggle on a Central Florida residential street more than a year ago.

Community organizations, civic groups and police agencies across South Florida had plenty of time during the five-week-long trial to prepare for any community reaction by opening safe havens, establishing rumor control lines and urging people to be “vocal but not violent’’ at established “First Amendment zones” in community parks.

Ed Shohat, a member of Miami-Dade’s Community Relations Board, which was monitoring reaction through churches, community organizations and on social media, said he had not seen any signs of unrest.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of problems yet, and hopefully there won’t be any,’’ Shohat said Sunday morning.

Contributing to the relative calm may have been the decision by police agencies in Miami-Dade and Broward counties following the verdict to deploy a highly-visible presence at busy street intersections and other community gathering areas.

Saturday’s daylong thunderstorms and rain also may have dampened community reaction.

Demonstrations are scheduled for Sunday, including one at Miami-Dade’s Goulds Park, 11350 SW 216th St..

But Shohat said he has confidence that South Florida residents upset by the acquittal, and eager to have a public discussion on issues of racial profiling and Florida’s self-defense laws, will avoid violence.

“We do not believe that it will happen,’’ Shohat said. “Frankly, Miami is a far more mature community than it was 25, 30 years ago when we had violent reactions to criminal court verdicts.’’

In the Central Florida town of Sanford, where the shooting took place, some residents sought solace in family, community and familiar places.

Lifelong Sanford resident Richard Taylor, who lives in the city’s historically black Goldsboro neighborhood, walked with his 5-year-old daughter, Ty Juaiun Burke, to a landscaped stone-and-wood memorial for Trayvon and 10 others who may have been unjustly killed near Sanford.

The memorial sits outside the Goldsboro Museum and Welcome Center, and around the corner from Allen Chapel AME Church, which hosted several town hall forums in the weeks and months following Trayvon’s shooting death.

“I just wanted to see it this morning, and I wanted her to see it,’’ Taylor said of the memorial, putting a hand on the pink and white beaded braids in his little girl’s hair. “I’m a single parent trying to raise my children right. I was hoping for righteousness last night, but I don’t think we reached it.

“How am I supposed to explain to my kids that a kid like them was walking home when someone else jumped out and shot him — and that person isn’t in jail, where bad people are supposed to go,’’ he said.

Ty Juaiun pulled at her dad’s T-shirt and asked about the memorial:

“Are those people in there?’’

“No, baby,’’ he said. “They’re in heaven.’’

Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon after a wrenching five-week trial that provoked a national discussion around the thorny issues of race, profiling, self-defense laws and gun control.

He smiled slightly after a court clerk read the verdict aloud in Seminole County courtroom 5D with Zimmerman’s family present. Trayvon’s parents were not in the courtroom. Had he been convicted, Zimmerman faced the possibility of life in prison.

After almost three weeks of testimony, more than 50 witnesses on both sides and 60 pieces evidence, the jury — five whites, one Hispanic, mostly mothers — deliberated for about 16 hours over two days. Though Zimmerman did not take the stand, they concluded that he rightfully defended himself when he shot the teen in a Sanford townhouse complex on February 26, 2012.

“From a legal perspective, the jury believed that George Zimmerman was justified in using deadly force, that he was in danger of great bodily harm or death in the altercation with Trayvon Martin,’’ said David Edelstein, a Miami criminal defense attorney. “They believed he was simply responding with the force necessary to protect himself. They may also have concluded this was a tragic accident.’’

But for Trayvon’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin — whose unyielding fight to hold their son’s killer accountable became a national cause that included coast-to-coast protests and a petition with more than two million signatures — the verdict was an unjust end.

Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump, who helped train the media spotlight on the case, said: “All the evidence was there to convict George Zimmerman. This family is heartbroken that the killer of their son is not going to be held accountable. It makes no sense that in 2013 you can follow and shoot an unarmed teenager walking home with nothing other than candy and a drink, and go free.’’

The random encounter between Zimmerman, now 29, and Trayvon, 17, riveted and divided the nation — at times along both racial and political lines — in one of the highest profile cases of last year, and left a landscape of collateral damage: the suburb in the northern shadows of Orlando became a dateline for hate and social unrest; its police chief was fired for mishandling the case; Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground Law came under scrutiny, and the circumstances of the shooting came to embody the ever-widening gap between gun control supporters and guns rights advocates.

Those few seconds of violence that led to a teenager’s death also galvanized strangers across the nation with a singular message: arrest the man responsible for Trayvon’s death. Equally passionate supporters of Zimmerman fought to restore his badly bruised name and undo allegations that painted him as a racist who hunted and killed an unarmed black teen wearing a hoodie. Contributions to an online Zimmerman’s defense fund reached nearly $400,000.

The verdict is the last chapter in a saga that started with distraught parents mourning the death of their son and grew into a national movement, powered largely by social media and a chorus of civil rights leaders including Jesse Jackson.