One of the most infamous trials in modern history ended on July 13th, 2013. A Florida neighborhood watchman was acquitted in the murder of an unarmed high school teenager.
Now, five years later, a six-episode television series from Paramount Pictures – “Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story” – is coming this July. Executive producers are Trayvon Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton & Tracy Martin, along with Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Chachi Senior, Michael Gasparro, Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason, and Nick Sandow.
The series is based on “Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin” a book by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, and the network claims it will delve into the killing of Trayvon Martin with a “story about race, politics, power, money and the U.S. criminal justice system”.
Ever wondered what a certain person had said or who said what about stand your ground laws? Some statements against stand your ground laws made in the aftermath of the trial in Trayvon Martin’s death were very controversial, and overshadowed the tragedy itself. Here are a few notable – or infamous – memorable expressions:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
“If Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?… when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER
“It’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods. These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common-sense, age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely. By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety.”
“The law just allows people to go on the offensive…it doesn’t do what people think it does, and people will get the idea that they can shoot people wherever they want. I just think we went too far.”
FLORIDA SENATOR GERALDINE THOMPSON
“Florida has to fix this problem because Florida created this problem with the kind of law that we placed on the books, so we have to change the law or we are going to see more Trayvon Martins.”
OHIO STATE REPRESENTATIVE ALICIA REECE
“Stand your ground would do nothing but turn our state into the Wild, Wild West.”
FORMER MIAMI POLICE CHIEF JOHN TIMONEY
“Whether it’s trick-or-treaters or kids playing in the yard of someone who doesn’t want them there or some drunk guy stumbling into the wrong house, you’re encouraging people to possibly use deadly physical force where it shouldn’t be used.”
“‘Shoot-first’ laws like those in Florida can inspire dangerous vigilantism and protect those who act recklessly with guns. Such laws – drafted by gun lobby extremists in Washington – encourage deadly confrontations by enabling people to shoot first and argue ‘justifiable homicide’ later.”
IRAQ WAR VETERAN JON STOLTZ
“These laws give anyone with a gun more permissive rules of engagement in America’s communities than our troops have on the battlefield.”
ENTERTAINER STEVIE WONDER
“I decided today that until the Stand Your Ground law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again.”
RICHARD ESKOW, AUTHOR
“The laws are also more permissive than 19th-century law, despite the fact that dueling remained legal until 1859, when most states outlawed it. Unlike Stand Your Ground, both parties in a duel were armed and had an equal chance of success. Duels were also voluntary, whereas a person who is shot under Stand Your Ground has no choice in the matter.”
By now, you’ve probably heard that George Zimmerman placed an online auction on the gun he used to fatally shoot Trayvon Martin. He said the U.S. Department of Justice returned the gun to him, after holding it since his acquittal on July 13, 2012.
When many of us saw the name of America’s human disaster trending on twitter last week, we were hoping he had died, right? This latest fiasco by a sick, troubled, publicity hounding, murdering nut who claims to be so “patriotic” means some disturbing, haunting emotions and memories America experienced three years ago will return.
Gun used to fatally shoot Trayvon Martin
My first reaction was not to publicly post or comment on this. To just let it ride, while America’s reactions played out on major news outlets, and give it time to blow over. Then my own emotions took control, and the anger, disgust, and pain seeped into the fingers typing these words. As I waited to observe the original online auction, it mysteriously disappeared right about the time it was scheduled to begin.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that GZ later sent a text which read that the auction site “was not prepared for the traffic and publicity surrounding the auction of my firearm.” That site later issued a statement saying it reserves the right to reject listings, and had done so with this one.
So he cut and pasted the gun and description onto another site, unitedgungroup.com, with the same starting bid of $5000. The site publicly changed their position regarding the auction, at first denying, then allowing the sale (presumably at the advice of their legal counsel), conceding he had as much right to sell his weapon on their site as anyone else did.
The description says that sale proceeds will be used to “fight BLM violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of Angela Correy’s (sic) persecution career and Hillary Clinton’s anti-firearm rhetoric.” It ends with the Latin words Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace prepare for war).” –
If there was any good intention in this creep, he would have donated the gun to a museum, or had it destroyed. Instead, he claims in the sale description that he turned down a Smithsonian offer, but the museum has issued the following statement on twitter:
We have never expressed interest in collecting George Zimmerman’s firearm, and have no plans to ever collect or display it in any museums
This new auctioneer site reportedly crashed as the second auction began, but was back up the next morning. The auction was scheduled to run 4 more days. But after it was targeted by fake bidders, and reached a high bid of $65.4 million USD, that user’s account was deleted.
Then a new bidder posted a high bid of $485,000. The disturbed gun owner soon deleted the first auction himself, vowing to start over days later, and did so yesterday (May 17), with a starting bid of $100,000.
Zimmerman gun auction screen shot from unitedgungroup.com (click to enlarge)
This time, only about three or four serious bidders and a couple of fake ones participated. In the end, it appeared the gun had sold to someone named David Thorne for $138,800 – although a hacker named John Smith (with a widely reported fake last-minute bid of $138,900) made several attempts to derail the sale with fake bids.
The auction was immediately deleted from the site after it ended. If all auction attempts failed, GZ reportedly claimed he still had several private offers.
The freedom to sell anything he owns would also apply to the vehicle he drove on the night he fired the fatal shot on Trayvon Martin, or the clothes he wore that night. Yet, for anyone to attempt to profit from a tragedy that shook the nation is as callous and unpatriotic as trying to sell hurricane memorabilia to storm survivors.
How sad. How utterly insulting, disgraceful, disrespectful, distasteful, atrocious, ignorant, shameless, selfish, and blatantly obnoxious. We could go on and on with adjectives that deliberately cut open wounds that haven’t healed, to describe how this feels, and what it means.
One thing that should never happen is that a murder weapon in a case like this can be used against the emotions of America. It’s an ultimate insult to the victim’s family – and all those who protested the outcome of one of the most famous trials in our history.
The reality of what the auction means is all too painful. It’s the ultimate slap in the face to everyone who thought it was a disgraceful injustice when a man who fatally shot an unarmed teenager walked free.
UPDATE: This article has been edited as originally published to include facts established by auction observation such as a widely reported last-minute bid of $138,900, which was established to be a fake bid.
In Memory Of Trayvon Martin (Feb 5, 1995 – Feb 26, 2012), a video by Diego Rodriguz found on YouTube, with a montage of sometimes familiar, touching photos of Trayvon Martin, offers a poignant memorial to the African-American teenager whose death on February 26, 2012 opened widespread, heated debate on race and gun rights in America.
As his killer continues to be a free man, we do hope Trayvon may rest in peace, yet that may not happen until the battle is won to change or repeal stand your ground laws.
Every incident of an unarmed person being killed by a weapon is awful, the complexity made worse when it involves stand your ground, and the wounds are never closed in these cases.
Florida leads this pack of several high-profile stand your ground cases that were closed with sentencing or an acquittal:
Trayvon Martin
Trayvon Martin, 17, Florida – On February 26, 2012 America’s most infamous case of stand your ground happened in the small city of Sanford, Florida when an unarmed teenager named Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman. Hundreds of others had already been killed under self-defense statutes enacted in 2005.
Since it was the first state to initiate these new laws, it was widely assumed that Zimmerman would be acquitted under stand your ground law. But he never claimed stand your ground immunity. The jury was allowed to hear language from the law, which arguably may have been the basis for an acquittal on July 13, 2013.
Wyche ran, and when Berry – who was not armed – caught up with him, Wyche pulled scissors from a backpack and lunged, stabbing Berry to death.
Wyche, now 25-years-old, claimed immunity under Florida’s stand your ground law, and was denied. He was convicted of manslaughter in September, 2013
and sentenced to 20 1/2 years in prison on November 25, 2013.
Darrell Niles
Darrell Niles, 17, South Carolina – On April 18, 2010, after a night out in Columbia, Niles, a high school athlete, only wanted to make sure some girls he knew made it home ok. Niles, who was unarmed, was shot and killed as he sat in his car by Shannon Scott, 33, the father of one of the girls.
Kelly Danaher, 36, Texas – On May 1, 2010 in Houston, Raul Rodriguez, 46, a retired firefighter, complained about loud music coming from the birthday party for school teacher Danaher’s 3-year-old child.
Holding a video camera, a phone, and a gun, Rodriguez told a police dispatcher that he felt threatened and said, “I’m standing my ground here” [see the video here] as he fired his gun on a group of unarmed men, killing Danaher and wounding two others. Rodriguez was charged with murder. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison on June 27, 2013.
Timothy Davis. Jr.
Timothy Davis, Jr., 22, Florida – One of the most awful stand your your ground incidents ever to happen was on October 1, 2011, in Apopka when retired policeman Timothy Davis, Sr., 47, shot and killed his namesake son, Tim, Jr. The younger but unarmed son was at the Davis home arguing with his ex-girlfriend over their child.
Tim, Sr. intervened, taking sides with his grandchild’s mother, but Tim, Jr., a high school football star, retaliated by attacking his dad, who retrieved a pistol and fired two rounds, killing Tim, Jr. At a jury trial on February 14, 2013, the father was acquitted of second-degree murder.
Daniel Adkins, Jr.
Daniel Adkins, Jr., 29, Arizona – On April 3, 2012, Adkins, a disabled Hispanic-American man walking his dog in Phoenix, was shot and killed outside a Taco Bell restaurant by Cordell Jude, a 22 year-old African-American man, after a shouting match caused when Jude’s car almost hit Adkins.
Jude said Adkins swung at him with an object. The only object found on Adkins was a dog leash. Jude was later charged with second-degree murder but found not guilty, but convicted of reckless manslaughter in what is called the “reverse Trayvon Martin” case. UPDATE: Jude received an eight year sentence on February 28, 2014.
Darius Simmons
Darius Simmons, 13, Wisconsin – On May 31, 2012, in Milwaukee, 75-year-old John Henry Spooner confronted an unarmed teenager about a burglary in which guns were stolen from Spooner’s home. As the teen’s mother watched Spooner shot the youth in the chest, fired another shot that missed, and tried to shoot again but the gun jammed.
Spooner was found guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole, on July 22, 2013, and ordered to pay $58,551 in restitution to the Simmons family.
Walter Conley
Walter Conley,32, Florida – On March 10, 2013 in Brandon, Ralph Wald, 70, woke up and found his 40-year-old wife in the living room having sex with Conley, who Wald shot and killed, claiming he thought Conley was raping her. Conley was not armed.
Wald was charged with second-degree murder, but acquitted on May 31, 2013.
(UPDATE: This article has been edited since first publication to omit the words “in 2013” from the second paragraph, and also to add any other updates noted above)
Since the Trayvon Martin shooting over 500,000 names have been added to online petitions calling for a review, change, or end to stand your ground laws, and over 80% of that number come from a petition started by Martin’s parents.
Although activism against the law has dropped dramatically, public sentiment against stand your ground law appears steady, sometimes refueled by news of homicides involving the possibility of stand your ground laws being invoked.
Popular internet petition sites like Change.org, credoaction, and MoveOn contain most of the requests, which call for change or repeal of stand your ground law or Florida boycotts.
“Change For Trayvon“, a petition on Change.org, calls for the Governors of 21 states to review and amend stand your ground laws. This petition was started in 2012 by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin (parents of Trayvon Martin) and appeared to have had the most signers in February, 2014 – 427,605 – with a goal of 500,000 (In August, 2013, there were 383,844).
One petition on ColorOfChange.org, calling for an end to “Shoot First” laws had collected 46,890 by August, 2013. And another, to repeal stand your ground laws across America – started by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense – had 26,547 signees in August, 2013 and 30,000 in February, 2014.
Here’s an updated list of over a dozen active online petitions against stand your ground laws. Links to inactive or closed petitions have been removed (Happy Signing!)
Petitions to Dept of Justice to repeal Stand Your Ground laws in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina (petitiondemocracy.com)
Impact petition for state legislators to review all Stand Your Ground laws (Change.org)
An organization started by the parents of Trayvon Martin hosts a “peace walk” and free community program in Miami this weekend that promises motivational speakers, music, and food.
The Trayvon Martin Foundation, founded by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, is sponsoring a Trayvon Martin Remembrance Peace Walk starting at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 8.
The program begins with a one-mile walk from Miami’s Carol City Park, 3501 NW 185th Street to the Betty Ferguson Center, 3000 NW 199th Street. Registration is required, and can be done online at the Trayvon Foundation website. Participants are requested to arrive at 8 a.m. to check in and receive line placement.
The Million Hoodies Movement For Justice is calling for a Day of Action to turn the music up throughout America on February 16, the birthday of Jordan Davis, gunned down after an argument over loud music by Michael Dunn, whose trial began this week.
Jacksonville, Florida Mayor Alvin Brown has proclaimed February 16 as Jordan Russell Davis Day.
The National Day of Action includes turning radios all the way up, mobilizing across the country, and signing a petition calling for Justice for Jordan Davis.
The movement is using the twitter hashtag #MusicUp4JD to promote the Day of Action., and participants can RSVP to the Hoodies.
Million Hoodies is an award-winning activism movement started in response to the Trayvon Martin shooting. The group reports over 50,000 members, and helped generate global support for the arrest of George Zimmerman after he was not immediately charged in the shooting.
The group is trying to recruit local chapter organizers across the country. For more information go to the Million Hoodies website.
As the trial of Michael Dunn gets underway on February 3, Lucia Mcbath, the mother of 17-year-old Jordan Davis, is making the rounds of network interviews, preparing for Dunn’s trial and telling the story of her fight to change or end stand your ground laws to anyone who’ll listen.
Yet, Mcbath and Jordan’s father Ron Davis have been tirelessly and emotionally sharing their story across the country since the tragedy, to gain support and awareness in the struggle for gun control and against stand your ground laws.
In an interview with CNN two weeks before the February 3 Michael Dunn trial, Mcbath discusses how the George Zimmerman trial for the shooting of Trayvon Martin may impact this trial.
In a case with echoes of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman incident, a Florida man concerned over a rash of neighborhood burglaries is reportedly claiming self-defense after he chased, confronted, and killed a young man who was wearing baggy pants and a hooded sweatshirt whom he found suspicious.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that Claudius Angloricardo Smith, 32, is charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bond for killing 21-year-old Ricardo Sanes last Thursday, at The Fountains at MetroWest, an apartment complex in west Orlando.
Ricardo Sanes (facebook photo)
But Sanes who, from his facebook page, appears to be the father of a young son, wasn’t carrying a bag of Skittles and iced tea. Police found that he was armed, with a .40 caliber handgun in the crotch of his pants. He sustained bullet wounds to the upper back and back of his neck.
When police told Smith about the wounds, he reportedly claimed they must have been exit wounds. He also claimed he didn’t know Sanes had a gun before the police told him.
Claudius Angloricardo Smith (Orange County Jail mug shot)
According to police reports obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, Smith’s girlfriend, watching a video surveillance screen, spotted someone in dark clothing “walking around his yard,” who “was last seen climbing over the fence into” the apartment complex.
Smith told police he had “a recent problem with burglaries at his house…and he was certain the unknown male was responsible, so he began chasing the unknown male.”
According to police, Smith, who has a concealed-carry permit, said he jumped a fence into the complex, armed with a .45-caliber handgun, and saw Sanes “looking into windows of apartments as he walked past them.”
Smith said he pulled his gun and confronted Sanes, who tried to walk away, so he grabbed Sanes’ hooded sweatshirt and tried to force him back to his house “so the police could be called.”
Smith told police Sanes “punched him in the mouth and grabbed for the gun, so he pulled the trigger. Smith said he was afraid Sanes was armed “because his pants were falling down and his hands were in his hoodie pockets.”
Smith’s sister reportedly claimed he was so distraught that he was “crying and vomiting” after the shooting, when he told her he had shot somebody. But not only did he leave the scene of the shooting, but he discarded the murder weapon, and couldn’t give a reasonable explanation for either action.
Smith also claimed to have surveillance video he said “would prove this was the second time Sanes had tried to break into his house” in 10 days. But when police got there, the video recorder was gone, and Smith claimed he didn’t know who removed it or why
The similarities to the Trayvon Martin shooting are obvious — both Martin and Sanes wore hoodies. And both shooters claimed concern over recent burglaries, both went after the victims, both said they were attacked first, and both said they fired their guns in self-defense.
Yet, Smith’s argument is weaker: Sanes was shot from behind; Martin was shot in his chest, and Smith reportedly admitted to physically restraining the person he suspected at gunpoint. Zimmerman didn’t.
UPDATE: Claudius Angloricardo Smith was ultimately convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison (with credit for having served 368 days without bond) on February 5, 2015.
Is it surprising that most stand your ground news comes from Florida? But not every case in which someone claims stand your ground laws ends in death or makes headlines. Many incidents are low-profile or domestic. Yet all of them could be considered life-threatening. Here are a few you may have never heard of:
August, 2013: 34-year-old Matthew Henkel said, “fuck Trayvon Martin…fuck you” – a month after George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting of Trayvon Martin – and claimed he was standing up for kids as he confronted and shot an African-American man, Jamal Dixon, in Mount Oliver, Pennsylvania.
Jamal Dixon, left, and Matthew Henkel (photos: WTAE/Mt.Oliver Police)
Dixon, a 24-year-old college graduate and Iraq war veteran, was seriously injured but survived. He said he had his hands up when he was shot, then when he fell, Henkel shot him again.
Dixon who was outside his home, and had complained about kids hitting his car with a ball. Over a week later Henkel, a white man, was charged with aggravated assault. He claimed stand your ground immunity.
December 17, 2012: Michael Jock, 49, was in line behind Randall White, 52, at a Little Caesar’s pizza shop in St Petersburg, Florida, when White complained about slow service, shouting at the workers.
Jock told him to quiet down, they got into an argument, and White shoved Jock, who pulled out a .38 caliber gun and shot White, then fired again as they struggled. White survived two bullet wounds to the lower part of his body.
Michael Jock (Pinellas County Police booking photo)
Jock told police he was justified, was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and claimed stand your ground immunity, which was denied. After trial last year, Jock was sentenced to three years in prison and two years probation on September 24, 2013.
Sept. 08, 2011: 69-year-old Milton Bennett Ellis Jr. claimed he was sleeping in a wheelchair outside a vacant Hooter’s restaurant in St. Petersburg when he woke up to find 22-year-old Josephine Smith on top of him, screaming that she was a vampire.
He said she bit his face and lip. Witnesses called 911 saying they heard a woman screaming and a man shaking her and trying to quiet her.
Milton Ellis and Josephine Smith (St. Petersburg police/Tampa Bay Times)
When she was found intoxicated, bruised, and partly clothed, Smith said she didn’t remember what happened. She was charged with aggravated battery on an elderly person.
Her attorney claimed police arrested the wrong suspect – that Ellis was bitten as he held Smith to the ground and sexually assaulted her. Smith filed for stand your ground immunity, but was denied, and later pled guilty to a lesser charge of battery. She was sentenced to 12 months in jail.
2013 was the year stand your ground law became a major hot-button issue. After the George Zimmerman trial for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, civil rights groups, activists, elected officials, and news media outlets across America began calling for a repeal or changes in Florida’s stand your ground laws, causing several major events:
Until the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, few people had ever even heard of a stand your ground law. While Zimmerman never claimed stand your ground immunity, language from Florida’s notorious statute was used in the jury instructions, and news that he was acquitted resulted in a public perception that stand your ground played a role in the outcome.
Dream Defenders at Florida capitol sit-in (photo: twitter/dreamdefenders))
After the Zimmerman trial, a group of Florida college students got together to form a coalition that quickly gained support and built momentum against stand your ground law in Florida. The Dream Defenders became unofficial leaders of a movement to change or repeal the law in Florida, pushing for lawmakers to hold a hearing.
A Florida woman who fired a warning shot toward an abusive husband became major news after the Zimmerman trial, and a symbol of women’s rights against domestic violence and everything that’s wrong with the state’s justice system when she was denied stand your ground immunity, then subsequently sentenced to a mandatory 20 years in prison.
A judge later granted her a new trial based on faulty jury instructions, and she is free on bond pending the new trial. The case helped force the state to make changes to the law regarding warning shots, at a Florida Senate hearing held preceding the state’s stand your ground hearing.
4. US Senate Hearing US_Senate_Seal
For the first time, the federal government held a hearing on stand your ground laws in America. The U.S. Senate hearing, originally scheduled for September 17 in Washington, D.C., was postponed due to news of a mass shooting the day before at a nearby Navy Yard. The majority of a nine-member panel testified against the laws.
5. Florida Rejects Repeal old and new Florida Capitols (Wikimedia Commons photo by Infrogmation)
Florida finally held a much-anticipated hearing on a bill to repeal stand your ground law, and as also anticipated – (especially since the chairman of the committee had said he wouldn’t change “one damn comma” of the law) – the repeal was rejected. Other efforts are underway to change stand your ground law in Florida, where it all started.
The Zimmerman trial, other incidents, and legislative actions in city halls and state capitols since that trial have ensured that until major concessions take place to close loopholes existing within stand your ground laws, they will continue to be controversial.
End Stand Your Ground 
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