Angela Corey, the Florida State Attorney who is prosecuting George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting case, today released documents and photos relating to the case.
The material from the State Attorney's Office's Investigative Division includes evidence photos, and summaries of FBI interviews with witnesses of the shooting and with relatives and associates of both Zimmerman and Martin. Much of the material seems geared toward piecing together the lives and personalities of the two individuals, and the events that led up to the shooting, which occurred on February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida.
Martin, 17, was in Sanford staying with his father and brother at his father's fiancé's home. His parents were divorced; while his father lived in Sanford, a little over 20 miles away from Orlando, Martin lived with his mother and brother in Miami.
Zimmerman, 28, was a neighborhood watch captain who saw Martin late at night walking back to his future stepmother's house from 7-11. He called the police to report a suspicious person, and then ignored the operator's insistence that he avoid them. He got out of his car armed with his gun, and confronted Martin, leading to the altercation that caused the youth's shooting death.
Several officers are interviewed in the documents, and describe arriving on the scene and attempting to perform CPR on the unresponsive Martin.
There is also an April 2 interview with an unnamed cousin who spent the last Saturday of Martin's life with him, who was also staying in Sanford. The cousin recounts a lazy day spent going to a football came and McDonald's, and playfully snatching Martin's phone away from him at one point in an attempt to discover the identity of the girl his cousin was talking to. The cousin too was from Miami but was staying in Orlando.
The cousin's testimony touches on one relevant question in the case. On the recording of a 911 call placed by a neighbor during the scuffle between Zimmerman and Martin, a voice can be heard calling for help. Zimmerman's camp claims that it is him calling, while Martin's say that it is him. The cousin insists "on a stack of bibles" that the voice is Martin's.
The FBI interview with the woman who made the call was also released today. She too remains unnamed in the report.
The woman recounts opening her window during the altercation and hearing "normal" calls for help and "horrifying" calls for help, as well as "agonizing yelps". In the dark, she could dimly see one person struggling on top of another. She called 911 before hearing the gunshots, which she describes as surprisingly quiet "pops". After the shots, she saw one person get up, and she heard him tell a neighbor who arrived on the scene, "I shot him".
Later, she says, Detective Chris Serino attempted to comfort her by telling her that the person who remained on the ground was alive and only "really beaten up and scratched".
The FBI interview with Trayvon Martin's parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, was also released today. Tracy Martin recounts trying his son's cellphone on the night of the shooting, and finally reporting him missing the following morning. Five minutes later, he received a call from police advising him of his son's death.
The girl with whom Martin had previously been talking on his cellphone was also interviewed by the FBI, and the interview released today. In the last conversation she had with Martin, just before the shooting and just before his phone dropped the call, he related that a man on a phone was watching him.
The documents also contain a police account of Zimmerman's 2005 arrest for battery on a law enforcement officer in July of 2005. According to a joint statement made by police involved in the incident, Zimmerman interrogated officers conducting a sting of underage liquor sales at a bar near the University of Central Florida. When Officer Gilmore Flieschman asked Zimmerman to wait off to the side while he and the other officers finished with the prisoners, Zimmerman shoved him and was wrestled to the hood of a squad car by all the officers present.
The charges were eventually dropped by the state prosecutor's office.
There is also a statement by Zimmerman's former fiancé, who recounts a couple of minor physical altercations with Zimmerman, one of which led to the two taking out a mutual injunction against each other in 2005.
The ex-fiancé, who also remains unnamed, does say that Zimmerman never exhibited any personal biases against a specific race or other group.
The full document, complete with photos, can be accessed here.
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