Trayvon's Mother Denounces 'Stand Your Ground'
Item
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Title
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Trayvon's Mother Denounces 'Stand Your Ground'
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Description
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On February 26, 2012, Florida resident and member of the local neighborhood watch George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black boy who had been on his way home after an evening snack run. Zimmerman claimed to have shot Martin in self-defense. The members of the jury, considerate of the state’s 2005 Stand Your Ground Law that meant that Zimmerman had the right to use deadly force if necessary to defend himself, found this argument convincing—Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder charges on July 13, 2013. In a Senate committee later that year, captured in this video, Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton decries Stand Your Ground, stating that “our [Black] kids cannot feel safe in their own community.” In the decade following Martin’s murder and Fulton’s plea, states across the U.S. adopted similar legal doctrine, setting a widespread legal precedent that allows for bias against Black victims in favor of the white shooters who see them as a threat.
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Publisher
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Associated Press
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Type
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Video
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Format
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YouTube video, runtime 1:32
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Language
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English
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Identifier
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https://youtu.be/DDhKivKHj3E
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Temporal Coverage
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2012
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Rights Holder
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Associated Press
Race and the Second Amendment