Martin friend describes final phone call
Woman says she heard teen shout, ‘Get off! Get off!’
SANFORD, Fla. — A friend who was on the phone with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin moments before he was fatally shot by George Zimmerman testified that she heard the Miami teen shout, “Get off! Get off!” before his phone went dead.
Rachel Jeantel, 19, recounted to jurors Wednesday in Zimmerman’s seconddegree murder trial how Martin told her he was being followed by a man as he walked through the Retreat at Twin Lakes townhome complex on his way back from a convenience store to the home of his father’s fiancee.
Jeantel is considered one of the prosecution’s most important witnesses because she was the last person to talk to Martin before his encounter with Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012.
She testified that Martin described the man following him as “a creepy-ass cracker” and that he thought he had evaded him. She said that a short time later, Martin let out a profanity.
Martin said the man was behind him, and she heard the teen ask: “What are you following me for?”
She then heard what sounded like Martin’s phone earpiece drop into the grass, and she heard him say, “Get off! Get off!” The phone then went dead, she said.
Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted in the death. Zimmerman followed Martin in his truck and called a police dispatch number before he and the teen got into a fight.
Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, saying he opened fire after the teen jumped him and began slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic and has denied that his confrontation with the black teen had anything to do with race, as Martin’s family and its supporters have alleged.
Jeantel, 19, also said she initially lied about her age — she claimed to be 16 — to protect her privacy when she was contacted by an attorney for Martin’s family to give a recorded statement over the phone about what she knew about the moments before the shooting. She was expected to finish her testimony today.
While being cross-examined, Jeantel had several testy exchanges with defense attorney Don West, including one incident when she prompted the attorney to ask his next question: “You can go. You can go.”
In the months before the shooting, Zimmerman made about a half-dozen calls to a nonemergency police number to report suspicious characters in his neighborhood. Judge Debra Nelson ruled Wednesday that they could be played for jurors.
Prosecutors had argued that the dispatch calls were central to their case that Zimmerman had committed seconddegree murder because they showed his state of mind. He was frustrated with repeated burglaries and had reached a breaking point the night he shot the unarmed teenager, prosecutors say.
Defense attorneys had argued that the calls were irrelevant.