The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No federal charges for Zimmerman in teen’s death
Agency: No action coming in slaying of Trayvon Martin.
George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation with the teenager, will not face federal charges, the Justice Department said Tuesday
MIAMI — George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation with the teenager, will not face federal charges, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The decision, announced in the waning days of Attorney General Eric Holder’s tenure, resolves a case that focused on self-defense gun laws and became a flashpoint in the national conversation about race two years before the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting.
Zimmerman has said he acted in self-defense when he shot the 17-yearold Martin during a confrontation inside a gated community in Sanford, Florida, just outside Orlando.
Martin, who was black, was unarmed when he was killed. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.
Once Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder by a state jury in July 2013, Martin’s family turned to the federal investigation in hopes that he would be held accountable for the shooting.
That probe focused on whether the killing amounted to a federal civil rights violation, which would have required proof that it was motivated by racial animosity. The Justice Department said there was not enough evidence to establish that Zimmerman willfully deprived Martin of his civil rights — a difficult legal standard to meet — or killed the teenager on account of his race.
“This decision is limited strictly to the department’s inability to meet the high legal standard required to prosecute the case under the federal civil rights statutes; it does not reflect an assessment of any other aspect of the shooting,” the Justice Department said in a news release announcing the decision Tuesday.
Zimmerman’s attorney, Don West, was on a flight and couldn’t immediately comment on the decision. A call to Zimmerman’s cellphone went directly to voicemail.
Martin’s parents were too distraught after their meeting in Miami with Justice Department officials to speak with reporters, their attorney Ben Crump said.
The Justice Department’s decision not to file federal charges against Zimmerman was expected but still “a bitter pill to swallow,” he said.
“What they told his family and I was that be- cause Trayvon wasn’t able to tell us his version of events, there was a lack of evidence to bring the charges. That’s the tragedy,” Crump said.
The February 2012 confrontation began after Zimmerman saw Martin while driving in his neighborhood. Zimmerman called police and got out of his car and approached Martin, who was returning from a store while visiting his father and his father’s fiancee at the same townhome complex where Zimmerman lived.
Zimmerman did not testify at his trial, but he told investigators that he feared for his life as Martin straddled him and punched him during the fight.
The Justice Department’s decision was not surprising because there was no evidence that Zimmerman’s actions were motivated by race, said Tamara Rice Lave, a professor at the University of Miami’s School of Law.
In a 911 call, as he followed Martin through their Sanford neighborhood, Zimmerman said the teen “looks black.”
“But he doesn’t say the things that would make you think it was motivated by race,” Lave said. “He doesn’t call him the N-word.”
Black leaders in Sanford, where Martin was shot, said they weren’t surprised.
“I was expecting this to happen,” said Turner Clayton, a former local leader of the NAACP.
The decision to not prosecute Zimmerman comes although Holder has made civil rights a cornerstone of his tenure.