In Miami-Dade County where Trayvon Martin lived with his mother, law enforcement has been monitoring social media for possible upheavals. Law enforcement officials have used social media in promoting peaceful demonstrations instead of all out violent riots. Many U.S. Cities had braced for riots after George Zimmerman was declared innocent of killing Trayvon Martin in Sanford Florida.
Area clergy supported the police in their efforts to maintain order after the announcement of Zimmerman’s acquittal. “It’s all right to be vocal, but we don’t want to be violent,” said the Rev. Walter Richardson, a longtime pastor and chairman of Miami-Dade County’s Community Relations Board. “We’ve already lost one soul and we don’t want lose anymore.”
Police Chief Cecil Smith of Sanford Florida assigned a door to door campaign effort, whereby officers talked with residents to stem any neighborhood violence. He in a statement to CNN expressed concern that violence may be sparked by an outside influence in the town of 50,000. Smith stated the town had a plan in place to stop any “Rodney King-style riots”. King, a black man, was beat by Los Angeles officers and the incident was filmed by a motorist. The beating sparked riots after the officers were acquitted of any wrongdoing.
Sanford has a history of racial tension. Famed baseball player Jackie Robinson was run out of town while in training camp after joining the Dodgers by the KKK in 1946. Robinson later recounted the incident in his autobiography. Sanford is also where activist Harry Moore, founder of the Sanford branch of The NAACP, had his house fire bombed killing him and his wife.
“For so many of the youth, I think you have to understand that the way this case was handled seems like a slap in the face. How could Zimmerman shoot Trayvon and by his own admission be free to leave 12 hours later? You’ve also have Trayvon demonized,” said Pastor Glenn Dames of St. James AME Church in Titusville Florida. Many U.S. cities braced for riots after the courts declared Zimmerman innocent of all charges.
“Had everything been done at the beginning, then you likely would not have had these tensions. The tensions wouldn’t be this big. Ultimately, It’s in God’s hands,” he said.
In Los Angeles California, Police instituted a citywide tactical alert. While one arrest was made many protests were largely peaceful. Demonstrators marched on streets and disrupted traffic but there was no major violence. There was a rock throwing incident that was quickly put down. “Police responded by firing nonlethal rounds,” said LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith.
In New York, more than a thousand protestors assembled in Times Square after a two mile march from a rally in Union Square.
People in Atlanta Georgia protested the verdict by rallying downtown in the metro district and calling local radio stations voicing their outrage.
At a rally in downtown Chicago about 200 people protested the verdict and equated it to the 1955 slaying of Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old Chicago youth who was murdered in Mississippi by whites.
In Philadelphia, approximately 700 individuals marched from LOVE park to the Liberty Bell in defiance of the court freeing George Zimmerman. “We hope this will begin a movement to end discrimination against young black men,” said Johnathan Cooper, one of the protest’s organizers. “And also empower black people and get them involved in the systems.”
“I think that he feels, truly in his heart, that if he did not have that weapon he might not be here,” said Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara of Zimmerman. Many U.S. cities braced for riots after Zimmerman was declared innocent. “Zimmerman fears for his safety and needs his gun now even more,” O’Mara said.
By Thomas Barr
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4 Responses
I mean what else cn it be it took them a month and half to lock him up if tables were turned it wouldn’t take that long people say why it gotta be a race thang lets be real that’s exactly what it is black people are still considered 3 rd world citizens if zimmerman was black and Trayvon was white it wouldn’t even been a trail lets be all the way real
Shot him WITHOUT justification.These A**Wagons forget the part where Trayvon is on top of Zimmerman beating the F**k out of him. People are nuts.
And Al Sharpton is an idiot. Innocent little kid? Right!
There is nothing wrong with a 17 year old BLACK kid, attacking a “WHITE-HISPANIC”.
But when the “WHITE_HISPANIC” fights back, and kills the BLACK KID, there is a global outrage. If both of these people were BLACK we wouldn’t here anything about it.
Since the killing of Trayvon, there have been 2,000 Black on Black murders, how many have you heard of?
The thing is. None of these people know the truth. I have nothing against black people, but they think the world is out to get them. Zimmerman would have shot him regardless of his race. Trayvon attacked him on his way back his car, and tried to possibly kill him, by beating his head on the sidewalk. Zimmerman cried for help, but no one responded. Then he shot him, in the chest, once. The only place he could have because Trayvon was on top of him. There was so much evidence for Zimmerman, and the people prosecuting George had evidence that went against him.
They think Trayvon is an innocent little kid because of the media showing pictures of him when he was 12! Not when it happened. (He was 17)
Trayvon was a thug, who did drugs, had been in trouble before, and was serving one of his multiple 10 day suspensions from school.
Zimmerman had probably seen him before, and probably knew that he was a bad kid. H
He didn’t “just want some candy”, he said he was going to the convientent store, which was a 2-3 minute walk, and he was gone for 45 minutes. What could he have done in that time? Got drugs, or anything else.
Zimmerman knew he was up to no good, and he did the right thing.
Then the media tried to make it a racist thing, because they thought he was white, when they figured out he was hispanic, they called him a “White-Hispanic”.
What if this kind of thing happened somewhere else, where the person who died was a 17 year old african american, and I was an older white man, but I had a black dad. Would you call me a “white-african”? NO.
The media tried to make this a racist thing, and tried to spark riots, but they failed.