With hundreds marching in New York yesterday in memory of a black Florida teenager who was gunned down last month by a neighborhood watch captain who believed the youth was a threat, people in the D.C. area learned a thread of the story that brings this tragedy close to home.
George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26 in Sanford, Fla., grew up in Manassas, Va., NBC4 reported last night. Zimmerman, 28, graduated from Osbourn High School and moved to Florida about 10 years ago. And yesterday the Zimmermans’ former acquaintances remembered them as model neighbors:
The Zimmermans were community fixtures in Prince William County. George Zimmerman’s mother worked for Prince William County government for 28 years before retiring, according to a former neighbor. She also performed bilingual weddings at the Prince William County Courthouse before the family moved to Florida.
“They were just an impressive family. They really were,” said George Hall, who lived across the street from the Zimmermans for more than two decades.
George Zimmerman visited his old neighborhood a few years ago and asked a former neighbor, George Hall, for a recommendation to a police department. “I wrote a very positive because he was a very positive guy in my eyes, and I’m shocked,” Hall told NBC 4.
Zimmerman never became a cop, but he was a neighborhood watch captain in his Sanford community. On February 26, acting under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” doctrine that allows people to use deadly force in public when they believe their life is in danger, he fatally shot Martin, who was just walking home to his father’s house. Zimmerman had been observing Martin, making several 911 calls and telling dispatchers things like “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or on drugs or something” and “He’s coming to check me out. He’s got something in his hands.” He might have also uttered the phrase “fucking coons,” according to another 911 tape.
When emergency responders found Martin’s body, they found he had been carrying a can of iced tea and a bag of candy. He had also been on the phone with his girlfriend, telling her that a man—Zimmerman—appeared to be following him.
Back in Manassas, some of Zimmerman’s former neighbors are still agog that he shot Martin in apparent cold blood. “When I heard ‘George Zimmerman,’ it passed, you know, crossing my mind, and I thought, Well that’s Sanford, and besides, it couldn’t be George because he wouldn’t do anything like that,” George Hall’s wife, Kay, told NBC4.
According to WJLA, Martin’s family will be meeting with the Department of Justice today and a rally will be held at Freedom Plaza on Saturday afternoon.
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