Shooting of Trayvon Martin

The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman occurred in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. The shooting exposed deep divisions among Americans on race issues.

Martin’s death

Martin, a 17-year-old African American, was returning from a convenience store when he was noticed by Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch volunteer. Zimmerman contacted the nonemergency line of the Sanford Police Department, mentioned that there had been burglaries in the neighborhood, and told the dispatcher that he had observed “a real suspicious guy” who was “walking around, looking about.” Zimmerman also described Martin as someone “up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something.” After Zimmerman answered the dispatcher’s questions about Martin’s appearance and his location, and as they were discussing when a police officer would arrive, Zimmerman reported that Martin was “running”:

Dispatcher: Are you following him?

Zimmerman: Yeah.

Dispatcher: OK, we don’t need you to do that.

Zimmerman: OK.

In a written account of the incident that he gave to Sanford police, Zimmerman said he had exited his vehicle prior to this exchange and was returning to it when Martin “emerged from the darkness,” threatened him, and “punched me in the face.” After Martin “slammed my head into the side walk” several times, according to Zimmerman, he fired his weapon at Martin at close range, killing him. During Zimmerman’s trial, Rachel Jeantel, the prosecution’s most important witness, provided the only other account of the events leading up to Martin’s death: she testified that, while she was on the phone with Martin just before he was killed by Zimmerman, she heard Martin ask someone why he was following him, and that person replied, “What you doing around here?” Jeantel also testified that she heard sounds of a struggle and Martin saying “Get off, get off” before the phone disconnected.

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The confrontation and gunshot resulted in multiple 911 calls by nearby residents. After police arrived, Zimmerman said he had fired in self-defense. Martin was unarmed. Concluding that they could not hold Zimmerman—because no available evidence contradicted his version of the event and because state law permitted the use of deadly force in self-defense—the police released him.

Trial

In the following weeks, as Zimmerman remained uncharged, the shooting drew increasing attention. On March 12 the chief of the Sanford Police Department affirmed that no criminal charge could be filed against Zimmerman, mainly because of the absence of probable cause. A day later, however, a Sanford police investigator assigned to the case recommended that Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter, on the basis that the violent encounter could have been avoided. Zimmerman remained free, which was seen by many as an injustice, and demonstrations demanding his prosecution for murder were organized in cities across the United States. In April 2012 the governor of Florida, Rick Scott, appointed a special prosecutor for the case, who brought a criminal charge of second-degree murder against Zimmerman.

Zimmerman’s trial—which began more than a year later, in June 2013—received intensive media coverage. The prosecution argued that Martin’s death resulted from Zimmerman’s profiling of him as a criminal and trying to take the law into his own hands.

The defense argued that the evidence corroborated Zimmerman’s version of the event—namely, that he fired his weapon because Martin was attacking him and that he felt that his life was threatened. Central elements of the incident, however, could not be ascertained. For instance, witnesses disagreed on who could be heard screaming for help on a recorded call to emergency services.

Although the original criminal charge brought against Zimmerman was second-degree murder, the judge also gave the jury the option of convicting him of the lesser charge of manslaughter. In order to find Zimmerman guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter, the jury had to find not only that Zimmerman had caused Martin’s death but also that he did not do so in self-defense. The issue of self-defense was linked to Florida’s law permitting the use of deadly force to defend oneself against a perceived threat—known as a “stand-your-ground” law—which was central to debate over the shooting. Instructions to the jury referenced the law, but Zimmerman’s lawyers ultimately did not invoke Zimmerman’s rights under it, because, they argued, he did not have the option to retreat anyway. On July 13, 2013, after more than 16 hours of deliberation, the jury found Zimmerman not guilty.

Reactions to the shooting and verdict

Martin’s death heightened a debate over the persistence of racism in the United States and in particular over the issue of racial profiling. In March 2012 Barack Obama—the first Black president of the United States—expressed his dismay at the shooting, saying that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Later Obama compared Martin to his younger self and characterized racial profiling as a reality that most African Americans, including himself, have had to face. Protests continued across the United States in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict and led to the formation of the prominent Black Lives Matter social movement, which focused on better treatment of African Americans in all facets of American society.

Read about the history of and controversy surrounding DEI programs.

In the years after his acquittal, Zimmerman attempted an online auction of the gun he used to kill Martin. He also tried to auction a painting he made of the U.S. flag, and a Florida gun shop sold prints of his painting of the Confederate Battle Flag. He was arrested in 2013 and in 2015 after accusations of domestic violence were made against him; he denied the claims, and charges were never filed or dropped. Zimmerman has filed several defamation lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages, including against Trayvon Martin’s family, that have been dismissed.

In 2015 the U.S. Department of Justice announced that, due to insufficient evidence, it would not charge Zimmerman with hate crimes.

Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, created the Trayvon Martin Foundation in 2012. They wrote Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin (2017), in which they described their experience of their son’s death and its aftermath; it became the basis for a TV documentary series in 2018, produced by Shawn Carter. Fulton also founded the Circle of Mothers organization, to support mothers whose children have died as a result of gun violence, and in 2022 she published the essay Trayvon: Ten Years Later. Fulton told ABC News in 2022:

I never lose sight that [he] was my baby. By the same token, I know that Trayvon Martin is a symbol for other Trayvon Martins that you don’t know, that you have not said their name…. He was just a vessel that represents so many others.