The tragic fatal Feb. 26 shooting of an unarmed 17-year-old black youth, Trayvon Martin, by an armed and overzealous neighborhood watch volunteer in an Orlando suburb should never have happened. That it did reflects two distinct tragedies.
One involves a wrongful death; so far as is known, Martin was merely walking to the home of his father’s girlfriend to see his father when he was shot.
The second tragedy involves the creation of a law – Florida’s 2005 “Stand Your Ground” law – that so far has safeguarded the shooter from any legal charges. He has claimed the shooting was in legal self-defense, even though he seems to have stalked and confronted Martin in a public location well away from his own home.
The watch volunteer, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, had already alerted police through one of several 911 calls that he was trailing a black youth in a sweatshirt in his gated Sanford community. He was told by a 911 dispatcher not to follow the youth.
“Are you following him?” the dispatcher said. “O.K., you don’t need to do that.” But Zimmerman waved off the warning. A few minutes later, Zimmerman told arriving police officers that he shot and killed the youth in self-defense.