Killing gets hate-crime look

Black teen in Florida was slain after possible racial slur

— The U.S. Justice Department is looking into bringing a hate-crime charge against the gunman in the killing of black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin if there is sufficient evidence the slaying was motivated by racial bias and not simply a fight that spiraled out of control, legal experts and former prosecutors say.

So far, only one such clue has surfaced publicly against 28-year-old George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who fatally shot the 17-year-old Martin on Feb. 26 in the central Florida town of Sanford. On one of his 911 calls to police that night, Zimmerman muttered something under his breath that some listeners said sounds like “coon,” a racial slur.Zimmerman’s father is white, and his mother is Hispanic.

“It sounds pretty obvious to me,” said Donald Tibbs, a Drexel University law professor who has closely studied race, civil rights and criminal procedure. “If that was a racial epithet that preceded the attack on Trayvon Martin, we definitely have a hate crime.”

Others, however, said the recording is not clear enough to determine what Zimmerman actually said. And many experts said more evidence would be needed that he harbored racial prejudice against black people and went after Martin for that reason alone. There had previously been burglaries in the complex committed by young black males, possibly heightening Zimmerman’s suspicions when he spotted Martin.

“They are going to have to show he was specifically targeting this individual based on his race, creed, color, et cetera,” said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami. “Not that he was chasing somebody down and got in a confrontation that may or may not have been based on that.”

Zimmerman’s parents, in a letter to a newspaper, insisted their son is not racially biased, and several black residents of the neighborhood where Martin was shot had good things to say about Zimmerman.

Zimmerman has not been charged with any crime and is claiming self-defense under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which eliminated a person’s duty to retreat when threatened with serious bodily harm or death. He claims Martin attacked him as he was walking back to his truck, police said.

“He’s not a racist,” attorney Craig Sonner said about his client. “The incident that transpired is not racially motivated or a hate crime in any way.”

Stand Your Ground laws, in place in about two dozen states, have come under increasing scrutiny. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on Sunday sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a federal investigation into whether killings are going unprosecuted because the laws put too much of a burden on local authorities.

Martin’s parents and hundreds of supporters have said Zimmerman should have been immediately arrested and charged with the youth’s killing, but police said they have little evidence to disprove his self-defense claim. A grand jury will be convened April 10 to consider whether to bring state charges, which could include second-degree murder or manslaughter.

The Justice Department’s civil-rights division and the FBI are conducting their own probe in the case, and a federal hate-crimes charge could come out of that no matter what state authorities do. The hate-crimes law carries a potential sentence of life in prison when a death is involved.

Hundreds of people gathered Sunday in Nashville, Tenn., outside the state Capitol to protest Martin’s shooting. The Tennessean reported that many of those who attended the rally Saturday were dressed in hooded sweat shirts - the same clothing worn by Martin when he was shot.

The shooting has spurred protest rallies across the nation, with at least three others planned in Tennessee and one planned for Sunday evening in Kansas City, Mo. Organizers of that event also asked demonstrators to don hooded shirts.

Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 03/26/2012

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