That was not exactly true. Martin had had multiple run-ins with the law. What spared him formal entry into the justice system was the preferential treatment afforded to black male offenders by the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department. Unfortunately, this kid-glove treatment kept the adults in Martin’s life ignorant of the depth of the young man’s problems. That ignorance, in turn, left Martin wandering high and unsupervised on a rainy February night in Sanford, 250 miles from whichever house in the Miami area he then called home.

  In Sanford, Martin ran into Zimmerman. Ford initially described him as “an edgy basket case with a gun who had called 911 46 times in 15 months, once to report the suspicious activities of a seven year old black boy.”6 Although quick to denounce stereotypes, Ford here flirted with libel in his crude profile of this “vigilante.” Virtually every assertion in his sentence was wrong. Zimmerman had called not 9-1-1 but the nonemergency number. He made the calls over a period of eight years, not fifteen months, and many were made at the request of beleaguered neighbors. He once reported that a seven-year-old had been left unattended, not that he was involved in suspicious activities. As to what it was about this highly respected, happily married, well-employed young man that made him an edgy basket case, Ford never bothered to explain. He did not need to. Much of the New Republic audience, perhaps most, shared his preconceptions. The editors apparently did too. When various legal scholars alerted them to the article’s defamatory errors, they amended them only grudgingly and slowly and even then refused to give up on the “edgy basket case” slur.7

  Liberal attorneys like Ford may identify with Atticus Finch, but Atticus Finch would not identify with them. Atticus ignored public opinion. He stared down the mobs intent on extralegal justice. He protected his “mockingbird” as best he could. Attorney Ford did none of the above. Nor, to say the least, did attorney Benjamin Crump. Said Crump, insulting those who know the past, “Trayvon Martin will forever remain in the annals of history next to Medgar Evers and Emmett Till, as symbols for the fight for equal justice for all.”8 Till, a fourteen-year-old Chicago boy, was brutally lynched for allegedly flirting with a white woman in 1955 Mississippi. The courageous civil rights leader Evers took a bullet in the back from a racist assassin in 1963 Mississippi. Martin took a bullet to the chest while gratuitously bashing in the head of a Hispanic man he did not know in a multiethnic 2012 Florida community.

  The old bulls responded much as one would expect them to. Initially, they just asked for an arrest and then just a trial. Neither proved sufficient. “I do not accept the [Zimmerman verdict],” Jackson told the world in pure Dolchschuss spirit. He compared the trial to that of Emmett Till’s murderers. “Not one black lawyer on either side, not one black on the jury, not one male on the jury, and so something about it was stacked from the very beginning,” said Jackson, fully ignoring the demographics of Seminole County and the State’s blundering effort to squash Zimmerman.9 Jackson apparently preferred the dynamics of the 1995 O. J. Simpson trial. In that case, a 75 percent black jury, pulled from a jury pool only 28 percent black, acquitted the transparently guilty Simpson of a brutal double homicide after just four hours of deliberation.10 If Jackson did not accept the Simpson verdict, there is no record of his protest.

  Al Sharpton called the Zimmerman verdict an “atrocity” and laid the blame on the jurors. “What this jury has done,” said Sharpton, “is establish a precedent that when you are young and fit a certain profile, you can be committing no crime . . . and be killed and someone can claim self-defense.” Conceding the role mob pressure played in the arrest of Zimmerman, Sharpton added, “We had to march to even get a trial and even at trial, when he’s exposed over and over again as a liar, he is acquitted.”11

  Although admittedly “outraged and heartbroken” by the verdict, the NAACP’s Ben Jealous proved to be slightly more prudent in his response than Sharpton or Jackson. As egged on by CNN’s Candy Crowley, Jealous boasted that the NAACP was in talks with the Justice Department about filing civil rights charges against Zimmerman. “When you look at comments made by young black men who lived in that neighborhood about how they felt, especially targeted by him,” said Jealous of some hitherto unknown young black men, “there is reason to be concerned that race was a factor in why he targeted young Trayvon.”12

  The media showed some restraint, but many could not resist the urge to join the mob. The day after the verdict, the New York Post summed up newsroom sentiments in the quippy headline “TRAY-VESTY.”13 The Guardian headline announced “George Zimmerman Skirts Justice with All-White Jury.”14 The preposterous comparison to Emmett Till got a ton of play. “Trayvon Martin Is Our Emmett Till; Our Jury Selection Process Is No Better Now Than It Was In 1955,” read the misbegotten headline of a Daily Kos article that denounced the “all-white jury.”15 “When will it all end?” The New York Daily News asked below a list of deceased young black men that began with Emmett Till and ended with Trayvon Martin.16 A month before the trial began, Lil Wayne, the rapper candidate Obama gave a shout out to during the 2008 campaign, apologized to the Till family for the lyric, “Beat that pussy up like Emmett Till.”17 In the wake of the post-verdict comparisons, he was not the only one who should have been apologizing to Till’s family.

  48

  MISLEADING AMERICA

  “JUROR SAYS ZIMMERMAN ‘GOT AWAY WITH MURDER.’” So read the headline in the New York Times twelve days after the trial ended.1 The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune ran comparable, if not identical, headlines. What none of those publications mentioned—and kudos to Slate’s William Saletan for breaking the story2—was that the juror in question intended to say no such thing.

  ABC News gets the credit again for its continued commitment to misleading America. In this case, its producers recruited the one woman of color on George Zimmerman’s “all-white” jury and twisted her words to incite the public. In an “exclusive” interview, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts said to juror B29, “Some people have said, point-blank, ‘George Zimmerman got away with murder.’ How do you respond to those people who say that?” In the edited video ABC floated to get the media’s attention, “Maddy” answered unhesitatingly, “George Zimmerman got away with murder. But you can’t get away from God.”3

  Given the bait, the media bit big-time and generated their own misleading headlines. In the accompanying Times article by Lisette Alvarez—the reporter who gave the world “White Hispanic”—there was not even a mention of the prompt by Roberts. In fact, though, Roberts not only prompted Maddy, but she also set her up for a seriously deceptive edit. In the unedited version, after Roberts asked her the leading question, Maddy paused, started her response over, and clearly played back the gist of Roberts’s question—“George Zimmerman got away with murder”—as the stated premise to her own answer, “But you can’t get away from God.” In other words, that was how she would answer that question if asked. She never volunteered that Zimmerman got away with murder, nor did she openly agree with the premise. In fact, she stood by her decision to acquit Zimmerman and said the case should not have gone to trial.

  In her introduction to Maddy’s interview, Roberts made several factual mistakes to complement the network’s manipulation of the video. In the way of example, Roberts said of Zimmerman, “He called police. They suggested he stay in his car.” The dispatcher, of course, never asked Zimmerman to stay in his truck and did not even recommend he go back to it once aware he had left it. Nor was the dispatcher a police officer. Mistakes this fundamental made skeptics wonder whether they were, in fact, mistakes. Intentionally or otherwise, ABC News had been stoking black paranoia for more than a year and continued unapologetically after the verdict.

  That paranoia exploded in angry post-verdict demonstrations across the country and the occasional small-scale riot. A Washington Post–ABC News poll showed that 86 percent of African-Americans disagreed with the verdict, almost all of them “strongly,” against only 9 percent who approved. By contrast, whites approved of the verdict by 51 to 31 percent.4 Of note, the better educated the individual was, the more likely he or she was to approve of the verdict. Of note, too, the media effort to whiten Zimmerman helped suppress his support among Hispanics, who disapproved of the verdict by slightly more than a two-to-one margin.

  The sequestration of the jury quite possibly saved Zimmerman from conviction. To repeat the words of Justice Holmes, “Mob law does not become due process of law by securing the assent of a terrified jury.”5 The jurors, especially Maddy, had little idea of the terror that awaited them after the verdict. It was only “as the negative news reports about their verdict erupted,” said Robin Roberts uncritically, that Maddy “crumbled.”6

  “I literally fell on my knees and I broke down,” confessed Maddy. “My husband was holding me. I was screaming and crying, and I kept saying to myself I feel like I killed him.” In her interview with Roberts, Maddy tried to explain the jury process to those watching. “I feel that if maybe if [the media] would [explain] the law, and a lot of people would read it, they would understand the choices that they gave us,” said Maddy. She pleaded in vain. Her exculpatory appearance on ABC News did little to quiet the critics. “I do feel like she caved,” said black radio host Mo Ivory on CNN. “Part of me is very upset with her, and I think that the apologies after were empty apologies.”7 In the blogosphere both sides attacked her, despite the fact that she was, in Mark O’Mara’s words, a “model juror.” Said O’Mara accurately, “Based on her comments, Juror B29 accepted a tremendous burden, set her feelings aside, and cast a verdict based on the evidence presented in court and on the law she was provided.”8

  Although more than 60 percent of college graduates thought the Zimmerman verdict just, that number did not include any Democrat running for office.9 This pronounced deviation from the norm was most evident in New York City, where a highly contested mayoral primary loomed less than two months down the road. Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, called the not-guilty verdict “a slap in the face to justice.” City Council speaker Christine Quinn called it “a shocking insult to his family and everyone seeking justice for Trayvon.” Said controller John Liu, “Today’s decision is shocking and highlights the sad reality that the day of equal justice for Trayvon and millions of other young men of color has yet to arrive.” The only black mayoral candidate, Bill Thompson, said, “Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black. There was no justice done today in Florida.” And finally, in one of the few times the words “tweet” and “Anthony Weiner” were not part of someone’s punch line, mayoral hopeful Weiner tweeted, “Keep Trayvon’s family in our prayers. Deeply unsatisfying verdict. Trial by jury is our only choice in a democracy.”10

  At the national level, the pandering was no less obvious. Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid said on NBC’s Meet the Press, “This isn’t over with, and I think that’s good.”11 By “not over with” he meant that Eric Holder’s Justice Department would continue to hound Zimmerman despite his having been cleared more than a year earlier by the FBI. By “good,” there was no telling what he meant. Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton also welcomed “the next steps from the Justice Department” and added some empty words about “the need for a national dialogue,” a dialogue that her party would never initiate in any meaningful way.12

  No prominent Democrat defended the verdict or raised hard questions about the factors that put Martin in harm’s way that tragic night in Sanford, Florida. Those factors did not include stand your ground, guns, or racial profiling. They did include sporadic parenting, indifferent schooling, and an inner-city culture that openly celebrated violence, drugs, and lawlessness. To discuss these issues candidly was to risk the Democratic stranglehold on a profoundly troubled and dependent population. As to Republican politicos, Angela Corey excepted, they did what they normally do when tough racial issues surface—hide.

  It took a retired NBA star to risk his public standing by stating what should have been obvious to everyone. “I think Trayvon Martin—God rest his soul—I think he did flip the switch and started beating the hell out of Mr. Zimmerman,” said the outspoken Charles Barkley. “I agree with the verdict.”13 Unfortunately for America, the president did not show nearly the courage that Barkley did.

  49

  DOUBLING DOWN

  DID GEORGE ZIMMERMAN “profile” Trayvon Martin? Of course he did, and he did not hesitate to share that fact with the Sanford police. In his initial call to the nonemergency dispatcher and in his subsequent interviews, he explained the variables, all of them relevant, that led him to suspect Trayvon Martin may have been “up to no good.”

  • It was raining, and Martin was wandering about, not jogging or walking swiftly to a destination. Zimmerman’s observation was validated by the unaccounted-for twenty-five minutes in Martin’s return from the 7-Eleven.

  • Martin was looking at houses. The area had been plagued by burglaries and home invasions, particularly along its unfenced western flank, where Zimmerman first spotted Martin.

  • Martin looked high. The THC in his blood indicated he was. As Martin’s recent history suggested, he got high a lot.

  • Martin looked like he was “up to no good.” Given his recent apprehension for possession of stolen jewelry and a burglary tool, Zimmerman may have been right.

  • Martin was male. This was perhaps the most significant variable. Males had committed all known property crime in the area.

  • Martin was in his “late teens.” So were a disproportionate percentage of the criminal suspects.

  • Martin was tall. He was a full-grown young man, not a child.

  • When asked, Zimmerman speculated that Martin “looked black.” Forty seconds later, he confirmed that Martin was black. Zimmerman had dubbed him “suspicious” before he knew his race. In that all recent arrests had been of young black men, however, Martin’s race likely factored into Zimmerman’s thinking. How could it not?

  • The fact that Martin wore a hoodie seemed the least significant of all variables. Zimmerman mentioned this only when asked—“Yeah, a dark hoodie, like a gray hoodie, and either jeans or sweat pants and white tennis shoes”—and made no point of the hoodie afterwards. It was, after all, raining.

  In the past, Zimmerman had shied from confronting suspects—there is no better word—and refrained this time as well. When the dispatcher asked in which direction Martin was running, Zimmerman followed at a prudent distance and stopped following when the dispatcher so requested. Martin’s behavior had sufficiently alarmed him that he affirmed his request for an officer to come to the scene. Zimmerman never left the east-west cut-through. Martin came back to confront him. There is no doubt of that. He came back for a reason, and it was not a good one. Still, had the police arrived two minutes earlier, the names George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin would have meant little to anyone but their families and friends.

  Needing to make some sense of the shooting, or to exploit it, Zimmerman’s accusers focused on two issues, race and guns, more specifically, racial profiling and stand your ground laws. It is hard to pinpoint exactly when the phrase “racial profiling” first entered everyday vocabulary, let alone acquired a taint. In the year 1996, the Supreme Court ruled in the United States v. Armstrong et al. that the plaintiffs “failed to show that the Government declined to prosecute similarly situated suspects of other races.”1 Although the word “profiling” was not used in the decision, the Court rejected the idea that a racial quota of some sort should be applied to prosecutions. In the year 2000, however, a lawsuit in New Jersey prompted the state to release ninety-one thousand pages of police records on turnpike traffic stops, and critics made of these records what they would.

  After the events of September 11, 2001, activists extended the concept of racial profiling to include Muslims or people suspected of being Muslims. In 2003, President George W. Bush signed an executive order prohibiting employees in seventy different federal agencies from using race, color, or ethnicity to profile potential suspects.2 By 2010, profiling had become taboo in progressive circles, even if done by private citizens. Black NPR commentator Juan Williams learned this the hard way after sharing with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly a sentiment felt by virtually all cognizant Americans of any stripe.

  “Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot,” said Williams ingenuously. “You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”3 That comment cost William his position with NPR. Fortunately for Jesse Jackson, he made his remarks about profiling the white people who walked behind him before such comments were verboten.

  Disallowed from using the phrase “racial profiling” in Florida v. George Zimmerman, prosecutors stuck to the word “profiling” but wielded it like the archetypal man with a hammer to whom everything looked like a nail. Zimmerman, said Bernie de la Rionda in his close, “profiled [Martin] as a criminal. He assumed certain things, that Trayvon Martin was up to no good, and that is what led up to his death.” Not exactly. In his prior forty-six calls to the nonemergency dispatcher—“See something, say something”—Zimmerman profiled any number of suspicious individuals, and none of them died. To demonize the broad-based profiling Zimmerman did, that all police officers do, is to drive common sense from the public square, but that is exactly what Zimmerman’s many accusers have tried to do.

  One of those accusers has been US attorney general Eric Holder. In a speech to the NAACP convention in Orlando three days after the verdict, Holder urged the nation to “confront the underlying attitudes, the mistaken beliefs and the unfortunate stereotypes that serve too often as the basis for police action and private judgments.” He recounted how he himself had been stopped by the police, twice on the infamous New Jersey Turnpike and once while running at night through the streets of Georgetown, presumably for no offense other than his color.