Community demonstration switches focus of Trayvon Martin case

Hundreds gathered in VCU's Commons Plaza in honor of 17-year old shooting victim Trayvon Martin. Photo by Amber-Lynn Taber.

Mechelle Hankerson
News Editor

Chanee Patterson
Capital News Service

Hundreds of Richmond citizens gathered Monday night on VCU’s campus for a demonstration in honor of Trayvon Martin.

The community was responding to events that happened Feb. 26, when 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman.

Zimmerman said that he shot the teen in an act of self-defense and has yet to be arrested or charged for anything relating to Martin’s death.

The same day, thousands gathered across the country for the same reason. Sanford, Fla., Martin’s hometown, and larger cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. also came together to show their concern over Martin’s case.

Twin sisters and VCU students, Breonca and Brittni Trofort, grew up in Miami, Fla. and said they were prompted to help organize the event because of their own experiences in their hometown.

Both said there have been times when they’ve been followed and questioned by members of their community.

“We have (both) faced different times where we have been followed (and) we have been questioned,” Breonca said.

“I’m not going to say that I’d expect it to happen all the time, but the fact that it did happen, I wasn’t surprised at all,” Brittni said.

Demonstrators gathered in the Plaza wearing hoodies with ‘weapons’ – Skittles and iced tea, the two things Martin was carrying when shot.

Miracle Allums, one of the student organizers, said they plan to send the empty bags of Skittles and iced tea to the Sanford Police with a note saying, “We surrender our weapons.”

The crowd was filled with Richmond residents who lived through the Civil Rights movement as well as younger members, like 17-year old speaker Johnathon of Huguenot High School.

Johnathon who did not provide his last name, shared a poem he wrote, asking how easily he could have been in Trayvon Martin’s situation because of his Hispanic heritage.

“It shocked me so much that something like that could happen,” he said. “I’m Hispanic, and we have struggles that we go through, too, and we have injustice served to us, and this is just a chance for me to see it happen to other people.”

VCU student organizer Jerry Solomon echoed Johnathon’s sentiments.

“A lot of people feel like it’s not their problem,” Solomon said. “We can say, ‘That could’ve been my brother, could’ve been my sister,’ but racial profiling (and) racial injustice happens to every culture.”

The “RVA Marches for Trayvon Martin” demonstration featured speakers present at last week’s vigil put together by the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality at the Richmond Burial Ground in Shockoe Bottom.

Paul Wilayto from the Defenders asked the crowd, “How much is a life worth?”

According to Wilayto, between the years 2001 and 2008, Richmond Police shot 28 people. Twenty-five of them were black.

Wilayto also told the crowd that 11 of the 28 died, and nine of the fatally wounded were black.

Despite this, Wilayto said the problem in the Trayvon Martin case is ultimately about legal issues.

“We need to hold the people in account (that are) in support of the “Stand-Your-Ground laws,” Wilayto said.

Florida law, along with 23 other states, states there is no duty to retreat so long as the person using deadly force “reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself.”

“What we would really like is for the laws in Florida to be reassessed,” Allums said. “It sets a precedent for other states to follow.”

In Virginia, a similar law, better known as the Castle Doctrine, was introduced in the General Assembly.

The bill never made it out of conference committee but has been a mainstay in proposed legislation in the state.

Ray Tademy, a social psychologist and director of evaluation at VCU’s Raise 5 project emceed Monday’s demonstration and said that the most pressing issue coming out of Martin’s case is the prevalence of stand-your-ground laws.

“I personally think, in trying to look at it from the perspective of race is a distraction, a red herring and taking the eye off the ball,” Tademy said. “The reason this is a case is because of a law that allowed an individual to literally kill someone else, not be prosecuted and go home.”

“If it wasn’t for that law, I doubt that this would be as much of a case,” he said.

Tademy said it would be inaccurate to say race wasn’t a factor in Martin’s case, but communities rallying around the cause should be careful identifying what the problem is.

“It is a legal issue more than anything else because it allowed race to be the big factor that it was,” he said. “The race issue was highlighted … because of the law. If the law had allowed for this person to be prosecuted … this raging fire would have been largely muted.”

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