In the footage, Zimmerman presents himself as the victim of an overly aggressive Martin.
In the video Zimmerman, 28, gives a blow by blow description of how the fight began and depicts Martin as the aggressor, a key point as his legal team builds his defense on Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law. Zimmerman said he was driving to buy groceries when he spotted the unarmed teen walking near a house that he knew Martin did not live in and called police to report a suspicious person. "I just felt like something was off about him...and there's been a history of break-ins ... so I said you know just better to call. I kept driving and I passed him, and he kept staring at me and staring around," Zimmerman said. (ABC News)Audio from Zimmerman's February 26th police interview also emerged online this week.
The audio of the February 26 interview, made public late Wednesday, is part of discovery items released by Zimmerman's defense team. Zimmerman said Martin punched him repeatedly in the face. "I started screaming for help. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe," he said. "He grabbed my head and started hitting it into the sidewalk," he said. "When he started doing that, I slid into the grass to try to get out from under him. ... I'm still yelling for help." Martin, he said, put his hand over Zimmerman's mouth and nose and told him, "You're going to die tonight." "When I slid, my jacket and my shirt came up, and when he said, 'You're going to die tonight,' I felt his hand go down my side, and I thought he was going for my firearm, so I grabbed it immediately, and as he banged my head again, I just pulled out my firearm and shot him." When he did, he said Martin, who had been on top of him, fell away and said, "All right. You got it. You got it." (CNN)This all comes the same week Florida Police Chief Bill Lee, who oversaw the case, was removed from his position.
Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee, who drew criticism for his department's actions in the Trayvon Martin case, was fired Wednesday, his spokeswoman said. Spokeswoman Sara Brady said Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte made the decision. (Q13 Fox)Zimmerman's jail phone calls to his wife were recently released to the public.
In a half dozen phone calls between a locked-up George Zimmerman and his wife, the couple talk about their love for each other, buying bulletproof vests and how to move a flood of donations into their personal accounts, recordings released Monday reveal. Prosecutors allege the six phone calls prove that Shellie Zimmerman lied when she told a judge that the couple was broke before her husband was granted bail in April. (Orlando Sentinel)
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