Ultimate Sacrifice-Trayvon Martin’s Last Hours

This article is strictly speculation even though it is taken from numerous news accounts, the 911 tapes and reported eyewitness testimony.  It is my account of the final hours in the life of Trayvon Martin. 

A young black male takes a few minutes away from watching television and decides to make a quick trip to the local convenience store to pick up his favorite candy and his favorite drink.  He leaves the store and as he made his way back home to his gated community, he makes a phone call to his girlfriend.  As he enters the community he slows his gait to give him more time to speak to the lady in his life.  While walking he looks up and notices an unknown vehicle parked on the street with a man sitting behind the wheel.  He then dons his hood which is attached to his shirt and continues his journey. 

As his vision of the driver becomes clearer, he does not recognize the person and decides to change his direction to avoid him.  He reports to his girlfriend that the driver is watching him and when the driver exits the vehicle he is advised by his girlfriend to run.  He took her advice and after finally losing his pursuer, he then began to realize that running only made him appear guilty and he had done nothing wrong to feel guilty about.  He then decided to stop running and as he rounded the corner, he comes face to face with the driver.  He asked him why he was following him and the driver did not answer but in turned asked him what he was doing there.  A few other words were exchanged and when ordered to freeze, he looked at this guy who he knew now was not a member of the law enforcement community.  At this stage, he knew the rules enough to know that this person had no authority over him and tried to continue home.  The driver attempted to restrain him and impeach his progress and at that time Trayvon felt he had no choice but to defend himself.  Fighting for his life gave Trayvon power that he didn’t know he had and before he knew it, the driver down.  He resisted any further actions and allowed driver to get to his feet.

Driver realized that he would not be able to control Trayvon physically and elected to pull his weapon.  Trayvon seeing the weapon began to scream for help but the neighbors who heard were too afraid to step out of their homes.  The driver began to realize that soon someone would finally come out to see what the commotion was all about and as Trayvon began to make another attempt to get away, he fired.  Police arrived and knew immediately that something was not right but instead of following rookie police procedures, they allowed personal feelings to override the need to serve and protect.  It is unclear if the driver was ever transported back to the police station or released right there on the scene but allowing him to leave without any processing at all was the beginning of the end to their little cliché.

As a former law enforcement official, I can tell you that responding officers who are not able to clearly see evidence that what they are being told at the scene is accurate, all parties are to be taken to the station to sort things out.  In case of a death, the least that should happen is the weapon confiscated, all clothing bagged and tagged, photographs of the victim and the perpetrator should be taken and every piece of the stories must be verified before anyone is let go.  A detailed and descriptive report written accompanied by a chain of custody for the evidence collected.

Failure to fix this situation will do more to damage the relationship between police and the community and no child will be same regardless of skin color.  Trayvon might have been singled out because of skin color but others will also be targeted for other reasons.  Hispanics also finds themselves on the second class citizen list so they will have to be careful.  Other races are also on this second class citizen list.  White teens will also have to be quite careful as well because they too wear sagging pants and shirts with hoods.

How can we better protect our kids?  You must educate them and you can help them look out for their friends by informing them that if they are on the phone with a friend who finds themselves in trouble or in a precarious situation, keep them on the phone while they call the local authorities in their friends area themselves.  Act as a go-between and report to the local authorities exactly what you are being told by your friend and keep your friend on the phone, if you can, until you know that police are on the scene.