Trayvon Martin’s Parents Come to Capitol Hill
House Judiciary Committee Democrats held a special briefing Tuesday afternoon on the Trayvon Martin case, acknowledging that a thorough investigation still needs to be conducted but focusing on concerns stemming from the controversy ranging from racial profiling to whether neighborhood watchmen should register and train with police.
Camera crews were staked out in the hallway of the Rayburn House Office Building at the door of the hearing room, and a buzz of camera clicks arose when Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, parents of the slain 17-year-old, were escorted into the hearing and sat in the witness row.
Judiciary Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.) said that the parents “honored” the committee Democrats by joining the hearing, and asked for attendees to bow their heads in a moment of silence for Trayvon. The parents were to remain in Washington to meet personally with various lawmakers on Wednesday.
“I, on behalf of every member of this congressional forum here and many others in Congress want to give you our heartfelt condolences,” Conyers said, telling the room that the purpose of the briefing was to “prevent similar killings from happening again.”
“I’d like to say thank you for the support,” Fulton said in her short remarks. “Trayvon was our son, but Trayvon is your son. A lot of people can relate to our situation.”
Trayvon’s father thanked Congress members for ensuring that his son “did not indeed die in vain.”
“He is sadly missed and we will continue to fight for justice,” Tracy Martin said.
The family’s counsel, Benjamin Crump, also gave brief remarks that echoed the concerns of many of the lawmakers. “We honestly believe Trayvon Martin is dead today because he was racially profiled,” he said.
The hearing room was packed to standing-room-only capacity, with many squeezing into any spot they could find. Students from Florida and from Howard University mixed in with reporters, supporters, and the Capitol Hill crowd.
Also in attendance was 70-year-old Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine.
Two Democratic lawmakers not on the Judiciary panel joined the briefing: Florida Reps. Corrine Brown, whose district includes the city of Sanford, and Frederica Wilson, in whose district Trayvon’s mother lives.
“He was a sweet young man who loved to baby-sit,” Wilson said. “I know his family and I’m standing with them.”
The congresswoman vowed to make speeches on the House floor every day “until the perpetrator is arrested.”
Wilson said Trayvon is a victim of a “botched police investigation” laced with “lies and murder.”
“Mr. Zimmerman should be arrested immediately for his own safety,” she said, referring to the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who claims he shot Martin in self-defense.
Brown hailed the Department of Justice involvement in the case, saying she had just attended a community forum and met with the Sanford mayor.
“It is very important that we have independent eyes on the situation,” Brown said. “When you review the case, every aspect of it has been handled very poorly. And we need to make sure we have standards as we move forward.”
Members and witnesses throughout the briefing decried elements of the police department’s actions from not summoning a homicide investigator to the scene to not testing Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol.
Witnesses included the acting director of the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, representatives from the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence president Daniel Gross, the retired director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, and the chairman of 100 Black Men of America, Inc.
Maybe Hank Johnson would feel safer on Guam.
Well yes, if he now believes the blame thing isn’t going to capsize, . . . just to think, . . . the kind of simple-minded screw-balls get elected to the national forum, . . .
My brother was almost certainly more innocent than Trayvon Martin when he got shot at work by two morons. Do I get a hearing? Screw these hearings. At least there may be mitigating circumstances for Zimmerman both morally and legally.
There was none for the young black men who shot up my brother’s place of work in a robbery that yielded nothing. They shot a 14 year old autistic kid and two others. Guess what: wrong color, no hearing about armed gangs of black youth. To the politically correct Left, they’re too busy worrying about phantom groups of white folks hunting black folks. Hah, I still remember the worry of the dumbing down of America as a threat. Well, we’ve fallen to the level of listening to blame and excuse take the place of facts and common sense. There is not a single doubt in my mind Obama and the Dem Party in the last 4 years has set race relations in America back to 1980, at least.
Let’s see widespread media coverage, the President of the United States aligns himself against the possible accused, the Congress of the United States takes sides publicly, so let’s say there’s an indictment and trial, where might they find an impartial jury? In Floridia, In the United States, In the English Speaking world?
If this man lives to see a trial we will all be lucky.
I don’t understand the “racial” deal and his parents.. There is no proof..at all..that George was/is a racists and only after blacks.
Grief is tremendous in losing a child, being led around by race baiters is another..
Trayvon’s dad said justice would be..arresting, convicting and sentencing george..They have made up his mind for him.
How the heck did all this come up again? Trayvon was killed a month ago..AND there was also a white girl killed in Congressman Corrine Brown’s District..Brown of FL..She knew all about Trayvon..couldn’t recall the white girl’s name..there was no national exposure for it I suppose.
Muddled Elite Media Coverage of Key News Items: Zimmerman, Kobulnicky, El Cajon Muslim Woman: The elite media being shamed by items being uncovered and spread through the new media.
For any of you who still hold out the dream of a united America, when will it sink into you that it will never happen. The US is lost and will become, soon, a racial, ethnic and politically balkanized set of states. That or there will be a race/civil war.
Forget the debt, our biggest challenge going forward is what are Americans going to do:live under the racial and political tyranny of the left or exorcise the left from our nation.
Congress has no authority or jurisdiction here. This is pure politics.
If I were black I would be calling for this prick of a president to be impeached and thrown out of office, he is a disgrace to America and all Americans, black or white. He proves to me beyond a doubt the relationship between intelligence and stupidity and in his case I wonder about his supposed intelligence.
Obviously you’re not black and please stop calling the president of the united states a prick. He isn’t a prick. he isn’t a racist, he is not stupid by a long shot. He’s not the disgrace….you are.
WRONG!! All the statements you dispute are true. Obama is just the dog in a poorly produced “Dog and Pony Show.” He’s a rece hustler just like Sharpton and Jackson.
WRONG!!!…HE’S A RACIST
I FEEL HE IS OUT TO DESTROY OUT COUNTRY!!
…. and doing a really good job so far… another term and there will be only socialism then the march to communism..
You look good in a brown shirt…??? or starving??? if so ,then go for it Shelli…This has nothing to do with color of his skin…he is not a good president..many whites helped put him in office…and now white and a few smart blacks realize what a mistake it was to put an unknown person in such a position…if he was a good president..we wouldn’t care if he was green…
Step away from from the keyboard… Shelli is just trying to maintain some civility here. “Prick”, “socialist’, “race hustler”, “communist”, “brown shirt”, “stupid”? Good grief. Step away from the keyboard…
stop telling us to be politically correct and don’t try and intimidate us. i agree that the use of certain words on here shows no respect to the site. but beyond that i will say what is the truth. when it comes to calling racist obama and his wife need to look in the mirror. i base that on close observation of what they say and do. let me also state this obama has never done anything good for the black community. if someone wants to act stupid and foolish and follow his trail of bitterness, have had it but don’t throw stones at us for warning you.
Shelli obviously is A. a liberal B. Bleeding heart. C. A Hero worshiper. D. a blinded individual who can’t see any farther than the pretty face and facile verbal ability (with a teleprompter, I might add) who has had some of the most despicable image-makers in the political arena creating his persona. Since I have read his books and Mr. Desouza’s book, Plus having knowledge of his senatorial background and performance, I can say Shelli has little idea what she is talking about. Wake up and smell the coffee, Shelli, and can the hero worship. You have much to learn.
I find it amazing that I wax nostalgic for the days when Congress investigated such heady topics as steroid use in baseball.
These fools are the very people fomenting the racial discord that they portend to loathe; I’ll go further, it is the only subject that they are concerned with. All issues are viewed through the prism of their skin color.
And that before the facts are even on the table. Should it not concern any of these people what the NBPP has been free to say in calling for the death of Zimmerman? Did I miss the part where they were installed as judge, jury and executioner? And what of the vigilantism of people (idiot would be a better word) such as Spike Lee who tweeted what he thought was Zimmerman’s home address? It, of course, was the incorrect address. Do you suppose that Lee was tweeting that address so that supporters could send flowers to Zimmerman?
I hope that the family at the wrong address sues Lee’s pants off for what he did.
I hope that Florida law enforcement seeks criminal charges against the NBPP for their actions.
It seems to me that Zimmerman has been swept up in a racial maelstrom caused not by what did or did not happen in leading up to the shooting of Martin, those facts will come out soon enough, but rather of the media and progressive politicians seeking to score cheap points at the expense of justice and liberty.
A pox on both their houses.
The Racist Black Mob is being roused on this issue by the usual suspects Sharpton , Obama and Jesse Jackson. How they have the hypocrisy to jump on this one situation when over 50% of ALL murders in the USA are committed by Blacks and an under 25 y.o. Black has more chance of being killed by another Black than any other way to die. Blacks are only 13% of the population yet commit over 60% of the violent crimes and Black on Black, Black on White and Black on Hispanic violent crime far outweighs any White on Black crime. But to hear Obama and the rest of the RACE HUSTLERS speak you would think entirely the opposite was true.
The USA is heading for another Civil War with urban Blacks likely to take to the streets on real or rather on perceived injustice. Perhaps when the Black Messiah is found out and removed from office either by impeachment or by the population coming to their senses and seeing him for what he really is. Whipped up by the Black Race HUSTLERS Obama, Sharpton and Jackson. Perhaps the result this time will be to outlaw Blacks from the general US population and FREE the USA from the violent do nothing benefit scrounging criminal culture in their midst. This would at a stroke remove a huge burden from the Police the incarceration services and make the streets of the USA a much much safer place.
Get rid of all Blacks, really, your ignorant. Not all Blacks engage in criminal activity. Some actually work, attend school and do the right thing.
Thank you for having a brain. But I think that perhaps your words are falling on deaf ears. It is scary how similar some of the rhetoric spewed here resembles the stuff I have read on supremicist sites (be they Black sites or White sites). I do not deny that there are issues that need working out in the so called Black community, but the writer you send you commment to has an inability to judge individuals by their merit and that is very sad.
Many Blacks are prejudiced and openly admit they do not like nor trust White people, and judge the whole of the White population based on what they have heard from others or on their limited experiences with Whites in general. Obviously there are several White conservatives who operate in the same manner. I can only hope the most PJM readers are willing to judge individual Blacks on the content of their character and not what they see in the news, observe in passing, or read on this sight.
I also hope Blacks figure out that Not all Whites are out to get them as well. In the end, it would be nice if we could learn to see each other as people first, US American’s second, and see race as God’s way of adding some variety to human race. I challenge idiotic assumptions made by people of my race whenever I hear it. Several of my friends have done the same.
In closing, not all of us are criminals. Most of us are law abiding citizens trying to make it through lifeas best. Some of us have fallen into the vicious poverty cycle and are not able to see a way out. Some of us have fallen for the rhetoric and believe that there is no way to make it unless the man lets you. Some of us have managed to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make something of ourselves. Some of us were born in to money and have no clue what it is to be poor. Some of us are criminals. Some of us are lawyer, doctors, cops, CEO’s, military officers, most of us are liberals, and many of us are conservative. And despite what you think, simple kicking all of us out will not solve all of the ills of that plague this country.
Finally a voice of reason. This white vice believes that there is good and bad in every race. There should not be a thing called the race card. People who use this are fools (and our government is at the top of that list)and only out to get some for themselves (general comment not about this case). I don’t know the confirmed details and neither does any one else at this point. This is a tragic case as with any other no matter what the color.
I feel sorry for both families!! If Trayvon was innocent than Zimmerman should be brought to justice, however if Zimmerman is the one innocent his life has been destroyed and will have to live in fear for the rest of his days assuming someone does not shoot him which would really be a hate crime. We are a free country at this point. Our public figures should shut there mouths and let the police do their work instead working the public into a frenzy when they don’t even have the facts.
I don’t care what color either one of them are and it should not even be an issue. An American lost his life and when all the facts are in there will be people on one side or the other with egg on their face!!! Justice regardless of race!!!!!!!!
Thanks for trying to make us all look like racist, bigoted twits. I suspect you’re a liberal plant running a false flag operation.
God bless the small percentage of blacks who have had the intestinal fortitude to climb out from under the sickening tribal culture that attempts to drag them in; and resist the rhetoric of these disgusting harlot politicians to whom their lives mean nothing outside of a reliable voting bloc.
Damn straight. If these black thugs posturing as leaders weren’t vastly outnumbered and probably outgunned, the vicious and self-serving demagogues would be no different than the Klan. And anyone honest knows that – even some blacks I know have admitted as much.
And the greatest harm done by these race pimps is to their own. Look at the black family, the black community, the utter lawlessness and depravity that exists in all but a handful of black neighborhoods. Amoral and utterly unteachable and unreachable, indoctrinated with hate and distrust from the cradle. Truly the survival of the fittest.
I have refused to use the idiocy of hyphenated American. But maybe I should reconsider. Because the typical black neighborhood is far more of Africa than America.
No, I know people from Africa; they’re much more civilized than the self-proclaimed “n*&&@#” (and I’d like to point out that my children learned the n word from a black man’s car).
This isn’t about race. A young man spent quite a bit of time, money and effort to make himself look scary, and now professional blacks are up in arms that someone thought he looked scary. Why did he need to look scary? Because his dad was nowhere around, except for the last week or so of his life. Boys don’t need to look scary if their dads are around, because dads keep the bad guys away.
I live in an area where people from all over the world live; different cultures have different ways of looking scary. If the young man looked like a biker, or a skinhead, or an MS-13 gang member (got those around here too), the neighborhood watch would have been nervous and reacted the same way.
I lived in DC in the late 1990s. The taxi drivers did discriminate against young black men, by not picking them up. The thing is, the drivers were immigrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Nigeria. They weren’t picking up a certain demographic because they thought it was inferior, it had simply to do with safety.
When 5% of the population commits 50% of the violent crime in this country…how can anyone not be suspicious of young black males!
It’s about appearance, don’t you think? (but since my nephews are half African-American I’m rather biased) If the young man were in a college t-shirt and shorts with flip-flops, no tattoos and no grill, you wouldn’t be scared I bet. Or my (very large) nephew with shaved head and his shirt that says “Pain is weakness leaving the body: USMC”? Lance corporals are only scary if you’re a bad guy.
Actually, race hustling is a Democratic tradition. First, they supported the Klan, now they support the New Black Panthers.
A truly satisfying race hustlers’ circle jerk.
WHO CARES.
How many other killings were there on the same night? How many that week? And where were Sharpton et al?
Ashley Conaway, Abreeya Brown. Two young, dead, African-American women.
It’s gonna be a long, hot summer, a la Watts. On the positive side, due to the skyrocketing cost of gasoline, courtesy of the One Who We’ve Been Waiting For, there probably will be a bit less arson.
I can’t help but think of the words of Dr. King. “We’ll live together as brothers or die together as fools.” The ratcheting up of rhetoric from leftist politicians, media hype and the rabble rousing of the usual suspects, Jackson and Sharpton is a dangerous game.
In a down economy, a high tech world that leaves the unskilled behind, violence can easily be the currency of the underclass. These fools in Congress are playing a dangerous game where the truly innocent can get hurt.
I’m curious. Who paid the expenses of the parents to appear in Washington? Were any public funds used? Is wish Breitbart were around to investigate.
Many readers of PJ Media will undoubtedly remember the famous observation of Malcolm Muggeridege – “People don’t believe lies because they have to. They believe them because they WANT to.”
As sad as it is to say, this is becoming the defining dynamic of the Trayvon Martin case. The professional race-mongering class (with the help of a compliant media) has jumped on this event for no other purpose than to inflame black passions in an election year. Everyone and his barber knows that this is the case but the entrenched civil rights “community” has decided to demagogue this tragedy for the most base and selfish purposes. Did Mr. Zimmerman murder Trayvon Martin? I don’t know. That’s what we have Due Process for. But Due Process is no help to those fomenting this mob mentality. This group now includes Barack Obama (famed constitutional scholar.)
Remember the “Jena Six” from 2006?- Hard to remember isn’t it? The whole point of that exercise wasn’t to serve the grand purposes as “fairness” and “justice.” It was so that aging members of the civil rights establishment could show that they were still “relevant.” That’s essentially what is going on with the Trayvon martin case with the added factor that this will help Democrats mobilize a key constituency in a vital swing state.
I live in Ohio. The town of Chardon was recently the site of a horriffic school shooting where an unbalanced young man took the lives of three students and wounded several others. There was shock, a flurry of reportage, grieving,rememberance and then “moving on.” What makes this situation different than the Trayvon Martin death? Answer – It wasn’t useful to anyone. Those who are “supporting” Trayvon Martin are buying into a huge lie and doing so with their eyes open. this isn’t about one teenagers death. It’s about power and manipulation. There’s a lie at work here and they want to believe it.
Greetings:
Poor Saint Trayvon of Sanford. Martyred near the tree of racism just as his abilities in public art and jewelry acquisition were beginning to blossom. And, the tragic effects on his poor parents who were forced to seek solace by trademarking the blessed’s name via the US Patent Office, no doubt, to be shortly followed by a lawsuit against the callous manufacturers of Skittles and whatever ice tea it was that, no doubt, drove this obviously sugar-intolerant young boy of 17 years and over 6 feet in height into a condition easily misinterpreted as threatening by racist cretins wanting to establish their gun-fetish credentials by slaughtering someone whose fruitful future path was just beginning to become clear.
It’s a great tragedy when the good people of the USofA are reduced to hoping that at the very least, Saint Trayon gets to meet up with Tupac some place or other.
No racial motivation or racial profiling has been demonstrated in this case – other than the profiling done by race hustlers because Zimmerman isn’t black. This Democrat-sponsored event is premature at best and absolutely inappropriate at worst. If the Republicans had done something like this, the leftstream media would have (appropriately) labeled it political grandstanding.
Heard a rumor that someone in Washington spotted a gang-banger tat on Travon’s father’s neck during his “honored” visit to the special briefing on The Hill. It would be interesting to find out if it’s true.
The president stirs the pot and leaves town. Notice how he knows when to take the issues off of the front pages to change the subject! I am tired of his taking a position before the case has been investigated first too!You can say what you want about Obama, but he knows how to run a casmpaign and how to manipulate the media like a fine toothed comb!
Old racism: Hooded KKK
New racism: Hoodie PAYPAYPAY
Maybe I should get that trademarked.
Obama and the Democrats are worried about the re-election. How do they get all the blacks in the country to show the same enthusiasm for Obama this time around? Gin up a racial based controversy.
Just like Fluke was used to stir up women.
If Tracy Martin really wants justice, he’s one of the few blacks I’ve seen who want it. Most are like the New Black Panthers — calling for vengeance. Even blacks in Congress are in let’s-get-zimmerman mode and calling for “the arrest and conviction of Trayvon Martin’s murderer,” although they may not use those exact words. It’s clear that in their minds George Zimmerman is guilty of murder, evidence and due process be damned.
Co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther chapter, Representative Bobby Rush wore sunglasses and a hoodie in violation of House Rules on Wednesday. He said, “Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them [sic] a hoodlum.” Be that as it may, such attire is strictly prohibited in banks in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My guess is that there’s an excellent reason for the prohibition — namely, that hoodies and sunglasses are a frequent disguise worn by bank robbers.
That said, there’s no doubt at all for anyone lacking an agenda that SOMEONE on the February 26 police recording says “f u c king coons.” Anyone who argues otherwise or says it’s not a racist epithet is either a fool or a liar. What is said is too clear to make a mistake about it. It’s presumed to be Zimmerman speaking — and very probably is — unless the recording has been altered. I channel-surfed by the Nancy Grace show tonight and heard Zimmerman’s white neighbor (a man named Taffe?) insist that Zimmerman was saying something else. He wasn’t. What Zimmerman said very clearly was “f u c king coons.”
Then there’s what’s supposed to be a video of George Zimmerman in police custody after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. I saw no signs of the beating he was supposed to have been given at Trayvon Martin’s hands — no bloodied nose, no scratches on or bleeding from the back of his head, and no visible grass stains on his back. Maybe the signs were there, but I didn’t see them.
Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts. (Joe Friday never said that on Dragnet.) The likelihood of our ever knowing what really happened isn’t good. Too much hay to be made by people telling different stories.
The Whitewashing of Trayvon Martin
Aesop’s shepherd boy cried wolf so often that villagers didn’t believe him when a very hungry wolf was really stalking his flock and the wolf ate all the sheep. Morals: Don’t lie and, when you do, you shouldn’t expect anyone to believe you when you finally tell the truth.
(See “The Trayvon Martin Bonfire,” http://bit.ly/H28Eaf, and “America’s One-Sided Race Card,” http://bit.ly/HnQeQC.)
Those morals should be studied by blacks agitating for the condemnation and execution of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida on February 26th, 2012.
Since the case went national, we have witnessed an almost unprecedented upheaval attended by astounding lies and distortions from black leaders. Not since Rodney King was portrayed as an innocent and large areas of Los Angeles were burned to the ground in 1992 have we seen such an outpouring of organized venom and mischaracterizations designed to instigate public discord.
Any untimely death is a tragedy and the death of a young man is especially tragic. However, the circus atmosphere created by professional race-baiters, by the media, and by Martin’s parents in the wake of the shooting is a shameful disgrace which only serves to needlessly stir up racial animosity and demean Trayvon’s memory.
Contrary to initial knee-jerk media coverage but according to the Sanford Police Department’s “Incident Report,” Zimmerman, a part-hispanic, registered Democrat, shot and killed Martin after the muscular, six-foot two inch Martin ambushed the overweight neighborhood watchman and pummeled him while he was merely doing his job watching the gated neighborhood in Sanford.
There can be no reasonable doubt as to Zimmerman’s injuries. Police first attempted to resuscitate Martin and then administered first aid to Zimmerman who was bleeding from his nose and head, and a laceration is visible on the back of his head in a survellance video shot at the police station.
Statements were taken from six people who witnessed the attack in whole or part.
See the Sanford Police Department report here http://thedc.com/GUFFpi.
That neighborhood will never be the same, not because of Zimmerman’s self-defensive actions but because Trayvon Martin has become a cause célèbre for fomentors of black rage, a dead but potent tool to stir up racial strife, the bread and butter for such people as Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and the New Black Panther Party.
As they continue to arouse racial passions in black communities and as mostly-black high school and college students throughout the country stage misguided protests . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=19299.)
Well said Al. Thank you for bringing it back to the issue at hand. I hope that the police in this case trely gather evidence in this case. Was gun powder residue analyzed, was blood splatter examined, was the bullet trajectory determined, was Zimmerman taken to the hostpital, is there any evidence that would indicate this is truely a case of self defense. All of the whoopla being raised certainly will not make it easy for the truth to be heard. If the police failed to gather proper evidence…
In today’s upside-down world plain facts don’t count anymore. They have to be tainted with race and color. If the sad fact that prisons have an over-represented black majority sounds “racist” it must be hushed. If a crime is committed by a minority, the fact must be covered. This myopic politically-correct position has brought the US to where it stands now: Guided by a pompous incompetent whose sole attribute was being black, and who promptly leaves his more important chores to jump at any civil-related “cause-celebre” where a black is involved (“if I had a son….he would look like Trayvon”) and further increase the black-vs-white divide.
Poor country, where the needs of a few have overcome the wills of the majority, where being politically correct is more valued today than being right, where race plays such an important role in spite of everyone struggling so hard to become “color-blind”.
This sad episode just depicts what the state-of-the-union is now. The hollier-than-thou crowd of course screams and shouts, incurring in slander, denial of freedom-of-speech, inverse racism and most sadly, denial of facts and obstruction of truth.