Nationwide rallies against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin drew small crowds, a sign that Americans had largely accepted the verdict and that race relations are not nearly as frayed as Al Sharpton’s National Action Network had sought to indicate. The flagship rally in New York only drew a crowd of “hundreds,” while a rally in Newport News, Virginia struggled to draw two dozen.
Demonstrators showed solidarity with Martin by wearing hooded sweatshirts (“hoodies”) despite generally hot temperatures, protesting what they–and President Barack Obama–suggested was Zimmerman’s profiling of Martin based on his race and dress. Young black men across the country, many said, face similar profiling by police and by private citizens every day, placing their liberty at risk and their lives in danger.
However, polls indicated that only 24% of Americans disagreed with the Zimmerman verdict, while several prominent figures–including retired basketball star Charles Barkley and former President Jimmy Carter–said that the verdict had been correct. President Obama had called upon Americans to respect the verdict, though in a statement Friday he also cast it in racial terms that had been rejected even by the prosecution.
The Department of Justice is expected to drop plans to prosecute Zimmerman for civil rights violations, in spite of calls from the NAACP and Martin’s supporters to charge him, though Attorney General Eric Holder described an ongoing investigation in remarks last week. The FBI had previously found no indication of any racial bias by Zimmerman, in the fight with Martin or in general, after interviewing dozens of witnesses.
Read more Breitbart
MataH.
Thanks for linking this.
I was using the UK’s Guardian for live updates because my old condo was two blocks from a threatened mob action in behalf of Trayvon.
At the lost of hundreds of thousands of dollars every business in the downtown and Pike are closed all that day.
The police went on alert.
The mob failed to appear.
My old neighbors were extremely grateful.
Here, in Utah capital, Salt Lake City the entire population of Utah was invited to come out for Trayvon.
Almost a dozen showed up.
They got terrific coverage by all the local channels.
Utah is another state with Stand Your Ground laws.
One in every five Utah adults has a concealed carry permit.
It is a very polite place to live.
Looks like it’s time to move on (as the Left likes to say when they lose).
I really hope Obama/Holder can bring themselves to do so.
MataHarley,
thank’s for the POST,
moving on after this is hard to do, [in what song did I pick that one]
is in it? we worked so hard to convince his innocence,
while other had him going in prison for 30 years,
yes it will take time to erase all the thinking process and efforts to come in and comment,
no matter the conflicting answer, we create,
but time is a healer, and other tragedy demand our attention, and we will again
meet the challenge head on,
best to you,