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The family of a teenager who was shot and killed by Neighbourhood Watch leader filed a public lawsuit on Thursday, and are suing police to get access to the 911, which they think could give clues to the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
They are outraged that the details of the 911 call made after George Zimmerman, 26, called police have not been made available to them. Police say the 911 recording is evidence in an on-going investigation.
Martin’s father, Tracy, said that family members were upset that no arrest had been made.
He described the nei

ghbourhood as mixed race but his attorneys said they believed Trayvon was being profiled at the time of the encounter because he was a young black man; Zimmerman is white.

The attorneys also questioned why a neighbourhood watch leader would carry a gun.
‘He was stereotyped for some reason,’ the Martins’ attorney Ben Crump said of the victim.
‘Why was Trayvon suspicious? There are hundreds of children in that community.’
Mr Crump also called Zimmerman a ‘loose cannon’ and pointed out that Zimmerman was arrested in Orange County in 2005 for resisting arrest and battery of a police officer.
‘He had a gun, and Trayvon had Skittles,’ Mr Krump said. ‘We want justice.’
Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, is angry no actions have yet been taken against the man who shot her son. ‘This guy was not arrested,’ she told wesh.com. ‘I do not understand. As a mother, my heart is broken.’
His father, Tracy Martin, also demanded justice. ‘My son left Sanford, Florida in a body bag,’ he told wesh.com. ‘While George Zimmerman went home to go to sleep in his own bed.
It’s senseless and the police in Sanford isn’t (sic) giving any answers and we actually feel that justice hasn’t been served and isn’t being served.’

The police report said Zimmerman initially called police to report a suspicious person in the neighbourhood and minutes later 911 dispatchers received several calls of shots being fired in the neighbourhood.

Zimmerman told police officers that he had shot Martin and officers found a semiautomatic handgun on him. The report said that Zimmerman’s back was wet and he was covered in grass as if he had been on the ground. He was bleeding from his nose and the back of the head, the report said.

A police officer said he overheard Zimmerman say, ‘I was yelling for someone to help me but no one would help me’ while he was being treated by paramedics.

Zimmerman has been interviewed three times and is cooperating. He is claiming self-defence, even though he was following Martin, police said.

Trayvon Martin was gunned down just yards from his father’s home as he made his way back from a shop in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, Florida.

Neighbourhood Watch captain George Zimmerman, 28, has admitted shooting the youngster, but claims it was in self-defence.

As yet, he has not been arrested or charged in connection with the killing.

Trayvon who lived in Miami with his mother, had been visiting his father and his partner in a gated community called The Retreat at Twin Lakes, 20 miles north of Orlando.

During halftime of an NBA All-Star Game, the high school junior had gone to a nearby shop to buy some Skittles for his younger brother.

Trayvon was returning home when he was spotted by Zimmerman, a college student and member of the local Neighbourhood Watch, who was armed with a 9mm handgun.

According to a police report released yesterday, Zimmerman, who was patrolling the neighbourhood in his car, had initially called police to report ‘suspicious person in the area’.

Zimmerman was told to keep his distance, however, before officers could reach the scene, there was some kind of confrontation between him and the teenager.

Minutes later, 911 dispatchers received several calls of shots being fired in the neighbourhood. By the time police arrived Trayvon lay face down on a patch of grass by the road, dead from a single gunshot wound to his chest.

Trayvon’s family have issued repeated calls for Zimmerman’s arrest and yesterday demanded that the 911 tapes relating to the case are released.

Tracy Martin, Trayvan’s father, told the Huffington post yesterday he wants to know what happened between his son and Zimmerman in the minutes between the call and the shooting.

‘I’m looking for justice for my family,’ he said. ‘I want answers but I don’t have any to give — not for his mother, his brothers or sisters.

‘We don’t have nothing, but we want answers.’

Source: Daily Mail