Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
20 March 2012 Last updated at 21:38 GMT Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the Martin family, has called for George Zimmerman's arrest.

The lawyer for the family of an unarmed US black teenager killed by a neighbourhood watch volunteer has called for the man's arrest.

Trayvon Martin, 17, was killed by George Zimmerman, 28, while walking through a gated community in a suburb of Orlando, Florida.

Mr Zimmerman says he was acting in self-defence.

The US Department of Justice has announced an investigation into the police handling of the case.

A Florida grand jury will also hear evidence in the case on 10 April, a state prosecutor has said.

A grand jury convenes to determine if there is enough evidence to bring a case to trial.

Florida Governor Rick Scott has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to assist in the investigation.

'Out of the water'

In an impassioned speech, Mr Crump said police had a clear duty: "Arrest George Zimmerman."

"He is allowed to come and go as he please, while Trayvon Martin is in a grave," Mr Crump said.

According to Mr Crump, Martin was on the phone with his 16-year-old girlfriend moments before he was shot. She said Martin was followed by Mr Zimmerman and she heard the beginning of the confrontation, Mr Crump said.

"She blows Zimmerman's absurd self-defence claim out of the water," Mr Crump said.

Mr Crump played a recorded affidavit from the young woman in which she describes Martin's last phone call. She spoke with him repeatedly while he visited Sanford, the Orlando suburb where he died.

According to the affidavit, Martin was walking back from a shop with his phone in his pocket connected to a headset earphone.

He ran to a nearby building to take shelter from the rain and then pulled up his hoodie before he walked the rest of the way back. He then realised that someone was following him.

"I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run, but he said he was not going to run," ABC News quoted the 16-year-old as saying.

He eventually ran, but Mr Zimmerman caught up with him.

The young woman heard Martin ask Mr Zimmerman repeatedly why he was following him and then heard his headset falling, losing contact with him.

Phone records show the last phone call with Martin started on 19:12 local time on 26 February. Sanford police were on the scene by 19:16, according to a police report on the incident.

"We have all the evidence now," Mr Crump said. He added that three witnesses had come forward to say Martin was the one screaming for help on an emergency call.

Mr Crump also questioned why the Sanford police had not tested Mr Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol or completed a background check on him during their investigation.

He said he planned to turn over all the information he has, including the taped affidavit and phone records, to federal investigators. The grand jury is likely to subpoena the information.

Outcry

Rallies were held on Monday to demand Mr Zimmerman's arrest and an online petition has more than 500,000 signatories.

Students protested in front of a court building in Sanford, the community where the shooting happened, and on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.

Continue reading the main story Daniel Nasaw BBC News, Washington

The incident sheds light on Florida's seven-year-old self-defence law, which critics say is too lenient.

The law, nicknamed a "stand your ground" or "shoot first" statute, gives protection from criminal prosecution or civil liability to people who claim self-defence after a shooting or violent incident.

One of the most expansive of such laws in the US, it states that people have no duty to retreat from a place they are legally allowed to be, and have the right to use deadly force if they believe they are threatened with death or serious harm.

On Tuesday evening the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will hold a meeting at a church in Sanford where the first rally for Trayvon Martin was held last week.

The justice department said in a statement that it would "conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence" before taking "appropriate action".

The FBI and a federal prosecutor in Florida will also assist in the investigation.

It has emerged that Mr Zimmerman, acting as a neighbourhood watch volunteer, had called police several times in the months before the shooting to report incidents.

Call logs and recordings show that Mr Zimmerman called police on 26 February, reporting there had been break-ins in the community.

He told police there was "a real suspicious guy" who "looks like he's up to no good".

When he said he was following the person he had identified as suspicious, the dispatcher said: "We don't need you to do that."

Using a expletive, Mr Zimmerman expressed his frustration, saying "these assholes always get away".

The release of emergency calls recordings, including two from neighbours during which screams and shots can be heard, had fuelled demands for a federal investigation.

The case has focused attention on a 2005 state law which allows deadly force if a person believes their life is in danger.


View the original article here

updated 10:00 p.m. ET Aug. 8, 2011 HAVANA - Marathon swimmer Diana Nyad was making good headway through the Florida Straits despite some physical complaints Monday, about one-third of the way into her attempt to log a record swim at the age of 61.

While Nyad was pausing only briefly for nourishment and is not allowed to touch the support boat, her team kept fans and well-wishers up to date through social media.

"Diana is swimming strongly. The swells have subsided," said someone posting on her Twitter account in the morning.

"We're very pleased with her progress," her Facebook page read.

Alexandra Crotin, a spokeswoman for the swim, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press Monday evening that "as of 3:15 PM EST ... Nyad was 35 miles from Havana, Cuba. ... She was 75 miles from Key West."

Crotin said Nyad hopes to end her swim at the Southernmost Point in Key West.

Both social media accounts said in the afternoon that she was experiencing some shoulder problems and asthma, but doing well.

Nyad is trying to accomplish at 61 years old what she failed to do at 28: swim an estimated 60 hours covering 103 miles (166 kilometers) from Havana to Key West. This time she's even attempting the swim without a shark cage, relying instead on an electrical field from equipment towed by kayakers to keep them at bay.

Nyad would break her own record of 102.5 miles (165 kilometers) for a cageless, open-sea swim, set in 1979 when she stroked from the Bahamas to Florida.

She'll have to overcome fatigue and potential debilitating problems like nausea and chafing from the salty water. She said she was bringing along 25 pairs of goggles — including light blue for nighttime vision and darker ones for daylight — and any suit changes will happen right there in the water.

At least the weather and water conditions, which thwarted her previous attempt at the Cuba-US swim in 1978, seem to be in her favor.

The sea was flat as a pancake around sunset Sunday when she began her journey.

"This is what I dreamed of: a silver platter," Nyad said before hopping into the water feet-first from a Havana jetty.

Monday dawned much the same in Havana — calm waters, muggy, with just a hint of a breeze. The favorable conditions are predicted to last until Thursday.

Nyad told journalists she hopes her swim will inspire others her age to live active lives. She also hopes it can help improve understanding between Cold War rivals Cuba and the United States, even if just symbolically.

She expressed love and admiration for the island nation and promised to come back soon for a post-swim party.

Whether that will be a victory bash remains to be seen, but a quote by Nyad posted to her Twitter account suggests she's determined to go all the way.

"If I go unconscious, that's one thing," it read. "But no one is going to make me get out of the water, that will never happen."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

View the original article here