George Zimmerman
George Michael Zimmerman (born October 5, 1983) is an American man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American, in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012.
[7] At age 14, Zimmerman joined an after-school Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program because he had wanted to become a Marine.
[10] After graduating from high school, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a suburb of Orlando, where he was employed by an insurance agency.
It was during this time when he became friends with Lee Ann Benjamin, a real estate agent, and her husband John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.
[11][12] According to Donnelly, in 2004 Zimmerman and an African-American friend opened a satellite office of Allstate Insurance, which failed a year later.
A month later in August, Zimmerman's former fiancée filed a restraining order against him, citing domestic violence as the cause.
[15][16] On February 26, 2012, Zimmerman fatally shot 17-year-old African-American high school student Trayvon Martin in The Retreat at Twin Lakes community in Sanford, Florida.
[22] As news of the case spread, thousands of protesters across the United States called for Zimmerman's arrest and a full investigation.
[23] Six weeks after the shooting, amid widespread, intense, and in some cases misleading media coverage,[24][25] Zimmerman was charged with murder by a special prosecutor appointed by Governor Rick Scott.
[28] After DOJ said it would not charge him with a hate crime, Zimmerman said he felt free to speak his opinion "without fear of retaliation".
"He by far overstretched, overreached, even broke the law in certain aspects to where you have an innocent American being prosecuted by the federal government," Zimmerman said.
[32][33][34][35][36] On July 17, 2013, four days after the trial verdict, Zimmerman and another man helped rescue a family of four from their vehicle after a single-car accident in Sanford.
[38] In November of that same year, Zimmerman was charged with felony aggravated assault after he allegedly pointed a shotgun at his girlfriend during a domestic violence incident.
[51] Lake Mary PD "learned that Apperson has exhibited unusual behaviors in which he had recently been admitted to a mental institution.
[58] In January 2014, the Associated Press and a Jacksonville, Florida photographer Rick Wilson demanded that Zimmerman halt the sale of one of his paintings because the news agency asserted it directly copied a photo owned by the AP.
The photo and painting identically show Jacksonville-based prosecutor Angela Corey (whose office prosecuted Zimmerman for the shooting death of Martin) holding her thumb and fingers together.
The controversy was similar to that arising from the use of an AP photo by Shepard Fairey in his composition of the Barack Obama "Hope" poster.
[59] Led by attorney John Michael Phillips, the cease and desist halted the sale of this and other paintings by Zimmerman.
News observed, "Zimmerman's latest painting brings together three highly controversial topics with which the nation is dealing: the deaths of young black men, the Confederate battle flag and discrimination against American Muslims.
[57] Jason Edward, a contributing editor at Art+Auction, referred to the paintings as "very primitive, the sort of thing an art critic wouldn't look at twice.
"[57] Christian Viveros-Fauné, an art critic for the Village Voice, has referred to Zimmerman's artistic endeavors as constituting "murderabilia".
Frequently criticized posts of his from August included one in which Zimmerman called Obama an "ignorant baboon";[61] one in which he posted an image of Vester Lee Flanagan, an African-American former news reporter who shot and killed two ex-coworkers during a live broadcast, and wrote, "If Obama had a son..."; and another in which Zimmerman typed, in response to people who wanted him killed, that the United States understands "how it ended for the last moron that hit me" (in reference to Trayvon Martin).
[62] In September 2015, Zimmerman retweeted a photo of Martin's slain body posted by another Twitter user, who had the caption: "Z-Man is a one man army".
[63][64] In December 2015, Zimmerman tweeted two photos of a topless woman he claimed was his ex-girlfriend, and accused her of cheating and of the theft of his firearm and money.
Less than two hours later, Zimmerman's Twitter account was suspended by its administration, according to their policy against posting another person's private and confidential information, including e-mail addresses, phone numbers and familiar photos.
[68] Zimmerman said the proceeds of the weapon would go to combating the violence against police officers by members of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as "ensure the demise of Angela Corey's persecution career and Hillary Clinton's anti-firearm rhetoric".
The female employee told the police that she had attempted to collect the group's bill, before Zimmerman snatched the credit card from her hand and began yelling at her.
On December 4, 2019, Zimmerman sued the Martin family and others involved in the trial for $100 million on grounds of false evidence and abuse of process.
Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, explained in an email that his firm had included Zimmerman because of his popularity among conservatives and curiosity as to "how he would do."
