Blacks SHOULD Be Outraged Over Trayvon Martin Killing

I have been writing this over and over for the last few days. It seems 24 hours cannot pass without another piece of new information emerging. Through it all, however, I cannot shake this creeping sense of dread.

I wanted to look at the facts in the case and comment and come to a conclusion about why no one has been charged in the shooting. But, the dread I felt creeping about had to do with that passage from the 5th Amendment:

• "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."

In a sense, the on-line petitions, websites, et al, calling for the shooters' arrest are depriving him of due process; something which the black community has been fighting for itself for hundreds of years. Yet, that was only half the dread; the other half was the continuing injustices perpetuated against the black community, which this case shines a blinding light upon. Because unlike so many other cases, this man has actually admitted to shooting another person dead and claimed it was in self-defense and is walking around a free man. He had deprived someone of their life without due process.

(photo: Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)

On February 26th, 2012, in the 50,000 or so population city of Sanford, Florida, a seventeen year old named Trayvon Martin met a completely unnecessary tragic end to his life from the 9mm bullet admittedly fired by George Zimmerman. These facts are not in dispute. As we know, the police department of Sanford believed Zimmerman's cry of self defense and did not arrest him.