Trayvon Martin's tragic death has caused and will continue to cause outrage and controversy all over the country. The Florida teenager was gunned down by an obviously stupid and disturbed individual named George Zimmerman in his Lee County, Florida neighborhood. The case has attracted intense media scrutiny because Martin was African-American. Zimmerman who is white was not a police officer nor was he connected to law enforcement in any way--except for his community's neighborhood watch which of course doesn't count. The inevitable question is: Is Zimmerman just a lunatic with a superhero complex bordering on the delusional? Or is he a virulent racist who committed a hate crime? A shocking new detail has just emerged that may prove the latter. A careful examination of the 911 call made to the police reveals that Zimmerman used a racist slur to describe Trayvon before killing him.
As you can hear on the audio tape below, George Zimmerman mutters a shocking racist slur during his 911 call to the police. At approximately the 2:20 to 2:23 mark, Zimmerman mutters the words: "F***** coon!" or possibly "F***** coons!" The slur comes right after Zimmerman tells the 911 operator that the "suspicious looking" Trayvon Martin is heading towards the back entrance. Immediately after Zimmerman mutters the racial slur, the cop clearly tells him not to follow Trayvon. Sadly, he ignored the cop's instructions.
If this part of the 911 tape has not been "doctored" and if voice analysis can prove that Zimmerman did indeed use the racial slur, then George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin only because of the color of his skin, not because he believed him to be a threat of any kind. He should therefore be prosecuted for a hate crime.
Stay tuned.
© Hope Carson 2012
Hope Carson is the author of 2 books: A Roaring Girl: An Interview with the Thinking Man's Hooker and A Thousand and One Night Stands: The Life of Jon Vincent. You can follow her on Twitter.



