About 50 people demonstrated in front of San Francisco's Hall of Justice today to mark the one-month anniversary of the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, African-American teen fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida.
Many of the demonstrators were dressed in "hoodies," the style of sweatshirt worn by Martin the evening he was killed, and one of the attributes Zimmerman says made the teen appear suspicious. San Francisco parent Terrilyn Woodfin was dressed in a red sweatshirt with a hood. Woodfin told KQED's Stephanie Martin she wants Zimmerman charged.
"I have a son, and my son wears hoodies. I have on a hoodie. I mean, everyone wears hoodies," Woodfin said. "Trayvon could be my son. Trayvon could be my nephew. You know, Trayvon is everybody."
Rallies were planned across the country in Florida, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Texas and Georgia.
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Zimmerman told police that Martin punched him in the nose and slammed his head into the sidewalk prior the shooting.
On this morning's Forum, Youth Radio's Jabari Gray and University of San Francisco associate professor James Taylor joined KQED's Michael Krasny. Taylor told Krasny:
“You can’t bring a gun to a fist fight, and Zimmerman brought a gun to a fistfight, no matter what the other circumstances are, that ends the conversation... At the end of the day, there is no proportionality in that kind of reaction, even if there was a mano y mano fisticuff fight, you don’t end up with someone being dead as a result of a bloody nose.”
Listen to the full hour of Forum here.