George Zimmerman video shows morning-after re-enactment of killing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/21/george-zimmerman-video-confrontation

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A video recording of George Zimmerman's re-enactment of the incident in which he shot and killed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was released by his defence lawyers on Thursday, showing the accused murderer bloodied and battered.

The neighbourhood watch leader appears with two large plasters on the back of his head and with a black eye and cuts to his nose, injuries he said he received in the fatal confrontation with the unarmed 17-year-old on 26 February.

The footage shows Zimmerman returning to Sanford's Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community the morning after the shooting, accompanied by detectives who had hours earlier released him without charge.

Zimmerman, 28, who claims he killed the Miami teenager in self-defence, showed investigators Chris Serino and Randy Smith where he and Martin had fought moments before he fired a single shot into the boy's torso.

"My body was on the grass and my head was on the cement, he just kept slamming and slamming," Zimmerman told them.

"I kept yelling, 'Help, help'. He put his hand on my nose and the other hand on my mouth and said, 'Shut the fuck up.'"

"It felt like my head was going to explode and I was going to lose consciousness."

Then, Zimmerman said, his jacket rode up and Martin saw the gun and reached for it, saying: "You're going to die tonight motherfucker" as he did so.

Earlier in the video, released by his lawyer Mark O'Mara as part of a package of recorded interviews and written statements, Zimmerman described how Martin approached him as he was returning to his car.

"From behind me he said, 'Yo, you got a problem?' and I said, 'No, I don't have a problem, man'. He was walking towards me. I went to get out my cellphone and he said, 'You got a problem now' and he punched me in the face.

"I stumbled and I fell down and somehow he got on top of me. I was trying to push him away from me. That's when I started screaming for help."

The interviews and statements provide Zimmerman's first public account of the incident that sparked weeks of protests until he was finally arrested in April and charged with second-degree murder by special prosecutor Angela Corey.

In an interview at the Sanford police station within hours of the shooting, Zimmerman said he fired the single shot to protect himself as Martin reached for the gun, and gave a chilling description of the boy's final moments. As the 17-year-old lay dying on the ground, with his killer sitting beside him, his last words were: "You got me," he said.

"The suspect grabbed my head and slammed it into the concrete sidewalk several times," Zimmerman wrote in a statement.

"I unholstered my firearm in fear for my life as he had assured me he was going to kill me and fired one shot into his torso. The suspect sat back, allowing me to sit up, and said, 'You got me.' I slid out from underneath him and got on top of the suspect holding his hands away from his body."

At that point, Zimmerman said, a neighbour arrived to ask if everything was OK, followed soon after by a Sanford police officer who disarmed and handcuffed him.

Zimmerman's account would seem to back up earlier assertions from his supporters and O'Mara that he was complying with a police dispatcher's instruction not to follow Martin, whom he described as "suspicious" in his original call to police on a non-emergency line.

"I just felt something was off about him," Zimmerman told detectives in the morning-after video.

"I passed him and he kept staring at me and looking around. He stopped. It's raining, I didn't understand why somebody would be stopping in the rain," he said.

In another interview at the police station, Detective Serino does most of the talking, telling Zimmerman that he would have to explain why he considered Martin to be suspicious.

"This person was not doing anything bad. He was 17 years old. An athlete. A kid with a future," Serino said.

"You have any prior training in law enforcement at all? As far as identifying people, what to look for that makes them really suspicious? If you guys continue neighbourhood watch, typically the garb is black on black on black with a black hoodie. This guy had a grey hoodie. But his pants were beige. Not exactly your prime suspect type."

Zimmerman explained that there had been several unsolved burglaries in the neighbourhood and that weeks before he had seen a black man looking into a neighbour's window. Martin was black.

Serino then told Zimmerman: "You're gonna have anxiety over this and nightmares and everything else, so you're probably gonna have a hard time with this whole thing. I'm here for that."

Zimmerman will remain in the Seminole County jail at least until a bail hearing on 29 June. He could be jailed for life if convicted and no trial is expected before next year.

Sanford's city manager Norton Bonaparte fired the chief of the Sanford police department, Bill Lee, on Wednesday night. In February, Lee accepted Zimmerman's claim of self-defence and refused to file charges, a decision overturned by Corey in April.