Two Florida men looking for a topical Halloween costume this year have sparked massive online criticism for deciding to dress as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman . The man who dressed as Trayvon even wore blackface and a bloodied hoodie.
The image of the two was uploaded to Facebook on Friday by Caitlin Cimeno, according to Mediaite . The photo was captioned “Happy Halloween from Zimmerman & trayvon.”
The “Zimmerman” character was portrayed by 22-year-old Greg Cimeno. He wore a “Neighborhood Watch” t-shirt for his costume.
The “Trayvon” character was portrayed by 25-year-old William Filene, who covered his face in black paint and wore a gray hoodie with fake blood surrounding a “bullet hole” in the chest of the garment.
Caitlin Cimeno has since removed the photo from her Facebook account, but it doesn’t appear that her followers were very pleased with the group’s Halloween costumes. One of her friends said that the costumes were “Not too funny,” to which Greg replied, “Not too funny. It’s f*cking hilarious!!!”
“Anything for the laugh,” he said.
Filene, who dressed as Trayvon, lives in Cape Coral and has several priors, according to The Smoking Gun . He was arrested in June for felony auto theft. He has also faced charged for loitering/prowling and failing to register an automobile. He made a plea deal in August for 18 months probation.
The Cimenos don’t seem to have a criminal record, but several Facebook posts going as far back as last year display quite a bit of racial insensitivity on Caitlin’s part.
In August, she posted a photo of an African American girl wearing a t-shirt reading “Black Girls Rock.” In her caption, she wrote: “First of all, sorry Hun but mommy lied to you & secondly if I was wearing a shirt that said something like the truth ‘white girls rock’ I would be stared at and called a racist cracker.”