What happened on the night of February 26th in Sanford, Florida ? According to George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, he was attacked that night and pulled his gun as his only method of defense.
A new video has been released showing Zimmerman at the scene of the crime a day after the shooting. Zimmerman claims that the teenager punched him to the ground then started slamming his head against the pavement. The volunteer neighborhood watchman said that he feared for his life and was forced to shoot the teenager.
“He took my head and slammed it against the concrete several times, and each time I thought my head was going to explode and I thought I was going to lose consciousness. I started screaming for help…he told me to shut the [expletive] up, and I was suffocating. I didn’t want him to keep slamming my head on the concrete so I kind of shifted. But when I shifted my jacket came up . . . and it exposed my firearm. That’s when he said you are going to die tonight. He took one hand off my mouth, and slid it down my chest. I took my gun aimed it at him and fired. I shot him, and I didn’t think I hit him because he sat up and said, ‘Oh you got me. You got me, you got it.’”
Zimmerman also explains how the altercation started. Zimmerman said that there had been a series of break-ins in the neighborhood so when he saw Travyon Martin near a neighbors house he got suspicious. Zimmerman said he called the police but before help arrived the teenager had attacked him.
“I just felt like something was off about him . . . and there’s been a history of break-ins . . . so I said you know just better to call. I kept driving and I passed him, and he kept staring at me and staring around. He said, ‘Yo, you got a problem?’ and I turned around and said no I don’t have a problem. I went to grab my cell phone, but I left it in a different pocket. I looked down at my pants pocket, he said, ‘You got a problem now’ and then he was here and he punched me in the face.”
Here’s the video from ABC News.