The mother of Trayvon Martin ‘stunned’ by verdict

Sybrina Fulton takes the stand during George Zimmerman’s trial in Sanford, Florida (Reuters)

The mother of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager who was shot dead in Florida last year by volunteer neighbourhood-watch member George Zimmerman, has said she was “stunned” and felt “disgust” when a jury found her son’s killer not guilty.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Sybrina Fulton told CBS This Morning yesterday. “I just knew that they would see that this was a teenager just trying to get home. This was no burglar.”

On Saturday, a six-woman jury acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the 26 February 2012 killing inside a gated community in Sanford, Florida.

“My first thought was shock, disgust,” Fulton said on another show, ABC’s Good Morning America. “I was stunned, absolutely.”

Fulton, and Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, were giving their first interviews on the verdict that has renewed race relations debate in the US and cast scrutiny on gun and self-defence laws. Neither was in the Seminole County courtroom for the verdict, although Martin at the time tweeted, describing himself as “broken hearted”.

A member of the jury that found Zimmerman not guilty has called for changes to Florida’s self-defence law, which she said gave jurors no option but to acquit him.

Reuters