by Patrick H. Moore
In our legal system, we ask a lot of the participants when death by shooting occurs. We asked a lot of police officer Sgt. Anthony Raimondo, the first official to arrive on the scene after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by Neighborhood Watch commander George Zimmerman. Sgt. Raimondo found Trayvon face down in the grass, a bullet in his chest, his hands beneath him.
We asked a lot of the six female jurors in the George Zimmerman second-degree-murder trial. We showed the jurors a life-sized projection of Trayvon in that prone position on Tuesday in the Seminole County Courthouse. Then we showed the jurors and the assembled crowd 11 more photos of Trayvon Martin’s body.
In one of the photos, Trayvon’s eyes are open. It is a close-up and his young face wears the slackness of death before the rigor mortis has set in.
We asked too much of Trayvon’s father Tracy Martin, who rushed from the courtroom in anguish after the first photo was projected, life-sized, on the wall. Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, stayed in her seat, her eyes downcast. Then she lifted them carefully and stared straight ahead. We did not ask her to look at the projection of her dead son on the wall.
The prosecutors asked a lot of everyone, particularly the jurors, by displaying a dozen photos of Trayvon’s body in the course of the day. One was a bare-chested close-up of the bullet hole in his chest. The bullet hole was small and a thin trail of blood trickled from it.
This was the first time the public has gotten a look at Trayvon’s body. We did not ask too much of the public because they are following this case by choice.
Rene Stutzman and Jeff Weiner of the Orlando Sentinel wrote on June 25th:
For the most part they were clinical crime-scene photos, but they also revealed something of child in Trayvon. Here was a gangly teenage boy with a whisper of a beard beneath his jaw and a frame so long his leg extended beyond the yellow blanket that Raimondo had spread over him, trying to give him some privacy.
We asked a lot of Sgt. Raimondo who arrived at the crime scene just moments after the shooting and found Trayvon motionless and pulseless lying face down on the grass.
It was a lot to ask of Sgt. Raimondo to turn Trayvon over on his back and begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a futile attempt to revive him, but he did it anyway even though it did no good.
Click here to read earlier Zimmerman Trial posts:
George Zimmerman Unlikely to Be Convicted of 2nd-Degree Murder
George Zimmerman Trial: Opening Statements Rivet the Nation
Huge Victory For Zimmerman Camp: No Expert Witness Testimony on Audio Tapes
George Zimmerman’s Application to Join His Hometown Police Force Was Rejected
Sanford, FL Has a History of Brutal Racial Oppression
Race Issue Front and Center on Day Three of George Zimmerman Jury Selection