New Black Panther Party offers reward for 'capture' of Florida shooter

ANFORD, Fla. -- Members of the New Black Panther Party are offering a $10,000 reward for the "capture" of George Zimmerman, leader Mikhail Muhammad announced during a protest in Sanford on Saturday.
When asked whether he was inciting violence, Muhammad replied: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
The bounty announcement came moments after members of the group called for the mobilization of 5,000 black men to capture George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who shot Trayvon Martin last month.
Muhammad said members of his group would search for Zimmerman themselves in Maitland and Jacksonville -- where the 28-year-old worked before the shooting. But he declined to say when they will begin their hunt.
Muhammad said the group's national chairman, Dr. Malik Zulu Shabazz of Washington, D.C., is receiving donations from black entertainers and athletes. The group hopes to collect $1 million by next week, Muhammad said.
The party said it would not release the names of donors nor would it provide documentation to support the existence of donations.
The New Black Panthers announced the reward at a protest in Sanford on Saturday, the activist group's third protest in the past two weeks over the fatal shooting of the Miami Gardens teen.
The group called for Zimmerman's arrest and threatened to find and detain him if police were not willing to do so. But group members didn't call for the mobilization of thousands until Saturday.
Muhammad led the group in chanting "Justice for Trayvon!" and "Black Power!"
"If the government won't do the job, we'll do it," Muhammad said, leading his group of eight party members in chants like "Freedom or death" and "Justice for Trayvon" while making the iconic gesture of raising their fists.
The party members said they are tired of the inaction of government officials -- from Sanford city officials up to the governor, accusing them of lying and delaying justice.
They accused newly appointed special prosecutor Angela Corley of being an enemy of the black community.
"She has a track record of sending innocent young black men and women to prison," he said.
Sanford police arrived toward the end of the demonstration Saturday asking onlookers and media to avoid walking into the street in front of the Retreat at Twin Lakes, where Trayvon was killed.
As the officer walked back to his cruiser, Muhammad berated and pointed angrily at him, saying, "If you'd had shown this much concern, Trayvon may still be alive today."
The fiery rhetoric and often profanity-laden diatribes made some visitors to the impromptu memorial uncomfortable.
The Rev. Moses Brown of Tampa said he was disappointed with the Panthers' approach.
"We believe in a message of justice, not hate," said Brown, who was in town to pray at the memorial and attend the Monday event at Sanford's Civic Center. "We believe justice will come through the court system."
Brown, who is also the Chief executive officer of Feed Our Children, said he has been meeting with other Christian ministers to discuss the case.
While the Panthers chanted behind him, Brown said: "I see parallel versions of how we are coping with this as a community. Some in anger and us, in prayer. But we are in America, where we have our rights to expression."
The Southern Poverty Law Center says the New Black Panther Party, a black-separatist group founded in 1989, is "virulently racist and anti-Semitic," and its leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law officers.
Trayvon was killed Feb. 26 in the gated Retreat at Twin Lakes community while walking back to his father's fiancee's town house. Zimmerman spotted the unarmed teen and called the Sanford Police Department's nonemergency line to report a suspicious person.
Zimmerman shot Travon before officers could respond. Zimmerman told police he acted in self-defense. He has not been arrested and is not charged with a crime.

The Sham Investigation Into Trayvon Martin's Killing

"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," Martin's friend said. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run." 

Eventually he would run, said the girl, thinking that he'd managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin. "Trayvon said, 'What, are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again and he didn't answer the phone." 

The line went dead. Besides screams heard on 911 calls that night as Martin and Zimmerman scuffled, those were the last words he said.

ABC News verified that Martin did talk to the young lady by looking at his phone records. I don't know that they can corroborate the exact contents of the conversation.

Nevertheless, when you read this, it's worth remembering the tale Zimmerman told the cops:

Zimmerman said he had stepped out of his truck to check the name of the street he was on when Trayvon attacked him from behind as he walked back to his truck, police said. He said he feared for his life and fired the semiautomatic handgun he was licensed to carry because he feared for his life.  

This tale was broadly repeated by Zimmerman's father who claimed that his son had neither pursued nor confronted Martin.

We know that this is almost certainly fiction. We have Zimmerman's on the 911 call explicitly stating that he was pursuing Martin because, "These assholes. They always get away."And we now have someone on the phone claiming a "strange man" was following Martin. 

Again, I don't know that Zimmerman will ever do a lick of jail time, or even see a court room. But what angers people is not simply that Zimmerman might get off, but that the Sanford police would conduct a shoddy investigation, claim it was thorough, and then claim that all who objected were compromised by prejudice:

Our investigation is color blind and based on the facts and circumstances, not color. I know I can say that until I am blue in the face, but, as a white man in a uniform, I know it doesn't mean anything to anybody.

This investigation wasn't one. It was a sham, an homage to the bad old days of Southern justice. Lee should resign. 

Emily Bazelon has more on the actual laws in Florida, though the more I see of this, the less I think "Stand Your Ground" will save Zimmerman.