{"id":7145,"date":"2013-07-15T07:43:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T07:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7145"},"modified":"2013-07-15T07:44:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T07:44:52","slug":"fbi-told-zimmerman-is-not-a-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7145","title":{"rendered":"FBI told Zimmerman is not a racist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"zimmermanwink\"<\/a>As the Department of Justice resumes its review of the Trayvon Martin killing to determine whether criminal civil rights charges should be filed against George Zimmerman, the federal probe could be hampered by the observations of the state\u2019s lead investigator that the fatal\u00a0shooting was not based on Martin\u2019s skin color, nor was Zimmerman considered to be a racist.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0an interview last year with two FBI agents, Chris Serino, the Sanford Police Department detective who headed the shooting probe, said that he believed that \u201cZimmerman\u2019s actions were not based on Martin\u2019s skin color.\u201d Rather, Serino told the agents, the deadly confrontation was triggered by the 17-year-old Martin\u2019s \u201cattire, the total circumstances of the encounter and the previous burglary suspects in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serino (seen above testifying at the Zimmerman trial) was interviewed at the outset of the federal review of the February 2012 shooting. That investigation was shelved to allow Florida state prosecutors to pursue a second-degree murder case against Zimmerman, who was acquitted Saturday evening by a Florida jury.<\/p>\n

In the wake of that \u201cnot guilty\u201d verdict, the Justice Department today announced that federal investigators were resuming their review, and that “experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation.”<\/p>\n

As detailed in an\u00a0FBI interview report, Serino described Zimmerman to agents as \u201coverzealous and as having a \u2018little hero complex,\u2019 but not as a racist.\u201d Serino noted that he had interviewed Zimmerman on numerous occasions and \u201cfeels like he knows him fairly well,\u201d reported FBI agents Elizabeth Alexander and Matthew Oliver.<\/p>\n

Referring to the \u201cfaulty conclusion\u201d Zimmerman drew about the unarmed Martin, Serino said that local street gang members–known in the community as \u201cGoons\u201d–\u201ctypically dressed in black and wore hoodies.\u201d Serino added that he believed \u201cwhen Zimmerman saw Martin in a hoody, Zimmerman took it upon himself to view Martin as acting suspicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serino also told the FBI that he did not think Zimmerman wanted to be a police officer \u201cbecause cops have a bad reputation and are bullies, but he wants to be a judge.\u201d He also described Zimmerman as a \u201csoft guy.\u201d – The Smoking Gun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Department of Justice resumes its review of the Trayvon Martin killing to determine whether criminal civil rights charges should be filed against George Zimmerman, the federal probe could be hampered by the observations of the state\u2019s lead investigator that the fatal\u00a0shooting was not based on Martin\u2019s skin color, nor was Zimmerman considered to … Continue reading “FBI told Zimmerman is not a racist”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[1039,157,3704],"class_list":["post-7145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-fbi","tag-racism","tag-zimmerman"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/zimmermanwink.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7150,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7145\/revisions\/7150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}