CLEVELAND,Ohio-Community activist groups and area high school and college students will gather on Fri., March 23, at 4 pm at Tower City in downtown Cleveland to rally and then march to the Cuyahoga County Justice Center, 1200 Ontario St, to express outrage over the handling of the the shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old Black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin (pictured) by a White neighborhood watchmen in the gated community where his father lives.
Martin was fatally shot Feb. 26 while walking to the house of his father's fiancee in Sanford, Fl, after leaving a convenience store.
George Zimmerman, a White neighborhood watch leader whom police have not charged, said he shot the teen in self-defense.
But the nation's Black community is not buying it with some of Zimmerman's critics branding the child's murder a "high tech modern day lynching."
The Rev. Al Sharpton
National Action Network Leader the Rev Al Sharpton led a "Million Huddie March" in Florida yesterday with supporters, including family members of the dead youth. Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and was likely killed in a defenseless manner, his family and community activists say.
“We cannot allow a precedent when a man can just kill one of us and then walk out with the murder weapon," Sharpton said at the rally.
Sandford Police Chief Bill Lee has stepped down under fire including criticism from Sharpton and other Civil Rights leaders such as National NAACP President Ben Jealous that his failure to charge Zimmerman is motivated by possible racial animus since Zimmerman is White and then the murdered unarmed teen was Black.
Jealous said that the murdered of the unarmed Black teen is a reflection on the disdain against Blacks by the Sandford Police Department.
"[There] appears to be a pattern and practice of discrimination and bad treatment of people of color by this [police] department, said Jealous.
Nearly a million people have signed a petition line at change.org demanding that Zimmerman is charged and arrested.
Reach Kathy Wray Coleman by email at kathy@kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, and by telephone at 216-932-3114.
