And for the individual who stated earlier that Zimmerman should not have gotten out of his truck (or carried a gun) because he was neighborhood watch, he was not on his watch that night, just going to the grocery store. That would mean that he didn't have to abide by any of the neighborhood watch rules put in place. He didn't have to anyway, but it makes the entire premise a moot point.
Did MSNBC tell you about these facts?
-Residents in the said gated community said there had been dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes
-7 months before the incident a black teenager stole a bicycle off the Zimmermans' porch
-5 months before the Trayvon incident two young black men broke into the house of Olivia Bertalan, Zimmerman's neighbor, while she was in the house. She hid upstairs and called the police while the two men tried to steal her TV. When the police arrived, they fled. One of them ran through the Zimmermans' yard.
-The next month, because of all the burglaries, several residents of the neighborhood asked the neighborhood association to create a neighborhood watch and Zimmerman was asked to run it.
-The next month, two more houses in the neighborhood were robbed.
-3 weeks before the incident, Zimmerman spotted a young black man looking into the windows of a neighbor's house. He called the police and said "I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally." By the time the police finally arrived, the man was gone.
-4 days later another house was burglarized. Witnesses said two of the robbers were black teenagers. One of them was soon caught with a laptop stolen from the house. He turned out to be the same man Zimmerman had previously reported looking in windows.
-Zimmerman's black neighbor was quoted as saying "Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK? There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood. That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."
-Many of the perpetrators of the prior burglaries and thefts were apparently never caught.