First images of the iconic hooded sweatshirt and other blood-soaked clothing worn by slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin were released Thursday as part of a mounting case against the neighborhood watch volunteer accused of fatally shooting him. Read more after the jump!!
The black-and-white photos were included as evidence from prosecutors part of 284 pages of documents compiled by the FBI and Florida law enforcement conducting a civil rights investigation.
One official suggested George Zimmerman who stands trial for second-degree murder profiled the unarmed 17-year-old because of what he was wearing, and not because he was black.
Christopher Serino, a police investigator in Sanford, Fla., “believes that when Zimmerman saw Martin in a hoody, Zimmerman took it upon himself to view Martin as acting suspicious,†according to one of the documents, ABC News reported.
Serino also told federal investigators that local gangs typically dressed in hoodies, and while Zimmerman, 28, may have had a “little hero complex,†there was no evidence to suggest he was a racist, according to CBS affiliate WTSP in St. Petersburg.
Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic.
On Feb. 26, Martin was walking through a gated condo complex in Sanford, where his father’s fiance lived, when he bumped into Zimmerman, who was a neighborhood watchman there.
Zimmerman claims he mistook Martin for a burglar, and while they scuffled, he shot the teen out of self-defense under the state’s “stand your ground†law.
