The Vicious Cycle
1. In February 2012, armed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman follows and confronts unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. After a brief physical altercation between the two, Zimmerman shoots Martin dead. Successfully arguing to a jury that he was only acting in self-defense, Zimmerman is acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges.
2. In June 2015, South Carolina resident Dylann Roof enters a historic African American church in Charleston and murders nine members of the congregation. An avowed white supremacist, Roof had indicated in online postings that his views were shaped in large part by the Trayvon Martin shooting and his opinion that Zimmerman was justified in his actions in February 2012.
3. In August 2015, former WDBJ television employee Vester Flannagan shoots and kills two of his former colleagues during a live on-air shoot. Flannagan, who is black, had claimed he had been the subject of racial discrimination in the past. Flannagan eventually shoots and kills himself, but not before delivering a manifesto citing Dylann Roof's desire to start a race war as a motivating factor for his own actions and that Roof "sent him over the top".
4. In August 2015 in response to the WDBJ shootings, George Zimmerman in an apparent Twitter posting, states that the shooting was a "hate crime." Zimmerman makes multiple references to President Obama's statements that if he had a son, he could have looked like Zimmerman's victim Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman utilizes Flannagan's picture in referencing the President's quote and at one point calls Obama a "Ignorant Baboon" in quoting the President speaking on the subject of gun violence. Zimmerman's reported Twitter account contains a profile picture depicting a Confederate Battle Flag painting Zimmerman created after widespread use of the Confederate Battle Flag (later appropriated by the KKK and by states resisting integration) came into controversy following Roof's shooting and Roof's own admiration for the symbol.
I shudder to think what Chapter 5 will be, and what actions Zimmerman's own racist braggadocio might inspire.
I will say that of the three young men whose lives took deadly turns, Dylann Roof is in jail (and will likely remain there for the rest of his life) and Vester Flannagan is dead. George Zimmerman is neither.
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