How Trayvon became St. Martin
The answer transcends politics and challenges us to become more informed citizens.



FLORIDA, August 16, 2013 — At long last, the Trayvon Martin shooting’s aftermath is beginning to fade from public view. While serious questions still remain about the legality of Angela Corey’s prosecutorial tactics, George Zimmerman is no longer the featured act in a media circus bar none.

The sleepy Florida port city of Sanford can finally recover from the negative publicity which Martin’s death generated.

Yesterday, this column ran a story about how journalists, principally, played a role in demonizing Zimmerman to an almost unfathomable extent. This demonization is not only bad for Zimmerman, needless to say, but the country as a whole. If the public cannot trust reporters to report the news, then what positive end does the mass media serve?

A tough, but honest question if there ever was one.

Moving beyond Zimmerman, Martin himself had quite a checkered history which most people did not learn of until long after the shooting. Some probably wonder how such a thing could take place, especially in our age of information technology.

In order to learn the answer, one must go back to a time before Martin was killed. Documents from a Freedom Information Act request revealed that the teen was engaged in unfortunate activities at his suburban Miami high school.

Miami-Dade Schools Police Department Chief Charles Hurley, who has since stepped down from his post, spoke about Martin in a sworn affidavit last year. Martin was caught writing graffiti on school property, and his case was handled in an irregular manner.

“In this case, T.M., or any other youth in similar cases, and evaluate the totality of circumstance and issue either a warning and give it back to the administration to handle,” Hurley told.

“We can in fact, of course issue a civil citation which is an arrest diversion program which was actually created by this police department and authored under my time as a sergeant and a commander here at Miami-Dade Schools Police Department. Or we can in fact, make a full blown arrest because technically there was damage and defacing of school property.

“There was probable cause to make this arrest and we know who the person was that committed this damage. In this interest in taking that approach it does nothing to benefit the child and the officer in this case should be commended for exercising discretion and referring it back to the school administration for administrative purposes.”

The story does not end here.

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