Witness Heard Cries Before Trayvon Martin Was Shot
As the Sanford, Florida police continue to “investigate” the shooting of 17-year old Trayvon Martin, more witness are coming forward with their own testimonies.
Mary Cutcher, a resident of the Retreat at Twin Lakes community where the shooting happened tells the Miami Herald she heard crying before the shots rang out.
“I heard someone crying — not boo-hoo crying, but scared or terrified or hurt maybe,” she says. “To me, it was a child.”
So far the only official statement surrounding the incident is the one made by police, saying that they believe Neighborhood Watch member George Zimmerman’s self-defense story where he admits to trailing Martin when he spotted him in the neighborhood, approaching him, getting assaulted by him and then shooting him to protect his own life. Martin was unarmed.
“This was not self-defense,” Cutcher says. “We heard no fighting, no wrestling, no punching. We heard a boy crying. As soon as the shot went off, it stopped, which tells me it was the child crying. If it had been Zimmerman crying, it wouldn’t have stopped. If you’re hurting, you’re hurting.”
Cutcher was sitting beside an open window with her friend Selma Mora Lamilla, who says she also heard the cries, and ran outside to see Zimmerman standing over Martin’s body.
“I asked him, ‘What’s happening here? What’s going on?’ ” she tells the paper. “The third time, I was indignant, and he said, ‘just call the police.’ Then I saw him with his hands over his head in the universal sign of: ‘Oh man, I messed up.’ ”
She continues, “I know what I heard. I heard a cry and a shot. If there was a fight, it did not happen here where the boy was shot. I would have heard it, as this all happened right outside my open window.”
An eighth-grader who was walking his dog around the same time also says he heard crying.
“I saw someone lying on the ground, and I heard screaming,” says the 13-year old named “Austin” (his last name has not been published). “I don’t know that it was the person on the [ground] who was screaming, but to me it sounded like a kid who was crying. It was a yell for help, and I think it was Trayvon.”
In an interview with the Miami Herald, where Trayvon is from, his mother Sybrina Fulton says that it was not in his character to get into altercations with people, let alone adults.
“I think he felt like he was in a strange position,” she says. “He did not know who this guy was, this guy did not identify himself as a police officer or security guard. I feel like he wanted to get away from the situation and Zimmerman prevented him from doing that.”
