Did Zimmerman have any proof or suspicion that a crime had been committed? Also, the neighborhood is 50% minority, he didn’t see him walking through the Hamptons or Bel Air. I believe its in context. Again, reporting it to the police is well within the parameters of the Neighborhood Watch, exiting the vehicle and following, that is all Zimmerman.
Zimmerman reported to the police that Martin was behaving suspiciously. He appeared to be casing houses. He looked at Zimmerman, and ran. Read the transcript.
As stated before, Zimmerman exiting his vehicle to maintain visual contact is not illegal. He was perfectly within his rights.
I'd have a tough time finding it back, but I think I saw that there had been some breakins in that community. They had a neighborhood crime watch program for a reason. It isn't to investigate crimes after they've happened and then call for the police. The victims of the crimes can do that themselves. Zimmerman seems to have noticed a stranger in the neighborhood and felt it was worthwhile to have the police come to see if he belonged there. When Martin started running away after he was spotted, Zimmerman naturally thought his suspicions were on target that the stranger may have felt some good reason for running away, like maybe not wanting to hang around in case the police were on their way.
Also, the neighborhood is 50% minority, he didn’t see him walking through the Hamptons or Bel Air. I believe its in context.
Like I said before, as Zimmerman was volunteering in the neighborhood crimewatch program for years, it's likely that he kept his eyes out for who lived in that gated community, and would have a pretty good idea if he was seeing somebody that he had never seen before. It's not that big a community. How many people live there? A few hundred maybe?
Go to any small town that size, and you'd have a hard time finding somebody that WOULDN'T recognize that they were seeing a stranger walking the streets at night (regardless of the race of the stranger), let alone getting that response from somebody who was volunteering to watch out for and report suspicious activity. I don't know that Zimmerman's actions in calling the police would be any different if he saw a 17 year old WHITE stranger walking the streets at night.