Orlando Sentinel
Complainant: George Zimmerman threatened to shoot me
Rene Stutzman, Staff Writer
A driver called Lake Mary police earlier this week, accusing former Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman of threatening to shoot him during a road-rage incident.
Zimmerman, 30, was not arrested.
Lake Mary Police Chief Steve Bracknell said the man, 35-year-old Matthew Apperson of Winter Springs, did not want to press charges, so there would be no arrest.
Apperson told a 911 dispatcher Tuesday morning that he was driving his Honda Accord on Lake Mary Boulevard, made a U-turn and headed west-bound when a Honda Ridgeline truck pulled alongside and someone inside rolled down his window.
“George Zimmerman was the driver, and they were threatening to kick my ___ and to shoot me,” Apperson told the dispatcher.
Apperson said he pulled into a Circle K to find a phone so he could call for help when the Ridgeline made a maneuver to block him and “almost hit my car.”
Zimmerman “said he was going to shoot me dead,” Apperson told the dispatcher.
According to a police report, a store surveillance video showed that as Apperson was walking into the store, the Ridgeline left.
Apperson said he did not see any weapons in Zimmerman’s truck, but police discovered that Apperson was carrying a gun. He has a concealed weapons permit, according to the report.
Two days later, Apperson called Lake Mary police again to report that he believed Zimmerman had followed him and was watching his movements.
Police investigated, found Zimmerman in his Ridgeline nearby, pulled him over and questioned him. He told them he had a doctor’s appointment in a nearby building.
They took a handgun from him but returned it near the end of their eight-minute exchange, according to an officer’s body video camera and patrol car dash camera.
Zimmerman appeared relaxed and at ease, especially shortly before departing. He shook hands with the two officers before climbing back into his truck, the video shows.
Bracknell said Apperson did not want to press charges the second time either.
Zimmerman was acquitted last year of murdering Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, whom he fatally shot Feb. 26, 2012, in a Sanford neighborhood.
Since then, he’s had several run-ins with police. He spent two days in the Seminole County Jail in November after his then-girlfriend accused him of threatening her with a shotgun, pushing her out the door of their home and locking it.
She later recanted, and prosecutors dropped the case.
Two months earlier, his estranged wife, Shellie, and her father accused Zimmerman of threatening them with a gun as the couple tried to divide up their personal belongings. However, neither Shellie Zimmerman nor her father said they ever saw a gun - only that Zimmerman acted as if he had one and appeared to move his hand toward it.
He was handcuffed that day but released.
The entire thing sounds suspicious, I don’t believe it, furthermore many posters here have believed every single negative report about George since the trial as if they were true???