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MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry said during an address at Cornell University this week that she hopes 17-year-old Trayvon Martin “whooped the s--t” out of gunman George Zimmerman during their fatal encounter in 2012. Harris-Perry’s speech, titled “We Can’t Breathe: The Continuing Consequences of Inequality,” was delivered during the university’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Lecture. She said the following of Martin’s death: “I hope [Martin] tried to stay alive. I hope he knew that he lived in a state with a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law.’ ” Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013 on murder charges. Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law was...

<p>The mother of Trayvon Martin says she's disappointed that federal prosecutors decided not to charge a neighborhood watch volunteer with a hate crime for killing her son three years ago.</p> <p>Speaking with The Associated Press on Wednesday before the third anniversary of her 17-year-old son's death, Sybrina Fulton says she still believes George Zimmerman got away with murder.</p>

<p>During a speech at Cornell University earlier this week, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry said she hopes Trayvon Martin “whooped the shit out of’ George Zimmerman during the fatal confrontation that led to Martin’s death in 2012.</p> <p>I hope [Martin] tried to stay alive. I hope he knew that he lived in a state with a “Stand Your Ground’ law. And I hope he whooped the shit out of George Zimmerman. And it’s not disreputable because he encountered a stranger who was prepared to kill him, and you know how I know? Because he killed him.</p>

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced it would not file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Martin’s family described the decision as a “disappointment.” The federal government will now close the investigation for good. According to USA Today, the federal investigation did not find sufficient evidence in the Trayvon Martin case to meet the high standards for a civil rights violation. The announcement will close the federal investigation, but Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement that it should not end the dialogue and scrutiny over race relations in America. “The...

The Department of Justice announced today that it will not pursue a federal civil rights charge against George Zimmerman, arising out of his fatal altercation with Trayvon Martin. That was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but the Associated Press took the opportunity to revisit the case: George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation with the teenager, will not face federal charges, the Justice Department said Tuesday. …Zimmerman has said he acted in self-defense when he shot the 17-year-old Martin during a confrontation inside a gated community in Sanford, Florida, just outside...

....ABC News has learned Martin’s family will soon be notified that the Justice Department will not be filing charges against George Zimmerman, who shot the 17-year-old after a confrontation in 2012. Thursday marks three years to the day since Martin was killed. Federal prosecutors concluded there is not sufficient evidence to prove Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla., intentionally violated Martin’s civil rights, sources told ABC News.

On Feb. 26, 2012, supposed "Neighborhood Watchman" George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man, as Martin walked home from visiting a convenience store in Sanford, Fla. The case ignited questions about racial profiling, vigilantism and Stand Your Ground Laws. On July 13, 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of both the second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. Despite national and even international attention to the case, one has to wonder what has really changed in the three years since the murder of Trayvon Martin. The murder of black men by police or their wannabes has not stopped. This is...

Can better urban planning help prevent terrorist attacks? The idea sounds fanciful, even disrespectful to victims of extremist violence. But officials in Paris, still reeling from last month’s deadly terrorist attacks on a satirical magazine and a kosher deli, are putting some hope in a plan to re-zone the city and annex the notorious inner suburbs, or banlieues, where the terror plot was born. In what would be perhaps the greatest redesign of Paris since Baron Haussmann laid out its famed boulevards in the mid-19th Century, the “Métropole du Grand Paris” would attempt to bring the poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods...

As Trayvon Martin is remembered almost three years after his death at the hands of George Zimmerman, some are using his name to describe how Muslim Americans might feel after the Chapel Hill shooting. But friends and family only want to focus on ending racism, and some believe the focus should be on unity and not what divides. In a related report by the Inquisitr, some people thought the St. Louis hoodie ban law was a Trayvon Martin backlash and claimed racial discrimination. Speaking on MSNBC, Chris Hayes gave this thoughts on the recent killing of three Muslim students in...

Gospel songs rang through the sanctuary of a Florida church Sunday afternoon just before Trayvon Martin’s father exhorted the congregation to combat gun violence in black communities or risk losing a generation of young adults. Tracy Martin told a “Black Lives Matter” ceremony at the Praise and Deliverance Church of God By Faith that while police shootings of young black men is a serious issue, it’s not the biggest one in black neighborhoods. A far larger problem, Martin said, is the current generation of African-American children growing up without adult guidance and parental love. While acknowledging America’s intransigent racial divide....

Last fall was yet another defining moment in America’s long history of contentious race relations. A movement that began in the small city of Ferguson quickly awakened nationwide protests from Oakland, Calif., to Staten Island, N.Y. News broadcasts’ lust for controversy was met as shocking images of protest flooded the media. In the span of six months, any shred of hope that we had finally reached a utopian “post-racial” America was tossed aside as visuals of Ferguson protests surfaced. As protesters expressed their outrage over the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, they were met with virulent backlash and suppression from...

An aggravated assault case against George Zimmerman that was opened when his ex-girlfriend said he threw a wine bottle at her has been dropped because she recanted her story and stopped cooperating with investigators, a prosecutor said Friday. State Attorney Phil Archer said he wouldn’t file a formal charge against Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch leader who was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin. The killing of the unarmed black teen touched off protests across the country.The ex-girlfriend had made it clear she didn’t want to cooperate with Lake Mary Police officers, and there were no other eyewitnesses to what happened...

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 30 (UPI) -- George Zimmerman, the Florida man acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin, won't be prosecuted in a domestic violence case, prosecutors said Friday. Zimmerman's former roommate, Brittany Brumelle, has recanted the story she gave police Jan. 5, the State Attorney's Office said. At the time, she told officers who responded that Zimmerman was a "psychopath" and had thrown a wine bottle at her and broken her phone. The officers came to their home after they heard breaking glass and saw a woman driving away without headlights on. Zimmerman was arrested four days later even though Brumelle...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sybrina Fulton is not a household name. But her son, Trayvon Martin, certainly is. Fulton, the mother of the teen who was fatally shot in 2012, took part in Penn's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Commemoration on Jan. 22 for an evening of awards, musical performances and a panel discussion. The crowd rose to their feet when Fulton was introduced at Irvine Auditorium. Many Penn community members and West Philadelphia residents were eager to hear from the woman whose son’s death has gained worldwide attention over the past several years. “It’s still very painful for me. But I know...

ALLENDALE, MI -- Trayvon Martin had an average American family upbringing in southern Florida. He had his faults, but was no criminal, his mother said. Still today, Sybrina Fulton tries to reconcile the memories she has of her son with his death by gunfire in a gated community, as he walked to his father's home from a nearby convenience store. Days before his 2012 death she had been horseback riding with him to celebrate both of their February birthdays. "What could have been to cause my son to lose his life," Fulton said to thousands gathered at Grand Valley State...

After a year of unrest over how the justice system responded to the deaths of several unarmed African-American men, many people marking Martin Luther King’s Birthday on Monday were more rueful than celebratory. Some marchers in a small city in northern Alabama wore black shirts with the names of three of the men in white print: Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin. Two died in confrontations with police officers, and one with a neighborhood watch coordinator. In an acknowledgment of the complexity of the issue, the shirts also bore the names of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, the two...

On Dec 4, 2014, the Black Student Union of UC Berkeley held the first of three protests. Students occupied The Golden Bear Cafe for 4.5 hours, the amount of time Michael Brown’s body lay in the street in Ferguson, Mo.Over the last month, the Black Student Union at UC Berkeley has organized three separate events to protest police killings of unarmed black men. Students have marched on the streets, through local businesses, and sat in at cafés. The demonstrations have allowed students to grieve, heal, and show solidarity with protesters in Ferguson and Staten Island. But they have also been...

The last several months have seen an outpouring of activism, with slogans coming in waves: “Justice for Mike Brown,” “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” and “I Can’t Breathe.” But the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has emerged to bind each flashpoint into one cause. The 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and acquittal of George Zimmerman served as the first of these flashpoints, snowballing in August with the murder of Michael Brown. “Ferguson is the birthplace of what’s happening right now. In many ways, Ferguson is like ground zero of these protests,” says DeRay McKesson, who has been protesting and organizing in Ferguson...

George Zimmerman was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in Lake Mary Friday night, a Seminole County Sheriff's spokeswoman said. Zimmerman, 31, was booked into the John E. Polk Correctional Facility about 9:45 p.m. Friday where he was being held without bond, sheriff's spokeswoman Kim Cannaday said in a statement. Zimmerman is scheduled for a first appearance in court at about 9 a.m. Saturday. More information about the arrest was not immediately available.

George Zimmerman -- the man acquitted by a Florida jury over the death of Trayvon Martin -- was arrested Friday in Florida