Teontae Ami, who also lives in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community, said very few black teenagers like himself live in the neighborhood. Teontae, 17, said he and a close friend who is black would sit at the end of a driveway in the evening and felt uncomfortable when Zimmerman would pass them on a neighborhood patrol. They used to greet him, but he never responded, Teontae said. "I think he took his job too seriously," Teontae said, referring to Zimmerman's watch patrols. A student, Teontae said his friend was once confronted by Zimmerman, who accused him of stealing a bike. "I don't want to call it a black thing, but it sure seemed like it," said Teontae, who said the bike was never stolen.
“He would circle the block and circle it; it was weird,” said Teontae Amie, 17. “If he had spotted me, he’d probably ask me if I lived here. He was known for being really strict.” Travis Williams, a black 16-year-old who wears dreadlocks, said last year a man came to his house and accused him of stealing a bicycle. The police even came and checked the serial numbers on the bike in his garage. Zimmerman told neighbors about stolen laptops and unsavory characters. They discussed the topic with Zimmerman when the watch captain knocked on their door late last year. Zimmerman seemed friendly, helpful, and a “pretty cool dude,” Ibrahim Rashada said. “He came by here and talked about carrying guns and getting my wife more involved with guns,” he said. “He said I should have a weapon and that his wife took classes to learn how to use one. “I do have a weapon, but I don’t walk around the neighborhood with mine!” Actually, he does not walk around the neighborhood at all. “I fit the stereotype he emailed around,” he said. “Listen, you even hear me say it: ‘A black guy did this. A black guy did that.’ So I thought, ‘Let me sit in the house. I don’t want anyone chasing me.’ Police volunteer program coordinator Wendy Dorival said she met Zimmerman in September at a community neighborhood watch presentation. “I said, ‘If it’s someone you don’t recognize, call us. We’ll figure it out,’ ” Dorival said. “‘Observe from a safe location.’ There’s even a slide about not being vigilante police. I don’t know how many more times I can repeat it.
Despite the frequency of his calls to the police, Zimmerman had only become a member of the neighborhood watch in September 2011. In fact, Twin Lakes’ neighborhood watch itself did not exist before then, according to Wendy Dorival, volunteer coordinator for the Sanford Police Department. Dorival first met with Twin Lakes residents to give a neighborhood-watch presentation on the evening of Sept. 22. The meeting was initiated by a call from Zimmerman, she said. “He was the one who contacted me at first to get it started there,” Dorival said. Over the years, his scores of calls to police showed he pursued shoplifters and errant drivers with zeal, reporting pit bulls, potholes, children playing in the street, open garage doors and "suspicious" youths - usually black males - loitering in the street. He peppered his calls with jargon familiar to police. In one case, he chased a reckless driver while calling 911 - the driver later told police he was terrified that Zimmerman was going to attack him. Dr. Laurence Miller, a Palm Beach County clinical psychologist who works with local police agencies, said he believes Zimmerman likely was acting out the "whole TV cop role in his head" when he confronted Trayvon. "A lot of people like the power and control that law enforcement officers have but with that comes a tremendous amount of responsibility," Miller said, pointing out that a police officer is the only profession that can use "coercive physical force" or lethal force to subdue a suspected criminal. Whether Zimmerman ever actually applied to a police agency is unclear. But according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, he never applied to take the Basic Abilities Test needed to enter recruit training. However, in December 2008, he applied for a citizens' police academy with the Seminole Sheriff's Office. In his application, Zimmerman stressed his background with the law: He wrote that his father is a retired Virginia Supreme Court magistrate judge and his mother worked as a deputy clerk of courts. He was accepted and completed the one-night-a-week, 14-hour program. Sheriff's spokeswoman Heather Smith stressed that the program is simply an educational tool designed to engage citizens and teach them about policing. "It's not a training academy. Participants are not issued any type of sheriff's equipment or deputization," Smith said. His prior contacts with the law would have given police agencies pause.
Zimmerman, according to neighbors, stepped up to organize the community watch, patrolling the neighborhood while walking his dog, toting his Kel Tek 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, for which he held a concealed weapons permit. Nevertheless, even supportive neighbors question the wisdom of taking a gun along on patrols. That's something that Miami Maj. Delrish Moss, who oversees the department's community outreach unit, cautions against when speaking to city-organized citizen's patrols. Last week, he brought up the Zimmerman case to his volunteers, stressing it's best to leave weapons at home. Leave the police aspirations and guns at home and focus on simply observing and reporting potential crime, Moss told them."In law enforcement, you always run into people who speak to you in cop jargon, in a way that you can tell they are some kind of frustrated cop," Moss said. "For the most part, they are harmless and just love police officers, but sometimes, these conversations can be alarming."
thank you :)
Busybody, eager beaver and a fool.
It is a minority neighborhood! It is a fact that there has been a lot of crime in the neighborhood and most of the perpetrators were Black. Probably most of the victims as well.