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George Zimmerman admits he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. But was it self defense? ABC7's Scott Thuman went inside the Sanford, Florida neighborhood where the shooting happened. He talks with Frank Taaffe, a friend of Zimmerman's, and a former neighborhood watch volunteer himself, who says it was self defense. Taafe shows us what he says eye witnesses told him happened that night in the Twin Lakes neighborhood. In this now infamous neighborhood, there's almost as much foot traffic as vehicle traffic. There's a cut-through frequented by kids, some following the very same footsteps as Trayvon Martin. But in an area...

When the Trayvon Martin case first started garnering national attention, there were many that thought they knew who George Zimmerman was: an overzealous racist with a vendetta against young black men who was on a mission to assert power with his gun. But then little details started emerging, such as pictures of Zimmerman’s bloody head that could bolster his self-defense claim; CNN even backtracked and said the tape it once suggested showed Zimmerman uttering a racist slur was actually him most likely saying it was “cold.” And now, Reuters has put together a detailed profile of Zimmerman that seems to...

A key moment in George Zimmerman's cellphone call to the Police Department in Sanford, Fla., on the fateful night of Feb. 26 occurs at 7:11:41 p.m., a little more than two minutes into a call that lasts about four minutes. "He's running," says Zimmerman, referring to the "real suspicious guy" he'd called in to report. Almost immediately you hear on the recording a car door opening and what sounds like a warning beep indicating the key is still in the ignition. Shortly thereafter comes the unmistakable sound of wind blowing into a phone mouthpiece. Zimmerman is in pursuit! And we...

At first glance, the death of Trayvon Martin seemed to be a straightforward example of ugly, racial conflict resulting in the killing of an innocent black teenager by a white man, George Zimmerman. But now, as evidence continues to come forward, the facts seem much more complicated and the "obvious truth" premature. ... To make matters more complex, we found out that in the past several months, Martin was suspended from school three times, once for the possession of drug paraphernalia. The Miami Herald reported that in the gated community in which Zimmerman patrolled, there were eight burglaries, nine thefts...

(This previously pulled thread re-posted with JimRob's permission.) I assembled this timeline and map of relevant locations based on publicly available information. My estimates of walking time are based on Google Maps measurements of the distance, and I tried to estimate on the long side. Please feel free to check all of my sources.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] I think my methodology should be pretty obvious, so I will not bore you with those details. I did not include my source for the house where he was staying, even though it is publicly available information. For events where there...