>> and interested to see what new jobs we're building. job us can buy a hughes witouse? send a kid to college? they're not the kind with lost. ali, thank for joining us. see you sunday at 3:00, 1:00 p.m. on saturday. stay connected on twitter. the show is @cnnyourmoney and of course always @alivelshi. his name, trayvon martin and his death has come to symbolize the racial tensions and suspicions that still exist in america. i'm soledad o'brien. people from across this nation are here in our audience tonight to talk about this case and the questions that it raises. questions that cut to the heart of a country that promises liberty and justice for all. [ chanting ] >> reporter: the killing of an

unarmed teenager by a neighborhood watch volunte touca raw nerve across the nation. >> i know i can't bring my baby back, but i'm sure going to make changes so that this does not happen to another family. >> reporter: the absolute facts lie with two people, and one of them is dead. >> in the case of trayvon martin, it's not unique. a child incident killed by a ving launty. >> was it racially motivated? the answer is, absolutely not. >> what we worry about is seeking the truth. >> reporter: tonight we separate the facts from the emotion and have a candid conversation about race and justice. this salve more than trayvon martin. this is about itthe future of everyone child in america. >> if i had 0 son i think he'd look like trayvon. we have to do soul-searching to find out how does something like this happen.

>> i hope we're all ready for the kind of soul searching the president was talking ak. there's lots to discuss. many young, african-american men live with the knowledge that what happened to trayvon martin could possibly happen to them. that's true, no matter what investigators learn about that horrible night in sanford, florida. more than a month ago now. so tonight we want to take a hard look at all of the aspects of this case, and of our law enforcement system, from racial profiling to community watch programs. we're also going to talk about reaction to martin's killing. has there been a rush to judgment the outrage and all the media attention will it bring justice or prevent it? the shooting on february 26th continues to fuel so much reaction, but the fact remains, we still don't know all of the facts. here's cnn's david mattingly with what we do know so far. >> [ bleep ], always get away. >> reporter: that was george zimmerman's first impression of 17-year-old trayvon martin as the hispanic neighborhood watch

captain called 911 in sanford, florida, to report a young black man, he thought was acting strangely in his gated community. >> this guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. >> reporter: it's probably about right here where zimmerman made that call to police. you can see we're not very far from the entry gates into this neighborhood. at the time it was a little after dark, and it was raining. so trayvon likely had his hood up over his head. zimmerman leaves his vehicle and follows martin on foot. >> are you following him? >> yeah. >> okay. we don't need you to do that. >> okay. >> but zimmerman never makes it back to his car. minutes later, the sound of a confrontation. >> 911. do you need police or medical? >> um, maybe both. i'm not sure. there was just someone screaming outside. >> so you think -- >> yes. >> what is your -- >> there's gunshots.

>> you just heard gunshots? >> yes. >> how many? >> just one. >> reporter: police find trayvon martin shot dead on the ground. zimmerman has a bloody nose and a cut on the back of his head. he claims self-defense, police do not arrest him. >> you return force with force when somebody assaults you. >> reporter: but martin was unarmed carrying only a bag of skittles and a can of iced tea. >> all: what do we want? >> all: justice! >> reporter: martin's death sparks demands for justice. >> who's that crying? >> reporter: it sparks debate on everything from racial profileing to hoodies, from neighborhood watches to self-defense, and a controversial florida law. >> by statute, if someone alleges or make as statement of self-defense, flls we have probable cause to dispute that, we cannot make an arrest.

>> reporter: and while george zimmerman remain as free man, trayvon martin's parents wait for answers. >> all i know is that my son was carried away in a body bag and zimmerman was left to go and shower and sleep in his bed. >> reporter: the u.s. justice department launches its own investigation. florida governor rick scott names a special prosecutor. >> you can't imagine losing a 17-year-old son. >> reporter: after claims of racial bias rock the sanford p.d., angry bemands for zimmerman's arrest remain with fashs and calm as one tragic encounter stirs millions into action. >> joining me now, the lawyer for trayvon martin's parents, benjamin crump. nice to see you. thanks for talking with us. >> thank you, soledad. >> the latest, an eyewitness neighbor, we've modified the voice because this particular

person is worried about being identified, but they describe what was seen, starting with a scuffle. listen. >> -- then there was a boy, obviously now dead, on the ground, facing down. it was a hispanic man and he didn't appear hurt or anything else. he just appeared very worried. >> the scuffle took place on the grass. this witness seems to be saying, and also that george zimmerman did not look hurt after the scuffle. what do you make of this? >> it certainly is consistent with what we see in that videotape that was there for all america to see. >> you have talked to a young woman named dede. trayvon martin's girlfriend. has dede spoke ton police yet? >> not yet.

>> why not? >> they're setting this up now as we speak, as i understand it, but what is very telling about some of that is the wreckage. her story -- >> the phone records. >> the phone records, and at 7:12 was her last call to him. the phone call lasts for four minutes. at 7:17 according to police records, they got to the scene and trayvon was shot and killed on the ground. and that tells us a lot. it tells us that she heard some part of the conversation that happened, between george zimmerman and trayvon martin, and what she heard was not him coming to identify himself as any neighborhood association captain or anything like that. he said, what are you doing around here? actually to suggest that he didn't have a right to be here. you listen to the 911 tape what's he thought about trayvon. you can glean what his mentality

was when he got out of the car. >> does this compromise the case, this young woman, an ear witness and has phone records that could be so critical to the case, but hasn't talked to police but talked to you first. >> her parents don't want her involved in this. she has to by law talk. she's going to talk. it's hard, but she's going to go ahead and do it. >> let's talk a little more about trayvon. he lived in miami with his mother. he had a passion for dirt bikes. he wanted to be a pilot. he had some issues at school. disciplined for graffiti and truancy and found him carrying some jewelry and a screwdriver and also suspended. there was a baggy full of a residue's marijuana in his book bag. much of the conversation over the last week focused on some of these things. his behavior and his record. things that were leaked to the media. does it matter? >> absolutely not. it is completely irrelevant as to what happened on the night of february 26th. and i have to say this right

quick, because this is troubling. they ran a background check on trayvon dead on the ground. they don't run a background check on a guy who just kill add kid in cold blood? in essence what they did, they said that zimmerman, your word is more credible, and we're going to accept that, just like you profiled him in that 911 tape, this is a little thug on the ground, and he really doesn't deserve a fair and impartial investigation. >> well, those are all of the questions and many more that everyone is asking. was george zimmerman, was he this overly aggressive self-appointed neighborhood watchman or a concerned citizen, protecting his community after a rash of burglaries? >> he's got his hand in his waistband, and he's a black male. he's coming to check me out. in, what is? now, in every box of general mills big g cereal, there's more whole grain than any other ingredient.

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george zimmerman hasn't said anything publicly about the shooting of trayvon martin beyond what he told police. he's 28 years olds, married, hispanic and a registered democrat. zimmerman was and still is licensed to carry a concealed weapon. according to sanford police records, he called 911 pretty regulary. 46 times since 2004. he was arrested about six years ago for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest after an incident at a local bar. a plea agreement allowed limb to avoid a felony charge. zimmerman was enrolled at a local state college, but he was asked to withdraw after the martin shooting. in 2008, he attended a four-month long law enforcement program at the share eriff's of. zimmerman's father says there is more to his son than the public realizes. >> the majoritiy of the people who have seen the picture of a little boy on tv and a terrible

george zimmerman at some point, when all of this is settled, they will say you know, george zimmerman is actually a pretty nice guy. he's color blind when it comes to any race. >> i want to start way question to the audience and i want to see a show of hands, if you will. how many people in this room, you don't have to tell me how you decided, but how many people have already formed an opinion on george zimmerman's innocence or guilt? raise your hand. pretty much everybody. i see -- two people, three people without their hands up. maybe five total. joining me now, hln anchor jane velez-mitchell and defense lawyer joining us, one of the very first tones to try a stand your ground case in the state of florida and also dr. elash hsia sulzer, a trauma counselor. nice to you have with me. alecia, start with you. george zimmerman, if you can, paint a psychological profile of

him from what we know. >> the legal disclaimer i've never met george zimmerman and read the same reports everybody else has, those the things i'm going by. seems george was a guy who liked to see himself at the center of justice. he sought out opportunities to be the guy who defended right versus wrong. there's stories in his past that he chased a guy who had stolen a tv, or he tried to defend a friend being arrested, and it seemed that he really did enjoy his job on the neighborhood watch where he was the guy got to make the calls. these to me are not necessarily bait traits on a guy on the neighborhood watch, even making 46 calls over six years. my feeling, if something isn't going on in that neighborhood, maybe you continue to need a watch. what concerns me about george zimmerman, and this is the big moral flaw that i see that i find really concerning is that that man who had a license to carry a gun chose to bring that gun to a job where he was not permitted to have it. and that is no small thing.

that is not a soft line in the sand moral crevasse that he leaped over. >> jashy, i'll ask a question aa defense attorney. we have not heard from george zimmerman, but if you were representing him what would you tell him, advise him at this point xwla w point? >> get all the evidence i could from him. get the truth out as much as i can so i can resaerchd investigate it so i can help him understand the facts of the case. the bottom line here, and i've said this before, in this particular case, it's about justifiable use of deadly force. what force did george zimmerman have exerted against him by trayvon? and that's the key issue we have to look at, soledad. i think that's where you'll see other witnesses come out, this investigation will be ongoing and thorough, because i think seminole county in sanford, they want to get this right.

even trayvon's family wants the truth to come out. put all the chips on the table. maybe let a grand jury decide, but let's get it right. >> many of the conversations have moved from the facts of the case to race, and racial profiling, and conversations about george zimmerman's ethnicity and also trayvon martin's race. why is race such a big issue in this? >> well, it shouldn't be, in the sense we as culture need to start moving beyond describing people just in terms of their race, and so i think this is an opportunity for us to really look at what do police departments do? why do they always ask somebody reporting something suspicious, is the person black, white or hispanic? interesting, in the police report, the victim, trayvon martin, is described five times as a black male in one paragraph in the police report. now, why are they constantly focusing on the victim being a black male? is that sort of subliminal racism right there? >> friends of george zimmerman,

his father has come forward to say that she not a racist. i want to play a little of what they said. >> george is not a racist. >> george zimmerman is not a racist, and this particular case is not based on race. >> he's color blind when it comes to any race. >> the conversations become about race and racism. why is this so important to answer that question? or is it important to answer the question, is george zimmerman a racist? >> no. i observe as a psychiatri kiatr do something interesting in the absence of facts. reasons, why did my husband leave me? he found someone younger? i didn't make enough money? was it my thighs? we invent answers and because we don't know we choose the one we're most scared of. in this situation, we don't have answers and have chosen the one we're most scared of. what concerns me is that kids across america are sitting at the dinner table with the tv on, and they're hearing a national dialogue and seeing people get

fired up about something that could be wrong. and in doing so, they're making decisions about, did a guy shoot a kid who was black? or is there a whole race of people that hate us as blacks so much they can shoot us for no reason? that's what worries me. >> a close are look at neighborhood watches. everybody, of course, wants to keep their community safe, but are some neighborhood watch volunteers frustrated police officers? or worse. are they dangerous vigilantes? the benefits and risks, too, as we take you beyond the trayvon martin case. be back in a minute.

we have experienced eight burglaries, most of the majority of the perpetrators were young black males. >> this guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. >> oh, my god. he shot the person. he shot the person. >> for weeks, trayvon martin's family and its supporters have been demanding george zimmerman's arrest. zimmerman is a free man right now because of a controversial law in florida and 20 other states. it's called stand your ground. and it allows citizens to fight force with force when threatened. joining me now is curtis leewell, founder of the guardian angel, also robert parker, former director of the miami-dade police department, and also still with us is attorney jay baer, defended

several tas cases on the florida stand your ground law. nice to be with ale of you. you founded the guardian angels and your name is a none miss with civilian patrols. what did george zimmerman do wrong and was there anything he did right that night? >> he did nothing right except wake up early that day and begin to stalk. people that, through his paranoia, he thought, while looking to make crime on his compound. a self-appointing watchman. the other day i'm speaking at a high school in new jersey and the youngsters go, oh, you're just like zimmerman. i wanted to impale myself right there. wait a second. i buried six guardian angels shot and killed in the line of duty. i was stalked myself. a person go pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. god, save me. what do you think this is? this isn't zimmerman but he's become the face of crime watch,

black watch. >> the block watch, what was different than what you do? >> in the streets we call it mad dogging. he was on a mission. he all the furnitures upstairs arranged in the wrong rooms. everyone is fakesated on hoodie, but there had to be a bunch of young men of all colors passing by with hoodies. he fixed on trayvon. in his mind, trayvon was a hood, a hoodhoodlum. the guy had skittles and an iced tea. on the streets, you feel the instinct. somebody's stalking you, on your back, and trayvon probably at a certain point just decided to stand his ground. >> let me ask you, parker, a question about what it's like to have citizens involved in the patrol. is it of helpful for police officers or do you prefer to have them not involved in sort of how you're handling crime? >> good evening, soledad. it's very helpful for law enforcement and it is a thing that is really designed to be the extra set of eyes and ears

to law enforcement and it's termed "watch" for a specific reason. it's not engage. it's not apprehend. it's not attempt to be a police officer. it is designed to watch and ultimately report to law enforcement. occasionally you will have an individual who has described earlier through profile may not be appropriately assigned as a crime watch person or a crime watch captain. i encourage and ask all crime watches in america, if you have this type of a personality or individual in your watch group or organization, by all mean, get rid of him. >> would you of want a person who's on a crime watch to be armed? >> absolutely not. >> let me ask ayou a question, jay, about the crime profile in seminole county. sanford leads the county in

rape, burglaries, auto theft and larceny. that city. would that have any relevance to the case? i mean, is his paranoia, if there is some, does it make some sense? >> well, here's where that's really relevant. when we look at just use of deadly force, we have to look to the instruction that a jury's going to get, and the jury's instruction's going to say, in a reasonable person in a like or similar situation, were they justified in the force that they used? what force was being used against mr. zimmerman? and that's going to be the issue. my prediction is, i think he's going to say that trayvon reached for the gun and therefore, he was somehow justified. we have to wait and see what the evidence is in this case, but i don't think some cuts and bruises and a hit to the nose is of going to rise to the level of justifiable use of deadly force.

you have to meet deadly force with deadly force. a gun a knife, a car. those are instruments that can be used to apply deadly force. i don't think getting punched in the mouth, hit to the curb is going to rise to that level. that's going to be the critical issue. with regards to stand your ground, the only difference is it says you're immune from prosecution if based on the preponderance of the evidence you were entitled to use that deadly force. other factor is the duty to retreat. normally you would have to retreat, under the stand your ground law, you have no duty to retreat. you're able to stand firm and meet force with force. again, back to the fundamental issue, what was the deadly force being used? that's going to be the issue for this state attorneys' office, grand jury and eventually a jury to decide. >> going to jay o'connor in our audience with a question about stand your ground to our experts. >> in this particular case how do you prove stand your ground?

>> so, jay, if you're the attorney here, how would you go about proving that stand your ground does, in fact, apply, and protects george zimmerman? and that it doesn't protect trayvon martin, because it looks like he also could have been protected by stand your ground. correct? >> correct. and it's clear that both parties could have the right to stand their ground and defend themselves. the bottom line, this case is going to go one of two ways. either independent third-party witnesses, and in the police report released today, we have at least three witnesses listed, all two white females and a white male, in ranges from 20 to almost 55 years of age. there may about third party witness that will be a critical player in this case to determine whether or not either party had the right to stand your ground. if that's not here, then we're going to be left with what we call in the business, a he said/she said or a one-on-one. unfortunately, trayvon is not here to give his vegs rsion of

facts. >> thank you for that, gentlemen. a young black man wearing a hoodie. is that the picture of a threat? the picture of racial profiling and the angry backlash against it. does everybody make snap judgments based on race? that's still ahead. >> i can't believe somebody's killed. he was saying, help. why didn't someone come out to help him? [ male announcer ] if you believe the mayan calendar,

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immediately after this case became a national story, the charges of racial profiling started flying. why in 2012 are we still talking about racial profiling? shouldn't this about thing of the past? joining me, harvard law professor charles ogletree in boston, his book about the wrongful arrest of another professor. henry louis gates and the mother's amadou beal o diallo, about being shot 41 times by four new york police officers. and back with us again is aleash shoo sulzer. nice to you have all. i want to focus on the 911 calls. the call lasts a little over four minutes, but it's going to be something everybody is focusing on in this case.

let's play a little bit of the call between george zimmerman and the dispatcher. >> this guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. it's raining, and he's just walking around looking about. >> professor ogletree, i'll start with you. to me at the end of the day the most important question seems to be what was it that made trayvon martin suspicious to george zimmerman? correct? >> he was black, and he was a male, and zimmerman saw him. this is what the book was all about that you know, soledad. it's not about henry gates. it's about the presumption of guilt. you look at someone's skin. you look what they're wearing, and in the book i talked about the trayvons of the world, and he has now become a legend. every parent, relative of a sibling, every stranger, what do i do about my son, my daughter, what they wear, where they go? it will change america's

behavior. this was a presumption of guilt. he looked at his face, saw him dressed and said, that guy's up to no good. he did nothing wrong, but they said he was a man who did something wrong and now he's dead. >> do you have to be a racist? sometimes i feel we throw that word around a lot. do you have to be a racist to racially profile somebody? >> no. not at all. but the idea of profiling is one of these subjective senses about race, about gender, about age, about class, about dress, and when i talk about the presumption of guilt, people are presumed guilty by where they are drive, where they live, where they walk, where they jog, where they sleep, and this is 2012. every parent has to have that fear, and i'm not excusing black-on-black crime. it's a series of problems. killing people because of the way they look, the dress or colors they're wearing. all of this is wrong. >> mrs. diallo, your son was shot dead by police.

it was a case of mistaken identity. he was reaching for his wallet. he was just 22 years old. you have been working for the last 13 years, i know to try to bridge the gap and help people understand and work against racial profiling. do you feel hopeful or do you feel that this case just proves that maybe your work has been in vain? >> thank you, soledad, for having me tonight. let me tell you what struck me here. my daughter have triplet sons. i'm a grandmonth now. she said to me, mom, my sons, three boys, are 7 years old today. in ten years, they will be exactly trayvon martin's age. mom, i'm scared. what can we do? that night i did not sleep, because she's right. we should not deal with this kind of cases after 13 years of

struggle of talking of bringing the debate in churches and in mosques, in college campuses, even in high schools. let me say i don't know the technicality of the case. i don't want to comment on the case, but i am curious to know if anybody thought about the size of mr. zimmerman and also trayvon martin's size? this is a teen-aged son who went out, posed no threat to the him. if the police told him to stop, not to follow him, martin is going on his way. why did he think that he has to go and get him, and he looked suspicious? this was the reason my son was killed 13 years ago. to say that they looked suspicious. which is wrong. i do not believe that mothers

should -- every mom should teach their children how to go out there, not to raise your hands. not to put your clothes in certain way so you don't attract any kind of threat on you, whether you be perceived as a -- as a suspicious person. i believe this should be out of the question. >> i want to turn to the audience and introduce you to chrissersk erskin from birmingh alabama. what's your question? >> my question is with the tension around this situation, it reminds us of birmingham that my wife and i grew up in. we grew up hearing these stories. we weren't a part of jim crow, but we heard about it. we didn't know o'corner but we hea -- o'corner but we heard about it. what can we do now and what measures can be implemented so this is not a revolving crisis in all communities? >> put that to professor oe

ogletree. you explored answers in your book. 13 years later, we're not having the same conversation about what did we learn from trayvon martin's death? >> we can't let trayvon martin's death be in vain because it was a moment that got all of us to think your critically about it. we have to think about our role in law enforcement. we need a much more diverse law enforcement, talk about community policing, where people are on the ground, on the streets, talking to people so they know you're there to protect and to serve, not just to arrest and profile. number three, we freneed to mak sure we educate people. a person who wears a certain amount of clothing, a certain design of clothing, is not a thug, not a gang member. we have to understand that, and on the same token, make sure we talk to our children about it. >> we're going to talknet next about the hoodie.

i've been known to wear a hoodie. all colors, worn by all ages. how one piece of clothing is so controversial and whether young black men like trayvon martin should watch what they're wearing. e golden crown. come on frank how long have we known each other? go to e-trade. they got killer tools man. they'll help you nail a retirement plan that's fierce. two golden crowns. you realize the odds of winning are the same as being mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear in the same day? frank! oh wow, you didn't win? i wanna show you something... it's my shocked face. [ gasps ] ♪ [ male announcer ] get a retirement plan that works at e-trade.

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this guy looks like he's up to no good. it's raining. he's just hanging out walking about. >> and this guy, is he white, black or hispanic? >> he looks black. >> did you see what he was wearing? >> yeah. dark hoodie, jeans, sweat pants and light tennis shoes. >> who would have guessed that a sweatshirt way hood would become a talking point in the discussion of trayvon martin's death? the form of the hoodie first worn by monks back in the middle ages and this this. the famous sketch of unabomberi martin, seen wearing a hoodie. they make a fashion statement but can also make a negative statement. especially if you're a young man of color. roland is joining us, and a

trauma counselor and chris is back with us as well. roland, start with you. how did the hoodie go from being a popular fashion accessory to being something that someone could perceive you as a hoodlum or thug? >> interesting, because it used to be when the hoodies were not popular, so when we would see these images of folks robbing banks, liquor stores, whatever, that was sort of 9 image. before that, the stocking cap. you a black man, you couldn't wear a stocking cap. folks might say, that's a ho hoodlum look at well. the clothes are not the problem. it's the consciousness. when you put the clothes on a certain skin that changes it. >> it depends who wears it? >> geraldo rivera says this -- >> parents, don't let your kids go out wearing these damn hoodies because they could attract the attention not only of the cops but of nut jobs

apparently like this. >> since then he apologized but does he have a point there? >> you know, geraldo, time to drink the geritol. geraldo, why are we fakesated on the hoodie? >> why are we fixated on the hoodie? >> it's thug-like. you suck in your bottom lip, got your trousers down to your butt and all of a sudden you're acting big and bad. then you're acting like a thug. no one suggests trayvon martin was actsing that way. there was a sea of hoodies that day. no, zimmerman locked on trayvon because he was on a mission. trayvon didn't have to have a hoodie. he was going to take out trayvon. it had not al all to do with the hoodie. >> talk about photos. we have seen photos change over the last couple weeks. right? the first foet oaf george zimmerman was a mug shot from 20050. now a smiling picture. in a suit and tie. we have seen pictures of a very

young trayvon martin and now you have a picture of a slightly older young man still with kind of a baby face's why do pictures matter? >> because everybody's trying to visualize what happened that night. so the first photo showed a very young trayvon who looked really like a child, and the first photo shown of zimmerman in a mug shot wearing an orange outfit and then it kind of morphed. then we saw trayvon older and zimmerman, he morphed into some kind of businessman. again, we're judging based on impressions. and isn't the whole point of this that we shouldn't judge based on superficial impressions? >> clearly, people kept changing the photo because they thought there was value in the message they were giving to the jury of the peers. >> court of public opinion. it's not what we thought happened that night. so if you can create in the court of public opinion that this is a thug image here, all of a sudden you no longer feel

sorry for trayvon. it causes people on the fence sow say, hmm, i might not want to get involved in thus case. he might about thug. he might have sold drugs. that's why the marijuana residue, people said, what happened? he might have been a drug dealer. that's what that's all about. >> trayvon martin's name has become a national rallying cry in the fight guess racism. there's so much we don't know about what happened that day. we'll reflect on whether there's been a rush to judgment and too much hype about this case. this is $100,000. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? if your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense.

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trayvon martin's death wasn't noticed by the national media at first. then, of course, it exploded into a major story. well-known lawmakers and civil rights leaders added fuel by speaking out and demanding george zimmerman's arrest. how have they and we in the news media shaped public opinion about this case? we're bringing back cnn contributor roland martin and joined by michael schoolnik, globalgrind.com and the political director for russell simmons and with us, c.l. bryant a tea party member, former president of the garland texas chapter of the naacp. nice to have all of you. michael, start with you. it was you on social media that brought a lot of attention to this case early on. could you have done it without social media? >> that's very kind, i think a

lot of us, a lot of young people. amazing about this generation, this story was not in the national spotlight. we created a story early on called "he has a name: trayvon martin" to give him dignity when he passed. weeks after people paid attention. 100 people the first day. we have 185,000 people today. young people took this story, made it their own. brought it to the forefront and said we care about this young man. we want justice for this young man and see it almost as an international discussion. >> most folks don't realize, i first delved into this story on march 9th. i calling ee ee eed many of the rights leaders. if you want to frame this civil rights leaders leading this story. absolutely not. they had to come along because of the energy we were amassing on social media, black radio, black websites. >> that the hype was really working in a positive way? >> grass roots, bottom up.

>> yet lots of evidence the hype can also work against you, and spike lee had a retweet that i think he regrets tremendously now and has apologized to the couple. the original tweet. >> sure. >> and then after that, one of the, alain mclean a part of the elderly couple, who was really targeted. that was their home, she said this -- >> we got out of the house. it's just too scary. we've got to quick the hatred and the vengeance and start looking on the inside of people and quit looking on the outside of people. it's just sad, the reactions that have been going on. we're living in a hotel, having to eat our food out. we're just afraid to go home. >> caused this type of pain. here we are in 2012 america, and we're having conversations that we very easily could have had back in the '30s, the '40s. it's time for us to mature past this.

now, this guy zimmerman had better come up way broken nose or a bloody head or something or this is going to be a very bad mess. >> one aspect of the civil rights movement most ignore, master strategists. they also understood messaging, also understood timing. one of the problems when you have folks who are being mobilized without an infrastructure, they'll understand what the lawyers strategy is. they don't understand what timing is. and so when the special prosecutor says, all of these comments are not helpful right now, when you know you've achieved something in a movement, that's when you say, okay, it's time to back off. let's see what happens, and if need be, now let's move forward. so without that organization and infrastructure it's hard for people to understand those pieces. they always say, consult with the lawyers in the family to know what they're strategy is because their strategy driving the social media strategy. >> an amazing moment to create

an amazing discussion to solve issues in this country. this is a family who have lost their son. >> and they're looking to blame someone. they're looking for justice in that. and america is watching. it is true, the world is watching this particular case. and we're either going to be better or we're going to be worse, depending on the outcome. >> one reminder. families hear from day one, soledad, we simply want justice. we want him arrested. the point people bringing in assault weapons, change stand your ground, change this law, that law. that's when you have people on the left and right with political agendas seizing on a story. the basic thing that drove this while i was interested was a family saying, he wasn't arrested. >> give us your first and last name and your question. >> maurpy tagsal. i first read the name trayvon martin on facebook, signed the online petition, went to the million man hoodie march.

if it weren't for the ground swell movement that really started online, would the justice system have continued to ignore trayvon martin and never called for the grand jury and a federal investigation? >> absolutely. i mean, there is no doubt. the african-americans have always known, that we have typically had to force prosecutors, force the police 0, to do what was right. that's the only reason we know that this tape comes out. we only know the doj launching their investigation, all because of public pressure. no outcry, none of this happens. >> you cannot tell me the story of trayvon martin ends with trayvon martin? >> well, no. >> well, here's the conundrum. >> parents want arrests. conversations have been started about racial profiling and for the first time, conversations that cross a lot of racial categories. >> this is the conundrum. will trayvon martin's death be a moment, or will it lead to a movement? after jena 16, the start of something that leads to a

provement. you're hearing people and i'm talking with several people as well. how do we mobilize people to say it goes beyond trayvon to deal with the broader issue of justice in america? that's the question. >> also, roland, the type of movement. what type of movement will this lead to? a provement to either make us better as a people, or a movement that will take us years. >> the conversations we're having we'll make us better. >> final word, too, michael. >> the one white person on this stage i think it's important -- >> you guys have a problem? >> i think it's important to say this about the movement. and i wrote this on global grime. as white people, we have to say something. we have to be active. we can't let black and brown children be kill and be killed and be killed and just be quiet. >> that will be our final word. i thank you, gentlemen. we hope tonight's discussion has pep helped all of you better understand some of the facts of the case those that exist and the emotion surrounding the death of trayvon martin. new detaill