until then, this posttraumatic stress syndrome is going to continue. kids that don't feel numb to violence or death, they are more suspect because the crime or be a murderer worthy data. we have to take a look good is because the young guy was murdered in the western addition a couple weeks ago, the last friday, we had another homicide that really affect the western addition. this kid lives in the western addition and murdered in hunters point. on saturday, we are having a block party for him and raising money for his family because of the mom cannot bury her son. >> i am the site coordinator for the middle school component. we don't have the mental health component, obviously you know that. and we are not case managers. but we have got to find a way to track our children. the last few weeks ago, there is nothing we can do. we are losing the trust of these children i had to walk this child to the car, and we have to find a better system. we work very close with west side, but the kids feeling very safe in our center, west side helps us out, but they do

repeated exposure to violence and drama, review of current programmatic strategies to address posttraumatic stress in children and research from the child, research program. -- child tramua resaercearch program. supervisor olague: i want to apologize for the late start, but we are finally here. i think those of you that were able to stay and still be here providing testimony as we go through this discussion. i hate will highlight the continue of care available to victims', child victims of violence. initially, i wanted to bring this widespread problem. children are expected to cope with extraordinary levels of violence. we must construct a system of support that eliminates of violence and, in their lives. whether a child with this is a dramatic scene or just encounters on his way to school immemorial -- these traumas affect him the rest of his life or her life. a system that protects and shields exposure to the long- term effects of violence. my district in recent weeks, we see that violence can perforate particular areas of the city, dramatizes families, and destabilizes the entire communi

it also have the effect of posttraumatic stress disorder, compact trauma. thank you for your time. [applause] >> thank you. >> next, we will talk about the right to engage -- in civil society. we have linda evans. the speakers will talk about prohibitions are running for elected office, serving on juries, and voting. >> good afternoon, commissioners. thank you for conducting this hearing. this is critical. we have already submitted several recommendations for your consideration. i will not take the time to actually make them in person. we know in order for us to actually engage in meaningful way in civil society. we must change the public perception. we think this is a round of voting, are around elected processes being eligible. it being eligible for public office. very few of those are eligible. if you are on probation or off california, if you are in trouble. this has eroded the voting rights for people in prison, in jail, post release community supervision. the secretary of state has actually issued an opinion letter that serves to steal the vote from many many people inside of

probably suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome. we're concerned for his emotional and physical safety. >> reporter: and concerned he reached out to special prosecutor. >> one thing every attorney tells his client, don't talk to the prosecutors, don't talk to the cops, don't talk to anybody. >> reporter: citing legal and ethical authorities she didn't talk to the monday at the center of the investigation. some are talking. >> we are surprised. >> reporter: and frustrated. >> today the killer of trayvon martin is unaccounted for. that is extremely troubling for th them. in fact, we're really concerned he's a flight risk. they said he's not in the state of florida. we're really concerned this he's ever going to be brought to justice. >> reporter: a question that his parents andsupporters have been asking for more than a month now. jay gray. >>> to politics, contenders for the republican nomination is a little smaller after republican senator rick santorum dropped out of the race yesterday. nbc's tracie potts has more for us from washi

untreated cumulative trauma is that it is associated with poor outcomes, and it often produces chronic posttraumatic stress. chronic ptsd may exert itself by perpetuating the circle of violence, leading people to have problems if emotional control, substance abuse, difficulty maintaining relationships, and it certainly affects how people parent. trauma and violence begets, and violence. a joint collaborative effort appears to be an effective model for treating traumatized families and attempting to prevent further re- victimization. outcome today demonstrates that family, children, and adult victims treated have been -- have seen a level of improved functioning. but our best efforts and despite enormous support from the department public health, there are significant needs that remain unmet. over the last four years, due to the economic downturn, our annual mental health budget was reduced by $100,000, leaving us with the mental health team made up of only 3.5 mental health providers to provide treatment to sexually abuse children in san francisco. this has resulted in a long waiting list of childre

you just told us, you think he's suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder? you're basically saying that he's losing his mind, but up until that moment, you believed everything that he said? something does not add up. both of those things cannot be true. >> well, i've got to say, if george zimmerman has been watching his lawyers' appearances on television, i think from a rational perspective, he had ever good, solid reason to fire them. natalie jackson, charles m. blow, and joy-ann reid, thank you all very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >>> coming up, we're going to have more on the breaking news on the killing of trayvon martin with jonathan capehart and former federal prosecutor from florida, kendall coffey. >>> and later, rick santorum is dropping out of the presidential campaign before a possible humiliation in his home state of pennsylvania. that means the obama re-election campaign can no longer count on republicans to attack the now-inevitable nominee, mitt romney. that's coming up. ok! who gets occasional consti

. >>> number three, posttraumatic stress disorder could be inherited. according to ucla scientists who linked ptsd to two genes involved in serotonin production. the researchers extracted the dna from families who had people who suffered ptsd symptoms after surviving the 1988 armenian earthquake. ptsd affects 7% of americans and it has become a pressing health issue for many of the war veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan. the researchers say that if confirmed, the findings could lead to new ways to screen people at risk and target specific treatments. number four, it's been 44 years since reverend martin luther king was assassinated on a hotel balcony in memphis. since then, more than 900 u.s. cities have named streets after the civil rights leader, with one big exception, the city where he was killed. that was corrected today when a one-mile stretch of linden avenue where king marched in support of striking sanitation workers were renamed dr. mlk jr. avenue. if he was alive today to see it, he would have been 83 years old. >>> it has been 244

one-third of the nearly 1.3 million veterans who have deployed to combat since 9/11 suffer from posttraumaticdisorder, brain injury, or depression. in some cases they can lead to chemical dependency or aggressive behavior which can lead to trouble in the with law. with the judge saw veterans on the dockets, he created a model focused on helping veterans seek treatment instead of jail time. the idea took off. today they are 88 veteran treatment courts nationwide. justice for vets project of the nation association advocates for that courts. matt steiner, fourth generation of marine is the director of development and veteran's outreach. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> you helped establish a court in january 2008, how did these courts work and why are they important to the treatment and recovery of veterans? >> great question, back in january actually, i was working at the tulsa mayor's office. we had 120 veterans arrested each other in tulsa county alone. you can't join the military with a criminal background. you don't join with any of those symptoms. so we saw that many v

the people who escaped the massacre, most of them recent immigrants, may suffer anxiety attacks, posttraumatic stress disorder, and specifically survivor guilt. they may feel guilty of surviving. >> reporter: counsellors here can speak up to 25 different asian languages and dialects. that's why alameda county officials have asked them to be the main support for the loved ones of oikos students and staff. they are concerned that many of them, still in shock now, will just bottle up their emotions. >> because of stigma, many people have difficulties saying i have depression or i have sadness. >> we're in this new country, where we don't need to be worrying about all those other things. get some help for yourself or your family. >> reporter: as for lydia sim, her close friends tell us that right now, their only focus is to pay their respects and say their good-byes. she will be laid to rest in los altos at the gates of heaven cemetery. >> thank you. >>> as for the weapon, the .45 caliber gun, the search is off, after an exhaustive, yet unsuccessful dive effort, police are moving forward. this was

house announced a new initiative to train 3 million nurses to recognize and help treat symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and brain injury. >> the commitment is for all the nation's nurses to be armed with the understanding of what the symptoms are, so they can be helpful in the process. >> half of the nation's vets get their healthcare outside the va systems. >>> hard to believe a newborn baby found alive in a morgue. it happened in argentina. doctors told the parents she died after birth. they went to the morgue to see the child and they found her alive. after spending 12 hours in a refrigerated room. baby and parents ares to be doing fine now -- ares to be doing fine now. >>> we got more showers in your forecast, the morning commute will be wet. i will see you back here in 10. if you grow for me, you'll get cookies for free. nothing worked. ♪ but we started using miracle-gro garden soil. you just mix it with your backyard soil... and it feeds your plants for up to 3 months. my plants grew bigger... more beautiful... with more flowers and vegetables. guaranteed. everything changed with

some of the vets had been serious wounded in battle, some lost limbs, others have posttraumatic distressto the nation's capital where a family said a funeral home cremated their father but gave them someone else's remains. the box had someone else's names on it. the funeral home claims it's the right remains but labeled them wrong. the family wants a dna test. >>> an 8-year-old helped stop a burglary. he was playing video games when a strange erika into his house and grabbed his mom's purse. >> when i seen his face, i thought, that's nobody i've ever seen before. he came in, yanked on it, and i yanked back. he yanked harder. he ran out the door. >> his dad chased after the suspect. the man ran into a busy highway, turns out, and was hit by the car. he's now in the hospital. by the way, that purse, well, it had no money in it. >>> first secret service prostitution scandal in colombia and now this. a brazilian woman said three marines and embassy staffer hired her for sex last december but an argument ensued. she said the brazilian driver then ran her over. a reporter spoke to her and her

he has very -- he's been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. he was not right from the moment it happened. he didn't call his family and express anything but, you know, sadness. it was just a darkness. he had changed. he wasn't the same. he would never be the same. he was very disappointed that none of the neighbors had come out and helped with the whole situation, potentially could have been avoided by just someone coming out and saying, hey, what's going on out there, or -- >> let me ask you a difficult question. and robert, you're not on trial for anything. you're not the accused. but you are the brother of george. if we reverse this situation and it was your brother who had been gunned down in exactly the same set of circumstances, and the worst that had happened, as far as his behavior, was that he had been followed and he'd got into an altercation and he was unarmed, he had a bag of skittles on him, and a guy who was much older, who followed him in the street, pulled out a gun and shot him dead, would you not, at the very least, if you're

had and, you know, you can even go into the problems that they're having post-deployment with posttraumatics and so on, is the armed services committee looking ahead? do you feel the pentagon is doing what it needs to do to see post iraq, post afghanistan what the u.s. military really needs to look at? >> chris, just in the last -- in this week alone, i've had meetings with secretary panetta, i've had meetings with the commandant of the marines, i've spoken to general odierno. we are looking at not only how do we infuse our military with the honor of being in the military so these types of things don't happen, how do we reinforce that. certainly as we've been moving around troops, as they have been deployed over and over, as their first concern is staying alive, maybe some of this has not been as in the forefront as so we've actually been talking about how we get that done and, you know, then when we see -- we see them come back and they have got major problems, we're also working on that. and of course we're in budget constrained years so we're trying to figure out how do we retool our mil

thing they're going to be asking is this description that they have a client that's suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome. so the best thing to do in a situation like this is simply say, we have irreconcilable differences, we're pulling out. the last thing you want is a loose cannon like zimmerman talking to another loose cannon like sean hannity. sean hannity is a polarizing character. and any defense lawyer is going to tell you, you want to go into a trial as neutral as you can. sean hannity may not believe this, but there are many jurors that are appalled by sean hannity. and simply having his name associated with this is a problem for zimmerman, as i see it. >> mr. gelber, what would motivate a potential defendant to want to make direct contact with the prosecuting attorney after his attorneys hold him not to do that? >> an utter lack of judgment. and that's the some way to explain it. i mean, if he's going to represent himself, then he truly has a fool for a client. because he doesn't have any of the expertise to navigate these waters and the idea that he would go directly to the pro

client is emotionally unstable, that he has lost a lot of weight that he may be suffering from posttraumaticrder, that he is emotionally crippled. that tells me that this may, in fact, work against george zimmermann. if i'm prosecutor in this case and i'm thinking about bringing charges, now i'm concerned. i'm thinking that perhaps this person is a flight risk and so they didn't do their former client any favors, in my view, from this very public press conference. >> and if you are the prosecutor and they walk in and say george zimmermann on line three and he is calling and does have his attorneys on the line, what do you do? >> you certainly don't speak to him. you know, prosecutors do often want to interview targets of investigations. they do want to get a potential defendant's take, statement, but never, ever without an attorney because all sorts of legal problems arise from that, whether or not the statement was voluntary that sort of thing. and so my understanding is this very smart, capable, seasoned prosecutor did not speak to george zimmermann, but it is bizarre that he would directl

probably posttraumatic stress disorder.

suffering from posttraumatic stress from the shooting. >> i can't speak to the last couple days. >> he's emotionally alone. and you might say emotionally crippled by virtue of the pressure of this case. >> reporter: over the past 36 hours, zimmerman has set up this website, featuring a paypal link for donations. reached out to an old friend. and apparently even called fox news host, sean hannity. >> he reached out to me. we spoke on the phone about his case. and i agreed not to report on the contents of that conversation. >> reporter: as you just mentioned, the biggest question, where is george zimmerman? yesterday, we learned he is far, far away from florida. and investigators close to the case say they don't know his exact location, which could complicate an arrest, if charges are filed. robin? >> all right, matt. thank you very much. >>> going to bring in "gma" legal analyst, dan abrams. that press conference by the former attorneys, bizarre. >> i've never seen anything like it. it was really about them rather than about george zimmerman. why did they need to hold a press conference t

and from information made available to us is not doing well emotionally, probably suffering from posttraumaticsyndrome. for those engaged in a late easter egg hunt looking for him, stop looking in florida. look much further away than that. >> reporter: the attorneys expressed their concern about his mental stability and everyone asking the question, where is george zimmerman? >> all right, george howell live in sanford, florida, thank you very much. >> george howell asks a very good question, where is george zimmerman? perhaps the only people who have had latest contact george zimmerman's former attorneys craig sonner and hal uhrig who join me live. thanks for taking the time to speak with me this morning. >> good morning. >> you've both been taking serious heat from a lot of your colleagues and legal analysts for the news conference that was held yesterday where you announced that you're stepping down from the case. do you have any regrets about announcing publicly that you've dropped -- i don't want to say drop the case because there is no case but dropped out of the representation of george