Rest in Power

by Sybrina Fulton

  Velma Williams, the only African American member of the city commission, spoke next, presenting a motion to allow presentations from our group, which the commissioners approved unanimously.

  Then Reverend Sharpton spoke. He sternly stared directly at each commissioner, and then introduced perhaps the most powerful symbol in our case: the boxes from Change.org filled with two million signed petitions. Boxes upon boxes of the actual paper petitions stretched in front of the commissioners, representing two million signatures, all demanding an arrest, all calling for justice.

  I looked over at the commissioners. They didn’t seem to react; they just sat with neutral expressions.

  “To the commissioners, we come tonight, many from around the country, many from your own community, to bring with the family two million signatures of people petitioning you to execute the immediate arrest of the killer of Trayvon Martin,” said Reverend Sharpton.

  “We do not need a trial and a jury to make an arrest,” he continued once the applause, cheers, and shouting over the dramatic display of the boxes finally quieted down. “An arrest is based on probable cause. Any time you have an unarmed man killed and you have a man on tape saying he was pursuing him…”

  He paused to let the weight of that sink in. “A man not authorized. A man not on the national register. A man that has a record of assault. A man who had violence against law enforcement. You have probable cause to make an arrest.”

  The crowd roared and the reverend paused again. He moved on to mention recent talks over Trayvon’s issues at school.

  “None of that was known or unknown to Mr. Zimmerman,” he said. “Because Mr. Zimmerman didn’t interview him. He shot him!”

  Another roar from the crowd.

  “You voted no-confidence in the police chief!” he continued, after stating a few facts of the case. “How can you have confidence then in the lack of police action?”

  Reverend Sharpton mentioned how our case was conflicting with the world’s view of Sanford, a beautiful city on the water with great potential for tourism. “You are risking going down as the Birmingham and Selma of the twenty-first century!” he said. “You are making the world know you as a place of racial intolerance and double standards.

  “For one man, would you risk the reputation of a whole city? For one man, would you compromise the integrity of the city? Zimmerman is not worth the history of the city.”

  Now the reverend’s words became inaudible as the crowd leaped to its feet, in cheers and praise. “You need to arrest him!”

  The commissioners sat silently, their faces still stern, unmoving.

  “As you said, Mr. Mayor, we don’t need violence!” the reverend continued. “Let me tell you, we marched, tens of thousands, the other night. Reverend Bryant has marched thousands today. The only violence that has occurred is a month ago when Zimmerman killed this young man. Do the right thing! Do the right thing and arrest Zimmerman now!”

  The crowd erupted in its loudest uproar yet. They stood and shouted Reverend Sharpton’s refrain, fists pumping in the air: “Do the right thing! Do the right thing!”

  Crump, Tracy, and I were next. We followed Crump to the podium, and I could see the commissioners staring back at us. The standard rules of the meeting were to give each commenter five minutes, but under the circumstances Mayor Triplett yielded as much time to Tracy and me as needed. The crowd had started to chant again. “Justice for Trayvon! Justice for Trayvon!”

  They quieted as Crump stepped to the lectern.

  “Ms. Fulton and Mr. Martin want to say something to you all,” Crump said, directing his words at the commissioners. “As I stand here, we want to dialogue with you about a lot of things that went wrong with this investigation. But at the crux of the matter, we would implore you to tell us…” and his demand to the commissioners was simple: Why had the Sanford Police Department refused to do “what over two million people thought was the simple performance of their job duty? We want to know as their supervisor…what are you going to do about it as Police Chief Lee’s employer?”?

  “The parents are going to talk to you…,” Crump continued. “What we want to know, real simple, is, what are you going to do because they did not do their job?”

  I was next, and my emotions, as usual, were running high. I had so many breakdowns. Behind the scenes, away from the attorneys and the cameras, I felt so broken. I would go from leading a march or speaking to a crowd or a television audience of hundreds of thousands back to the woman who couldn’t get out of her room. Grief would overcome me, and I would sob, scream, fall down on the ground, and think about all of the should-haves, could-haves, and whys. Each time this happened, I would pray and ask God for strength. But I still questioned what happened to my son.

  Why wasn’t I there for my child on the night he was shot?

  He needed his mom. Every child needs their mom.

  And I wasn’t there to help him.

  Everything was a reminder of him. It could be a group of teenagers. A hoodie. A mother with two children, holding each of their hands, reminding me that I was missing one of mine, one of my hands now empty. It could be a song on the radio. And it would plunge me back into that loss, grief, and brokenness, and I would relive his passing all over again.

  No one saw this, other than, sometimes, my family. In public, I looked strong—“dignified,” so many people said. I wasn’t sure that I was. I was determined not to let people see these broken pieces, as Bishop T. D. Jakes calls them, when I would return to my purple bedroom and my grief. When people saw Tracy and me, we were always sitting upright, speaking clearly, standing strong for Trayvon.

  “I want to try to get through this without tears,” I said, pausing to gather my thoughts and still my nerves.

  “My heart is broken,” I was finally able to say. “That’s first and foremost. That was my baby. And I just want to appeal to you all, if you have kids, if you have children and something happens to your children, you want to know what happened.

  “You want some answers to your questions as a parent. So I’m not asking for anything special, any extra favors. I’m just asking for what you would ask for as a parent. I know I cannot bring my baby back. But I’m sure going to make changes so that this does not happen to another family.”

  The crowd cheered. I was near the end of my comments, but I had one more thing to say. As I waited for quiet, I felt a flood of sadness and grief rush through my heart. My voice was still strong, but now it was shaking. I thought of Trayvon and all the pain. I took a deep breath, blinked, and held back the tears.

  “Lastly,” I added, “I just want to say that God is in control.”

  Tracy spoke next.

  “The greatest gift that God can give to a man is a son,” he said, his voice, as always, stern and unshakable. “For the Sanford Police Department to feel as though they were going to sweep another young, black minority death under the rug, it’s an atrocity. This family is hurt. This family is torn, and the Sanford Police Department needs to be held accountable. George Michael Zimmerman needs to be arrested. He needs to be put on trial. He needs to be given a sentence by a jury of his peers. We’re not asking for an eye for an eye, we’re asking for justice, justice, justice.

  “We consider ourselves strong black parents. We take pride in our kids,” he said sadly. I watched him speaking and saw that his brow had furrowed and he was starting to clinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. A tear dropped as he continued to say, “It tears me apart to sit here and listen to slander they are giving to my son and not arresting the [killer] of my son…”

  “No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!” the crowd chanted, louder and louder. Crump tried to speak, but he couldn’t be heard, even over the PA system. He raised his hand and turned toward the crowd, pleading with them for quiet.

  “We have some important things to talk about,” Crump said. “Mr. Mayor, I’m here with Trayvon’s mother and father, and they are very, very emotional.
Because when we hear those 911 tapes we know where the end is and they know where that tape went. They lost their child at the end of that 911 tape. But as lawyers and as the legal team here, we are going to attempt to divorce ourselves from emotion for a few minutes to ask some questions that we implore you to ponder and use your leadership to make the decisions. We ask that you let your heart be your guide.”

  Crump went on to list the questions that had still gone unanswered:

  Who was the officer who made the decision for whatever reason to not do a background check on George Zimmerman, who had just shot and killed Trayvon Benjamin Martin? But yet saw fit to do a background check on this dead child on the ground?

  Number two, who was the officer who made the determination not to do a drug and alcohol analysis on George Zimmerman, who had just shot an unarmed teenager with a bag of Skittles, but yet found it appropriate to order a drug and alcohol analysis of Sybrina and Tracy’s son?

  Who was the officer who made the determination that we’re just going to question Mr. Zimmerman and take his statement as the gospel and let him go home…with the clothes and the evidence that he had on his body?

  “You all have to hold him accountable,” Crump told the commissioners. “Nobody else can do it here this evening. You all have to ask these questions, take the names, and if they did not do their job, would they lose their job?”

  The mayor broke in.

  “I’ve stated several times that’s the path we are going down,” Mayor Triplett responded, remaining in his chair with his hands and palms open. “That’s the only path. I can’t change what transpired. But I swear to you. I swear to you—”

  Crump took a moment to silence the crowd again.

  “And, Mr. Mayor, we do owe you a debt of gratitude,” he told the mayor. “Because it was your leadership to release the 911 tapes. This family wants to have faith in the system. My God, they’ve been waiting for so long for them to get simple answers. We don’t want anything extra…just equal justice….It is hard to ask them to trust you and to have patience….There has to be something where you all have to take a stand to let us know we can believe in you, that you will do the right thing, that you won’t sweep it under the rug when the cameras go and when everybody goes home. Because they’re never getting Trayvon Martin back! And they are depending on you all to do your job, just as we would have prayed that Chief Lee and the Sanford Police Department would have done their jobs.”

  Crump paused and asked, “Can’t you understand that none of this would be going on if they simply would have treated George Zimmerman like they would have treated Trayvon Martin…”

  He was again interrupted by chants and cheers.

  “In conclusion, I would only ask that you consider your children when you make these decisions that you have to make,” Crump told the commissioners. “And imagine if you can,” he said, pausing for a moment to address the commissioners and the city manager. “If that was your child and the police refused to make an arrest. You let your heart and your conscience be your guide and you determine what would you do to your employee who refused to arrest the person that killed your unarmed child. It’s as simple as that.”

  He sat down to thunderous applause.

  Still, the commissioners appeared unmoved. I didn’t understand what was happening.

  The meeting stretched on, as a number of notables spoke, from Reverend Jesse Jackson to political leaders like Marc Morial, former mayor of New Orleans and president of the National Urban League.

  Pastor Jamal Bryant, the young, fiery minister from Baltimore who would become one of our most ardent supporters, spoke next, loudly, passionately, and angrily.

  “The justice system in Florida is sick,” he said. “Thirty days after a young man was brutally and innocently killed, and after the 911 tapes have been released, and after we know exactly who the culprit is, there still is not an arrest. Around the world, people are looking into Sanford trying to figure out how sick is a system that would allow a young boy to be killed and no one is arrested.

  “The balance is off in the justice system,” he continued. “Today while we are speaking, there are 635,000 black men behind bars, when we are only 12 percent of the US population but 56 percent of the prison population….The reality is that all of us realize that if Mr. Zimmerman happened to have a darker hue of melanin, we would not be waiting for a thorough investigation.

  “Trayvon Martin found himself splattered just blocks away from his father’s house,” he continued. “But that’s not the first time we’ve seen a Martin killed. Just a few years ago on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel we saw another dreamer who was walking toward justice. And because some insecure sniper who couldn’t get a real job stood in the bushes and shot down that dreamer so racists believed they could kill the dream. But I stand on behalf of these two million people to tell you the dreamers are still coming.”

  With that, Jamal Bryant left the podium.

  Reverend Jackson spoke next, comparing our tragedy to others, and saying, “If a black vigilante shot a seventeen-year-old white child, he would be in jail today. And maybe he should be. All we really want is one set of rules.”

  Congresswoman Corrine Brown thanked the mayor for releasing the 911 tapes, then said fifty members of Congress “sent a letter to the United States Justice Department asking that this be investigated as a hate crime.” Former New Orleans mayor Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, encouraged the commissioners to “go on record for the arrest of George Zimmerman. Number two, to repeal the so-called Stand Your Ground, what we call the Shoot to Kill, ordinance. And number three, initiate the effort today to clean up your own police department.”

  The meeting ended with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who said, “The law is on the side for arresting Mr. Zimmerman now.”

  It was a powerful event, but I worried that it would all be for nothing. We were left uncertain about what would happen next as far as the commissioners were concerned. But at least they had listened, and that was something.

  As soon as the commissioners’ meeting came to a close, we all made our way across the street to Fort Mellon Park, only a few hundred feet from the Sanford Civic Center, to address our supporters who had watched the event from there. Original police estimates expected ten thousand people. But the newspapers would later report that at least eight thousand showed up that day, and some believed it could have been more. It was our biggest rally yet. Despite police concerns, there was no violence, no looting, no arrests, even with so many people in the park. Like us, the people were angry. But also like us they were there for justice, and the route to that, we believed, was through peaceful protest.

  “If you’re not here in peace, you’re not welcome,” said Reverend Jackson so many times that day it became a refrain.

  Fort Mellon Park has a small stage, which on the night of the rally was positioned between two trucks with large television screens hoisted up high in the air so that everyone could see the stage and hear the speakers. But the stage was so rickety that once we got up there with all the dignitaries—Crump, Reverend Sharpton, Jamal Bryant, Reverend Jackson, and a dozen others—it seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

  Once again, we all spoke on that swaying stage, touching on many of the things we had said to the commissioners and reaffirming our stand to fight until justice was served, until an arrest was made. We thanked those who came and reminded them that Trayvon was our son, but he was also their son, too.

  All the while my thoughts were swirling. Would the commission do anything? Would Trayvon simply go down as another lost life in a series of lost lives, another injustice in a country filled with them? I would go from despair, thinking Oh, my God, to euphoria, thinking Thank you, God! Maybe our meeting before the city commissioners would only lead, as we had been told, to more meetings. But looking out on the crowd, I realized, something was already happening. This was immediate. This was powerful. This was thousands upon thousands of people who could no
t be dismissed or denied. And it would be broadcast to the world.

  —

  More affirmation came in the halls of Congress, where three powerful representatives voiced support for our journey to justice: Congresswomen Frederica Wilson, Maxine Waters, and Sheila Jackson Lee. On March 27, thirty days after Trayvon’s death, Representative Wilson said in an interview that Trayvon was “hunted down like a rabid dog, he was shot in the street….He was racially profiled. Mr. Zimmerman should be arrested immediately for his own safety.”

  “I really, personally believe this was a hate crime,” Congresswoman Waters told CNN, calling for an end to the Stand Your Ground law. These three brave and outspoken congresswomen would continue to support us, in both their words and their actions.

  Around this same time, I received extraordinary support from a more local source: my coworkers at the job I had left a month before. For twenty-four years I worked for the Miami-Dade County Housing Agency. When Trayvon was killed, time off from work under normal circumstances would have been expected, but given the extremity of our situation a few days of funeral leave fell woefully short.

  By this time, I had already used up my four weeks of leave and sixty hours of vacation. Then I learned that 192 of my fellow Miami-Dade County colleagues donated 1,362 hours—more than eight months of vacation time worth $40,825—so that I could continue the fight for Trayvon. The donation was made possible by a resolution passed that allowed county employees to donate up to $50,000 in vacation time to any member of my family employed by Miami-Dade County. (One of Trayvon’s aunts, who worked as a water and sewer customer service representative, also received nine weeks of donated vacation time from seventy county employees.)

  County Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who sponsored the resolution with fellow commissioners Bruno Barreiro and, of course, Barbara Jordan, said it was a reaction to “generous county employees [who] have expressed a desire to contribute their earned holiday and annual leave” to Trayvon’s aunt and me. I was grateful to all the coworkers who showed me so much love and support.