Zimmerman arrested and released Sanford Police Officer Timothy Smith arrived at the scene at approximately 7:17 p.m., between 5 and 65 seconds after the fatal shot was fired. He reported finding Zimmerman standing near Martin, who was lying face down in the grass and unresponsive. At that time, Zimmerman stated to Smith that he had shot Martin and was still armed. Smith
handcuffed Zimmerman and confiscated his black
Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm semi-automatic pistol. Smith observed that Zimmerman's back was wet and covered with grass, and he was bleeding from the nose and the back of his head. Ricardo Ayala, the second officer to arrive that night, noticed Officer Smith had Zimmerman in custody, then observed Martin lying face down in the grass and attempted to get a response from him. At this time, Sgt. Anthony Raimondo arrived and together with Ayala began
CPR.
Paramedics from Sanford Fire and Rescue arrived and continued CPR, finally declaring Martin dead at 7:30 p.m. Zimmerman was treated and released by paramedics while still at the scene of the incident. Zimmerman was then transported to the
Sanford Police Department where he was questioned by investigators for approximately five hours. The police determined that Zimmerman yelled for help at least 14 times in a 38-second span. The question of who was calling for help has been disputed since then by others and remains inconclusive . Zimmerman arrived at the police station at 7:52 p.m., according to a police video. His clothes were also taken as evidence after his wife arrived with a change of clothes. Five hours later, Zimmerman was released. The police chief said that there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's
Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest. The police chief also said that Zimmerman had a right to defend himself with
lethal force. The day after the shooting, Zimmerman performed a videotaped reenactment of the incident for police. and
Columbia University law professor
Patricia Williams, said that the police failed to fully investigate the shooting when they did not test Zimmerman for
drugs or
alcohol intoxication. However,
Miami police experts told the
Miami Herald that
homicide suspects are not typically tested for drugs or alcohol unless the suspect has been accused of having been
driving while intoxicated.
Martin's body identified Martin's body was taken to the
morgue, where he was tagged as a
John Doe, as he was not carrying any identification. The mobile phone found at the shooting scene was malfunctioning to the point that the police
Cellebrite data recovery device could not access it. The Martin family alleged that Seminole County Attorney Wolfinger met personally with Sanford Chief Lee on the night of the shooting and instructed Lee not to make an arrest. Based on their accusation, the Martin family requested that the
Justice Department investigate the State prosecutor's office. Wolfinger responded that the family's accusations were "outright lies" and denied that any such meeting or communication took place. Wolfinger's office reported that the Sanford police consulted with Kelly Jo Hines, the prosecutor on call the night of the shooting, but it has not been disclosed what was talked about.
State Attorney's investigation On March 12, 2012, Police Chief Lee turned the investigation over to the
State Attorney's office for review. Lee said there was not enough evidence to arrest Zimmerman. "In this case Mr. Zimmerman has made the statement of self-defense," Lee said. "Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that, we don't have the grounds to arrest him." In response to criticisms of the investigation, Lee responded that "We are taking a beating over this" and defended the investigation. "This is all very unsettling. I'm sure if George Zimmerman had the opportunity to relive Sunday, February 26, he'd probably do things differently. I'm sure Trayvon would, too." The
capias states, "The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and waited the arrival of law enforcement or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog in an effort to dispel each party's concern.... There is no indication that Trayvon Martin was involved in any criminal activity at the time of the encounter." The State Attorney's office initially determined there was insufficient evidence to charge Zimmerman and did not file charges based on the
capias request. On March 16, Serino told the
Orlando Sentinel that his investigation had turned up no reliable evidence that cast doubt on Zimmerman's account; that he had acted in self-defense. "The best evidence we have is the
testimony of George Zimmerman, and he says the
decedent was the primary aggressor in the whole event; everything I have is adding up to what he says."
FDLE and FBI investigations On March 20, 2012, State attorney Norm Wolfinger announced that a
Seminole County grand jury would be convened on April 10 to investigate the death of Martin. However, after State Attorney
Angela Corey was assigned to the case by
Florida Governor Rick Scott on March 22, she decided that her office would decide whether to press charges. She commented: "I always lean towards moving forward without needing the grand jury in a case like this, I foresee us being able to make a decision, and move on it on our own." Governor Scott asked the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to investigate the shooting and Florida Attorney General
Pam Bondi confirmed that the FDLE was involved and stated "No stone will be left unturned in this investigation". The
FBI opened a parallel investigation into whether Martin's
civil rights were violated, interviewed witnesses, and looked into Zimmerman's background. On July 12, 2012, reports of some of the more than 30 interviews conducted by the FBI were released by
Special Prosecutor Angela Corey to Zimmerman's attorney, who released them to the public. The released reports do not draw any conclusions in the DOJ investigation. Serino also told the FBI that he had felt pressure from three officers within the department to charge Zimmerman although he "did not believe he had enough evidence at the time to file charges", and accused one of these officers of being friendly with Martin's father. He also expressed concern to the FBI about possible leaks of evidence to the media from within the department. On February 24, 2015, 35 months after it began, the civil rights investigation of the Justice Department was terminated for lack of evidence.
County medical examiner's autopsy report The
Volusia County medical examiner found that Martin was killed by an injury resulting from a single gunshot to the chest, fired at "intermediate range" between , according to a forensic expert. An
FDLE analysis of Martin's body and clothes described the distance as "a contact shot". The autopsy also found that Martin had one small abrasion on his left ring finger below the knuckle. No other injuries were found on Martin's body at the time of his death. The autopsy report stated that Martin had trace levels of THC, the active ingredient in
marijuana, in his blood and urine. The
toxicology report found the levels to be 1.5
nanograms/ml of
THC and 7.3 nanograms/ml of
THC-COOH, the main secondary
metabolite of THC which stays in the system for weeks after
cannabis has been smoked. Larry Kobilinsky, a professor of
forensic science, stated that the THC amount was so low that it may have been ingested days earlier and played no role in Martin's behavior. While under oath, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified that "marijuana could have no effect or some effect" on Martin's behavior.
Witness accounts {{Listen|type=speech|header=9-1-1 calls(start times are hr:min:sec p.m. EST) Recordings of eight calls to the police made on the night of the shooting were released by the Sanford police on March 17, 2012. The only eyewitness to the end of the confrontation stated that Martin was on top of Zimmerman and punching him, while Zimmerman was yelling for help. This witness, who identified himself as "John", stated that "The guy on the bottom, who had a red sweater on, was yelling to me, 'Help! Help!' and I told him to stop, and I was calling 911". He went on to say that when he got upstairs and looked down, "The guy who was on the top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point." A 13-year-old boy walking his dog saw a man on the ground shortly before the shooting and identified him as wearing red. His mother later disputed the testimony. She claimed that police pressured him into choosing the color that the man was wearing and that her son could not see any details in the dark. She also stated that police waited five days before requesting to question her son and said that the lead homicide investigator told her that he did not believe the shooting was self-defense. Mary Cutcher and her roommate, Selma Mora Lamilla, appeared on
AC 360, and Cutcher stated that she believes that "There was no punching, no hitting going on at the time, no wrestling" just prior to the shooting but admitted that she neither saw the shooting nor the preceding altercation. Cutcher and her roommate heard the pair in their backyard and a "very young voice" whining, with no sounds of a fight. They heard a gunshot; the crying stopped immediately, and they saw Zimmerman on his knees straddling Martin on the ground. However, Cutcher and her roommate maintain that their account of the incident to the police did not agree with Zimmerman's, and they demanded the police issue a retraction. The witness later appeared on
AC360, referred to as a female, giving more details on her account. She pointed out that she heard an argument between a younger and an older voice. During the time that she witnessed the incident, the scuffling happened on the grass. She said that the larger man, who walked away after the gunshot, was on top and that it was too dark to see blood on his face. A witness who arrived shortly after the shooting revealed photos that he took that night that showed "blood trickling down the back of Zimmerman's head from two cuts. It also shows a possible contusion forming on the crown of his head". In revealing the photo to
ABC News in mid-April, he noted that he had heard but had not seen the scuffle, had been the first to arrive, and had been the first to talk to Zimmerman after the shooting. One eyewitness statement given the night of the shooting describes "a black male, wearing a dark colored 'hoodie' on top of a white or Hispanic male who was yelling for help." The witness said that the black male was throwing punches "MMA
[mixed martial arts] style". After hearing a "pop", he saw the black male "laid out on the grass". When the witness was subsequently interviewed weeks later by a different agency, the witness said he thought that the black male was either punching or pinning the lighter skinned male underneath him. He was no longer certain who was calling for help, having not seen their mouths in the dark. He was still certain that the black male had been on top of the lighter-skinned male. On March 20, 2012, Martin family attorney
Benjamin Crump revealed that Martin had been on the phone with a friend moments before he was shot. This friend later identified Zimmerman as the aggressor in the deadly confrontation. During an ABC News exclusive report, Crump allowed portions of his recorded interview with Martin's friend to be aired. She said that Martin told her that a man was watching him from his vehicle while talking on the phone before the man started following Martin. Martin told his friend at one point that he had lost the man but the man suddenly appeared again. The friend, originally known only as "Witness 8" (now known as Rachel Jeantel), said that she told Martin to run to the townhouse where he was staying with his father and his father's fiancée. She immediately attempted to call him back, but was unable to reach him. Crump stated that he would turn the information over to the Justice Department because "the family does not trust the Sanford Police Department to have anything to do with the investigation." On March 6, 2013, prosecutors admitted that she had
lied under oath, when she falsely testified that she had been in the hospital on the day of Martin's funeral. She later admitted being embarrassed about lying and that she felt guilty about Martin's death and not doing more to help. Crump had refused to disclose the identity of Witness 8, stating that she was only 16, a minor at the time of the shooting, and asked the media to respect her privacy. It was subsequently revealed that she was actually 18 at the time when she said she was on the phone with Martin. According to the defense, her actual age had been edited out of previously released disclosures. Crump has denied intentionally giving any misleading statements about her age.
George Zimmerman's account of events On the advice of his legal counsel, Zimmerman did not speak to the media after the shooting. The statements he gave to police investigators were publicly released on June 21, 2012, when Zimmerman's attorney,
Mark O'Mara, published his written and recorded statements on Zimmerman's legal defense web site. Prior to the release of the statements, the only publicly available information about Zimmerman's version of the incident came from interviews with some of his family members and friends and from leaks to the news media by sources inside the investigation and his recorded phone call to the non-emergency number. Zimmerman maintained his public silence until he was interviewed by
Sean Hannity of
Fox News on July 18, 2012. According to early news reports on the incident, on the night of the shooting and afterwards, Zimmerman described in detail for investigators what took place. Zimmerman said he was driving to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon Martin walking through the neighborhood. Zimmerman's father said that, while his son was not on duty that night as Neighborhood Watch captain, there had been many break-ins and he thought it suspicious that someone he did not recognize was walking behind the town homes instead of on the street or the sidewalk. Zimmerman therefore called a non-emergency police line to report Martin's behavior and summon police. During the call, Zimmerman told the dispatcher that Martin was "coming to check me out." Zimmerman left his vehicle on Twin Trees and walked down the sidewalk between Twin Trees and Retreat View Circle to determine his location and ascertain in which direction Martin had fled. In the interviews, Zimmerman says he took note of Martin because he was near a home that he had previously called police about. He also said, "He was just walking casually, not like he was trying to get out of the rain" and he felt "something was off" about Martin. In a reconstruction video-recorded by police the next day, Zimmerman said that after he initially saw Martin on Retreat View Circle he parked his vehicle in front of the club house at the corner of Retreat View Circle and Twin Trees Lane and observed Martin go past him and onto Twin Trees Lane where he lost sight of Martin. He stated the dispatcher asked "Can you get to somewhere where you can see him?" and that he then left the club house parking lot and drove onto Twin Trees Lane where he parked. He further stated that at one point Martin circled his truck while he was parked on Twin Trees Lane. Zimmerman eventually left his truck and walked down the sidewalk between Twin Trees Lane to Retreat View Circle and gave police an address on Retreat View Circle. As they struggled on the ground, Zimmerman on his back with Martin on top of him, Zimmerman yelled for help "probably 50 times". (See
Background yells for help in 9-1-1 calls) Martin told him to "Shut the fuck up," as he hit him in the face and pounded his head on a concrete sidewalk. Police reports state Zimmerman "appeared to have a broken and a bloody nose and swelling of his face". Zimmerman was offered three chances to be taken to the hospital but declined each time, according to police reports released by the prosecution. In the course of Zimmerman's recorded interviews, Detective Chris Serino questioned aspects of Zimmerman's account, such as Zimmerman's statement that he didn't know the name of a street in the Twin Lakes community where he had lived for three years. Zimmerman said in response that he had a bad memory and takes medication for
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. On June 26, 2012, the prosecution released the results of a
voice stress test performed on George Zimmerman the day after the shooting. Zimmerman was asked, "Did you confront the guy you shot?" to which Zimmerman answered, "No." Zimmerman was asked, "Were you in fear for your life, when you shot the guy?" to which Zimmerman answered, "Yes." During a bond hearing on April 20, 2012, Investigator Dale Gilbreath testified under oath that he did not know whether Zimmerman or Martin started the fight and that there is no evidence to contradict Zimmerman's claim that he was walking back to his vehicle when Martin confronted him. Gilbreath, however, questioned Zimmerman's statement that Martin was slamming his head against the sidewalk just before he shot the teenager, saying it was "not consistent with the evidence we found." Gilbreath was one of two investigators who attested to the facts stated in the
probable cause affidavit. Following the interview with Hannity, Special Prosecutor Angela Corey filed formal notice that she intended to use the interview as evidence against Zimmerman. According to an article in the
Orlando Sentinel, Zimmerman's story differed in at least two details from previous versions of what he said happened the night he shot Martin—specifically, that he told Hannity he had walked toward Martin because he was trying to find a street address to provide the police, but during the police's investigation he had said that the reason he approached Martin was that he was looking for the name of the street, which he had forgotten; and that he told Hannity that Martin had been "skipping, going away quickly", not running away out of fear, but he had previously told Sanford police that Martin had run away as Zimmerman was reporting him. O'Mara said that Zimmerman had promised Hannity three months earlier that he would give his first interview to Hannity, She had flown from
New York to Florida to record a television interview with Zimmerman that was to be shown following the Hannity interview, but the television network refused to meet Zimmerman's request that they pay for a month's hotel stay and security for his wife.
Affidavit of probable cause On April 11, 2012, an affidavit of probable cause was filed in support of
second-degree murder charges against Zimmerman. The affidavit described what investigators alleged took place between Zimmerman and Martin on the night of the shooting. Prosecutors alleged that Zimmerman profiled Martin as he was walking back from a nearby
7-Eleven store to the townhouse where he was temporarily living.
Harvard Law Professor
Alan Dershowitz claimed the affidavit may have been perjurious if Special Prosecutor Angela Corey knowingly omitted facts favorable to Zimmerman's self-defense claim.
Background yells for help in 9-1-1 calls In recordings of the
9-1-1 calls, yells for help are audible in the background. Zimmerman's family says it was Zimmerman yelling for help, Martin's family says it was Martin yelling for help, and independent audio analysts offer differing opinions as to who was yelling for help. During the trial, friends and family members of both Zimmerman and Martin testified as to who they thought the voice was, but
expert testimony regarding
voice identification was not allowed. In an interview with prosecutors on March 19, Zimmerman's father identified the yells as George Zimmerman's, stating, "There is no doubt who is yelling for help. It is absolutely my son." Other relatives of Zimmerman, including his brother, concur and are equally adamant. During a bond hearing on June 29, the 9-1-1 recording was played in court, and Zimmerman's father testified that "It was definitely George's" voice heard yelling for help in the recorded 9-1-1 call. According to police reports, after listening to audio recordings of the 9-1-1 calls, Martin's father, Tracy Martin, told police investigators that it was not Trayvon Martin's voice yelling for help. Investigators also interviewed Martin's cousin who stated that without a doubt "on a stack of bibles" it was Martin yelling for help on the 9-1-1 tape. Zimmerman's attorneys requested a
Frye hearing regarding the
admissibility of the testimony of the audio analysts, to determine if the methods used by them are generally accepted by the
scientific community. The judge said in her ruling that, "There is no evidence to establish that their scientific techniques have been tested and found reliable." Her ruling did not prevent the 9-1-1 calls from being played at trial. ==Shooting aftermath==