Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, released a video Monday in which he claims President Obama stoked racial tension and used “incendiary” language following the 2012 Florida shooting.
Zimmerman, 31, a white man acquitted based on the controversial “stand your ground” defense, said he now feels free to speak “without fear of retaliation” because federal prosecutors decided not to press civil-rights charges against him last month in the death of the unarmed black 17-year-old in Sanford, Fla.
“Now is the perfect time to speak my mind,” Zimmerman said.
“President Obama held his Rose Garden speech stating, ‘If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.’ Unfortunately for the president, I’m also my parents’ child and my life matters as well.”
Zimmerman was an armed neighborhood watchman in his gated community who approached Martin as the teen walked back home from a store.
He claimed that Obama pitted Americans against each other by making “racially charged comments” about the incident.
“For him to make incendiary comments as he did and direct the Department of Justice to pursue a baseless prosecution, he . . . overstretched, overreached,” Zimmerman said.