President Barack Obama weighed
into the controversial killing of a
black teenager in Florida in very
personal terms on Friday, comparing
the boy to a son he doesn't have and
calling for American "soul
searching" over how the incident
occurred.
Seventeen-year-old
Trayvon Martin, dressed in a "hoodie"
sweatshirt, was shot dead a month
ago in Sanford, Florida by a
28-year-old white Hispanic
neighborhood watch volunteer who
said he was acting in self-defense.
"If I had a son, he'd look like
Trayvon," Obama said in his first
comments about the shooting,
acknowledging the racial element in
the case.
"Obviously, this is
a tragedy," Obama told reporters. "I
can only imagine what these parents
are going through. And when I think
about this boy, I think about my own
kids."
The case has rippled
across the nation and prompted
rallies protesting the failure of
the police to arrest the shooter,
George Zimmerman, and, more broadly,
a pattern of racial discrimination
black leaders cite in Sanford and
elsewhere in the country.
Obama, the first black U.S.
president, made his remarks at a
White House event to announce his
pick to lead the World Bank, waiting
briefly after the announcement to
take a reporter's question about the
incident.
Martin's parents
thanked the president for his words.
"The president's personal
comments touched us deeply and made
us wonder: If his son looked like
Trayvon and wore a hoodie, would he
be suspicious too?," they said in a
statement.
Florida's "Stand
Your Ground" law allows people to
use deadly force in self-defense.
Similar laws are in effect in at
least 24 states including Florida,
according to the Brady Campaign to
Prevent Gun Violence. Calls are
mounting to repeal them. Earlier
this week, a Florida state senator
said he was drafting new legislation
to drastically change the law in
Florida.
A South Carolina
state representative said on Friday
he had introduced a bill to repeal
his state's law. Bakari Sellers, a
black Democrat and gun owner, said
he wanted to prevent an incident
like the Trayvon Martin shooting
happening in his state.
"I'm
six-five and a black guy," he said.
"I just know that it could have been
me."
Obama said the "Stand
Your Ground" laws should be studied.
"I think all of us have to do
some soul-searching to figure out
how does something like this happen.
And that means that examine the laws
and the context for what happened,
as well as the specifics of the
incident," he said.
"Every
parent in America should be able to
understand why it is absolutely
imperative that we investigate every
aspect of this, and that everybody
pulls together -- federal, state and
local -- to figure out exactly how
this tragedy happened."
RACIAL DIVIDES
Obama, the son
of a white mother from Kansas and
black father from Kenya, is often
hesitant to reflect on race, a
sensitive topic in the United
States, which still grapples with a
legacy of slavery, segregation and
discrimination.
Early in his
White House tenure, Obama inflamed
another racially tinged incident
after that declaring police had
"acted stupidly" when arresting a
well-known black documentary
filmmaker, Henry Louis Gates, after
an altercation at his home.
He later invited Gates and the white
police officer, Sergeant James
Crowley, to the White House, where
the men shared a drink in what
became known as Obama's "beer
summit."
In Sanford, Norton
Bonaparte Jr., the city's manager,
acknowledged that tensions between
the black community and police "go
back many, many years." "The trust
that existed is gone, so we have to
start from ground zero," he said.
Sanford's police chief and a Florida
state prosecutor overseeing the case
stepped aside on Thursday as
criticism grew over the police
handling of the investigation.
The U.S. Justice Department is
also investigating. Senior officials
from the department met with the
Martin family in Florida on
Thursday, along with their lawyer. A
Justice Department spokeswoman said
early in the week that they must
collect evidence to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that there was
intent to violate civil rights laws.
A Florida college announced it
had suspended Zimmerman's
enrollment.
Zimmerman was
working toward an associates degree
in arts at Seminole State College in
Sanford. He previously earned a
vocational certificate in an
insurance field, the school said.
"Due to the highly charged and
high-profile controversy involving
this student, Seminole State has
taken the unusual but necessary step
this week to withdraw Mr. Zimmerman
from enrollment," a statement dated
Thursday said.
Former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney,
the frontrunner in the Republican
race to be nominated to face Obama
in the November 6 presidential
election, added his voice to the
issue as well.
"What happened
to Trayvon Martin is a tragedy.
There needs to be a thorough
investigation that reassures the
public that justice is carried out
with impartiality and integrity,"
Romney said.
(additional
reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, Steve
Holland, Deborah Charles, Samson
Reiny, Kevin Gray, Harriet McLeod
and Colleen Jenkins; editing by Mary
Milliken and David Brunnstrom)
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