As the sun set over the Mississippi River Sunday night, nearly 200 Baton Rouge residents and University students gathered on the levee near the U.S.S. Kidd for a candlelight vigil all the while hoisting bags of skittles and posters scrawled with messages like “When did it become justifiable to kill the innocent?” to protest the recent murder of 17-year-old Floridian Trayvon Martin.
On Feb. 26, Martin, wearing a hoodie, went to a nearby gas station to buy a pack of Skittles. A neighborhood patrolman, George Zimmerman, saw Martin and thought he looked suspicious. Zimmerman shot the teenager, claiming his life was threatened.
Many are calling Zimmerman’s murder of Martin an unjust violation of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which gives residents the right to defend themselves if they feel their lives are threatened.
Zimmerman was never arrested because he claimed self-defense.
Outrage over the case heated up in recent weeks after the 911 phone calls from Zimmerman were released to the public.
Elnora Kelly, an organizer of Baton Rouge’s candlelight vigil for Martin, said the event was organized by the Alpha Phi Omega co-ed fraternity after she told her fraternity brothers about the shooting and they shared her outrage.
“My brother had told me about it and I started looking into it and I was really heartbroken because this had happened over a month ago and why are people just hearing about it,” Kelly said.
Kelly said the Baton Rouge event is in coordination with the Million Hoodie Marches taking place in cities all over the country, including New York and Philadelphia.
Participants were led in a prayer by a local pastor from New Hope Church and then introduced to the details surrounding the case. Participants sang a soulful rendition of “Lean On Me” after which they threw Skittles into the Mississippi River in honor of Martin.
All the while, signs lined the levee asking, “Am I next?” and simply, “Justice?” while others questioned the circumstance of Martin’s murder, “Hoodie + Black Male + Skittles.”
In the past few days, other notable people have demanded justice for Martin’s murder.
“It really hit home because that could’ve been my brother. That could’ve been my cousin,” said Briana Collins, kinesiology freshman and an organizer of the vigil.
Collins said the outrage isn’t over a race issue and Zimmerman should’ve been arrested for killing another individual.
Baton Rouge resident Tanya Johnson attended the event with her three children because she said they were upset by Trayvon’s story.
“You should be able to look how you want without anyone being suspicious of you,” she said. “If your kids go to the store, you want them to come home safe.”
President Barack Obama chimed in Friday, saying if he “had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” and asked for justice in the case for Martin, while members of the Miami Heat posted a picture of themselves on Twitter wearing hoods.
Louisiana’s “Stand Your Ground” law deals with “use of force or violence in defense.”
It states, “A person who is not engaged in unlawful activity and who is in a place where he or she has a right to be shall have no duty to retreat before using force or violence as provided for in this Section and may stand his or her ground and meet force with force.”
University law professor Ray Diamond said although Louisiana has a similar “Stand Your Ground” law, the defense would never hold up here.
“In Louisiana, if one is confronted with illegal or the threat of illegal force, one has no duty to retreat,” Diamond said.
However, he said if no illegal force is being used or threatened, one doesn’t have the right to stand his or her ground.
And although the laws in Louisiana are slightly different than those in Florida, Diamond said Zimmerman still should have been arrested.
He said Martin was not aggressing, and therefore Zimmerman had no right to stand his ground. He called Zimmerman’s defense not only “incoherent,” but also “inconsiderable.”
“What we are hearing from the police is a failure to understand what the Florida law is,” Diamond said.
He said it is up to Zimmerman to prove his life was threatened and not the prosecution, as Florida authorities are claiming.
“From what we know, Zimmerman would seem to be the aggressor and Zimmerman was not entitled to use force against Trayvon Martin,” he said.
Diamond was disappointed in Florida’s response to the case.
“The police department and the prosecutors should be embarrassed not to have arrested and not to have prosecuted, especially in Florida where people have the right to conceal and carry, especially in Florida which has a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law,” Diamond said.
 
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Contact Kevin Thibodeaux at [email protected]