Arrest demand grows in Fla teen's shooting death

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — The investigation into last month's shooting death of an
unarmed black teenager in an Orlando suburb is out of the hands of the
beleaguered police chief and the county prosecutor with the Justice Department looking at
possible civil rights
violations and a grand jury perhaps considering charges.

Until admitted shooter George
Zimmerman is led away in handcuffs, the parents of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the civil rights
activists and others who have rallied for their cause say they won't be
satisfied.

"We cannot allow a precedent when a man can just kill one of us ... and then
walk out with the murder weapon," said civil rights leader Al Sharpton, flanked
by Martin's parents and a stage full of supporters at a rally in Sanford on
Thursday night. "We don't want good enough. We want George Zimmerman in court
with handcuffs behind his back."

Police Chief Bill Lee said
earlier in the day that he was stepping down temporarily to try to cool the
building anger that his department did not arrest neighborhood watch volunteer
Zimmerman, who has said he shot Martin on Feb. 26 in self-defense. Hours later,
the governor announced that the local state attorney, Norman Wolfinger, had
recused himself from the case.

Martin's parents, Tracy
Martin and Sybrina Fulton, believe Zimmerman should have been arrested.
They claim he was profiling their son and acted like a vigilante.

Tracy Martin told the thousands at the rally to keep his son in their
minds.

"If Trayvon were here, he would have been here tonight," he said. "He was a
people person. Let's get justice for your son."

The signs, chants and sentiments all came down to a demand for justice in the
case. Another rally was set for the state capitol Friday and students at
Martin's Miami high school planned to walk out in protest in the afternoon.

At Thursday's protest, some people carried signs that said: "100 years of
lynching, justifiable homicide. Same thing." Others sold T-shirts that read:
"Arrest Zimmerman."

"It's the norm around here, where anything involving black culture, they want
to wipe their hands of it," said Shella Moore, who is black and grew up in
Sanford.

The Justice Department and FBI have opened a civil rights investigation, and the local prosecutor
before he quit the case convened a grand jury April 10 to determine whether to
charge Zimmerman.

Martin was returning from a trip to a convenience store when Zimmerman
started following him, telling police dispatchers he looked suspicious. At some
point, the two got into a fight and Zimmerman pulled out his gun.

Zimmerman told police Martin attacked him after he had given up on chasing
the teenager and was returning to his sport utility vehicle. Police say the
28-year-old Zimmerman is white; his family says he's Hispanic.

The shooting ignited resentment toward the police department in this Orlando
suburb for not making an arrest. Civil rights groups have held rallies in
Florida and New York, saying the shooting was unjustified. Of Sanford's 53,000
residents, 57 percent are white and 30 percent are black.

In a letter to Gov. Rick Scott, state attorney Wolfinger said that while he
thought he could fairly oversee any prosecution that develops in the case, his
recusal was aimed at "toning down the rhetoric and preserving the integrity of
the investigation." Scott appointed Angela B. Corey, the state attorney for the
Jacksonville area, to take over.

The chief's decision came less than a day after city commissioners gave him a
"no confidence" vote and after a couple of weeks of protests and uproar on
social media websites. Lee has said evidence supported Zimmerman's assertion
that the shooting was in self-defense.

"I do this in the hopes of restoring some semblance of calm to a city which
has been in turmoil for several weeks," Lee said.

The chief said he stood behind his agency's investigation.

"As a former homicide investigator, a career law enforcement officer and a
father, I am keenly aware of the emotions associated with this tragic death of a
child. I'm also aware that my role as a leader of this agency has become a
distraction from the investigation," Lee said.

Martin's parents said the police chief's action wasn't enough, and that
Zimmerman should be taken into custody.

"We want an arrest, we want a conviction and we want him sentenced for the
murder of my son," Martin's father, Tracy, said to the fiery crowd of protesters
at Fort Mellon Park.

It wasn't immediately clear how long the police chief would step aside. Some
people said he should just quit.

"If they wanted to defuse a potential powder keg, he needed to resign," said
pastor Eugene Walton, 58, who was born and raised in Sanford. "His inaction
speaks loudly to the black community."

News of the police chief's decision to step aside spread quickly among the
protesters, many of whom showed up more than two hours before the start of the
rally. They chanted "The chief is gone. Zimmerman is next."

Dick Gregory, a comedian who uses humor to convey his civil rights message,
said the steady pressure should be the goal going forward.

"All you have to do is be a turtle," he said. "Hard on the outside, soft on
the inside and willing to stick your neck out."