Trayvon Martin case spotlights Florida town's history of 'sloppy' police work

Inquiry into events surrounding Trayvon Martin's death has brought scrutiny to the work done by the local police department of Sanford, Florida...

TheGrio Staff

Apr 9, 2012

Inquiry into events surrounding Trayvon Martin’s death has brought scrutiny to the work done by the local police department of Sanford, Florida. Details of the night Martin was killed and police failure to make an arrest led the late teen’s family to claim the investigation was botched. Details of other cases handled by the Sanford police have called attention to their “sloppy” work. One woman, whose son was also murdered, said that the Trayvon Martin case is now bringing attention to the faulty investigation of her own son’s death. The Huffington Post reports:

Prosecutors dropped the murder charge last August and said another man, still unidentified, pulled the trigger. Teresa Ruffin, the victim’s mother, said the police overlooked important evidence — including a witness who pointed to another suspect — and allowed her son’s killer to go free.

“They didn’t do their job,” Ruffin said of the police.

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Ruffin, who is black, said she sees parallels between how Sanford police officers handled her son’s murder and how they investigated the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot to death Feb. 26 by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who told police he acted in self-defense.