The neighborhood watch volunteer who shot a Miami teenager to death in February, triggering national protests, says he has no regrets over his actions, and believes that the entire “tragic situation” as he called it, was part of “God’s plan.”
George Zimmerman made the statements in his first media interview, which he and his attorney, Mark O’Mara, granted exclusively to Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Hannity spoke to Zimmerman by telephone in April without the knowledge of Zimmerman’s then lawyers. He used Wednesday’s interview to confirm that he did not offer to pay any of the legal expenses for the 28-year-old’s second degree murder case. Fox News had previously denied allegations that Zimmerman told a relative during a jailhouse call that “SH” had offered to cover his legal bills.
The Fox News host opened the interview by asking why Zimmerman became a neighborhood watch volunteer. According to Zimmerman, his participation was sparked by a 2011 home invasion inside the Retreat at Twin Lakes townhome gated community, during which the suspects ran through the Zimmermans’ back yard while his wife Shellie was home alone and he promised to “do what [he] could to keep her safe.”
Zimmerman claimed that he had never heard of the Stand Your Ground law that has become a lighting rod in the case. He said he always carried his gun unless he was going to work, and that on the night of February 26th, he was going to Target to shop for groceries, when he spotted the teen, who he said “looked suspicious.”
“I felt he was suspicious because it was raining,” Zimmerman said. “He was in-between houses, cutting in-between houses, and he was walking very leisurely for the weather. … It didn’t look like he was a resident that went to check their mail and got caught in the rain and was hurrying back home. He didn’t look like a fitness fanatic that would train in the rain.”
Hannity did much of the talking during the interview, with Zimmerman often saying little more than “yes sir.” He led Zimmerman through a recitation of statements he has previously given police, stating that Zimmerman has said Martin was “checking him out” as he sat in his car watching the teen. However, when asked whether he felt threatened by the teen during the time he called the police non-emergency line and told dispatchers that, Zimmerman responded, “no, not particularly.”
Zimmerman said that as the teen watched him seated in his car, talking on the phone with police dispatchers, Martin’s “body language was confrontational,” and that he could see the teen “reach into his waistband” as if trying to intimidate him, by indicating he may have had a “weapon.”
Much of what Zimmerman told Hannity has been heard before, as part of the evidence released by prosecutors to the defense and the media in the case. But some details diverged from the previous narrative, or from the known facts in the case — a potential challenge for O’Mara once the case goes to trial.
Next: Zimmerman says Martin wasn’t running
Zimmerman said that after exiting his vehicle, he was never more than 100 feet from his car, which was parked on the front side of the town houses along the gated community’s main road. The confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin took place in the back yard area of the homes — a place from which Zimmerman’s car would not have been visible.
He denied following Martin, despite telling a police dispatcher “yes” when asked if he was following the teen, saying he was attempting to look for a street address.
Asked about the part of the call to the Sanford non-emergency line where Zimmerman can be heard saying “he’s running,” Zimmerman told Hannity he did not believe it was possible that Martin could have been running away from him out of fear. In fact, Zimmerman told Hannity that Martin wasn’t running at all.
“Is there any chance in retrospect as you look back on that night and what happened, and the nation obviously is paying a lot of attention to this … trying to maybe get into the mind-set, because we also have learned that Trayvon was speaking with his girlfriend supposedly at the time — that maybe he was afraid of you, didn’t know who you were?” Hannity asked.
“No,” Zimmerman said.
When Hannity reminded Zimmerman that he “said he’s running” on the taped call to police, Zimmerman said Martin as “like skipping, going away quickly. But he wasn’t running out of fear.”
“So he wasn’t actually running?” Hannity reiterated.
“No sir.”
“O.k. because that’s what you said to the dispatcher,” Hannity said, “that you thought he was running.”
Zimmerman also denied that he could be heard out of breath on the dispatch tapes, or that he was running — presumably in pursuit of Martin — that night. Hannity didn’t press him.
Zimmerman recited the now-familiar version of events he told police, saying Martin surprised and attacked him, and after punching him and breaking his nose, began banging Zimmerman’s head on the concrete walkway, then covered his mouth, all the time telling him to “shut up” and that he was going to kill him.
Hannity asked Zimmerman to recall the moment when he said he felt that his life was in danger and that he may have to use deadly force to get Martin off of him. “I realized it wasn’t my gun, it wasn’t his gun, it was the gun,” Zimmerman said. “He yelled, ‘you’re going to die tonight.’ That’s when I felt his hand leaving my mouth, going toward my waist for the gun. And I realized I didn’t have any more time.”
Next: Zimmerman ‘didn’t think Martin was hit’
Zimmerman also said that after discharging his gun, he didn’t think he’d hit Martin, and didn’t know he was dead until “an hour later,” when he was taken to the police station for questioning. However, a witness, who was the first on the scene to talk to Zimmerman, just before the first police officer arrived, told investigators Zimmerman told him he had “just shot someone,” and asked him to call his wife.
“After the shooting did you — and you saw that he was laying there, and obviously injured, there was a moment when you realized he was shot?” Hannity asked.
“Like I said,” Zimmerman responded, “he sat up and he said something to the effect of ‘you got it’ or ‘you got me.’ I assumed he meant, ‘OK, you got the gun, I didn’t get it. I’m not going to fight anymore.’ At which point I got out from under him.”
Several witnesses questioned by police expressed confusion about which person they saw on top during the fight between Martin and Zimmerman. At least one witness told state attorney’s investigators she believed the “larger man” who walked away after the gunshot was on top. That question is considered crucial to the outcome of the case.
Hannity asked if Zimmerman regretted getting out of his car, following Martin or carrying a gun that night. Zimmerman replied, “No,” adding that he would not have done anything differently.
“I feel that it’s all God’s plan and I shouldn’t question it,” he said.
That answer drew a sharp response from Martin’s family, who issued a statement through their attorneys saying: “George Zimmerman said that he does not regret getting out of his vehicle, he does not regret following Trayvon, in fact he does not regret anything he did that night. He wouldn’t do anything different and he concluded it was God’s plan.”
“We must worship a different God,” Martin’s father, Tracy Martin said. “Because there is no way that MY God would have wanted G. Zimmerman to KILL my teenage son.”
Asked what he would tell Martin’s parents, Zimmerman said, “I’m sorry that they buried their child,” adding, “I can’t imagine what it must feel like. I pray for them daily.”
O’Mara would not permit Zimmerman to answer questions about the allegations that Zimmerman and his wife hid money raised through his website from the court prior to his April 20 bond hearing. Zimmerman did answer a question about Witness 9, a younger cousin who accused his family of “disliking black people” and who accused Zimmerman of molesting her from age 6 to 16. Zimmerman said the FBI “cleared him” of any accusations of racial bias, and called it “ironic” that the “only person anyone could find” accusing him of racial bias “also accuses me of being deviant.” A federal probe of the shooting remains open, pending the outcome of the state criminal case.
Responding to the sexual abuse allegations, O’Mara told Hannity Zimmerman’s legal team was unlikely to take the time and resources to respond to the allegations, and said he didn’t expect them to be an issue at trial.
Asked how he would respond to questions of whether racial profiling had anything to do with his confrontation with Martin, Zimmerman said: “I’m not a racist and I’m not a murderer.”
Toward the end of the interview, Zimmerman said he thought the media had covered the case unfairly, and had “ignored anything positive,” and said he felt he is owed an apology by director Spike Lee, who tweeted an address he thought was Zimmerman’s (Lee later apologized and reached a settlement with the homeowner whose address mistakenly wound up online). “If I did something wrong, I would apologize,” Zimmerman said.
Caryn Freeman contributed to this report. Follow Caryn on Twitter at @CarynFreemanDC and Joy Reid at @thereidreport