A key witness in the Trayvon Martin murder trial was grilled in court Thursday about her cell phone call with the teen shooting victim minutes before he was killed by a volunteer neighborhood watchman.
Rachel Jeantel, 19, a close friend of Martin’s who said she was on the phone with him during his final minutes alive, testified that the unarmed teen said he was being pursued and appeared to have been accosted during the fatal encounter on a rainy night in February of last year.
According to Jeantel, Martin told her during their phone call that “he was being followed by a creepy ass cracker” — a pejorative term employed by some African-Americans to refer to whites.
In hours of testimony that spanned over two days, Jeantel recounted that she was chatting on the phone with Martin as he walked through the gated community, when he became aware that he was being followed.
She said she heard an angry exchange of words, including Martin demanding of the man “why you following me for?”
“A hard-breathing man,” she said, responded “what are you doing around here?”
Jeantel testified that there were “noises” and that she heard the teen yell “get off, get off. The phone call then cut off.”
During cross-examination, Zimmerman’s defense attorney Don West noted minor inconsistencies in the account of the story Jeantel told on the witness stand and what she said in the days immediately following the shooting.
Martin, 17, was visiting a family friend in the neighborhood and was coming back from a convenience store just before his run-in with Zimmerman.
The son of an American father and a Peruvian mother, Zimmerman has denied any racial motive in the killing, saying he shot Martin only because he feared his life was in danger.
The volunteer neighborhood watchman said he phoned police when he saw Martin walking in a hooded sweatshirt in a gated community in Sanford, Florida which had seen a string of recent robberies.
Zimmerman told police that he found Martin’s behavior suspicious, but was instructed by not to follow Martin.
Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to charges of second degree murder, saying he shot Martin in self-defense after the teen wrestled him to the ground and pounded his head against the sidewalk.
A jury of six women is hearing the second degree murder trial of Zimmerman, a case that inflamed racial tensions in the United States.
Florida investigators initially opted not to press charges in the case, setting off a furor, with Martin’s supporters alleging racism and pointing to the fact that the teenager was carrying no weapon at the time of his death and had no criminal record.
The incident, widely covered in the US media, also inited debate over the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows the use of firearms in self-defense even when it is possible to flee.
Friend testifies over shooting victim's phone call
