ABC News has obtained a surveillance video of George Zimmerman taken the night after he killed 17 year old Trayvon Martin with a gun. Martin was armed with Skittles and an iced tea. Zimmerman’s defense is that Martin injured him and the police report talks about Zimmerman’s injuries. None appear in this video:
ABC’s report says this:
A police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who says he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.
The surveillance video, which was obtained exclusively by ABC News, shows Zimmerman arriving in a police cruiser. As he exits the car, his hands are cuffed behind his back. Zimmerman is frisked and then led down a series of hallways, still cuffed.
Zimmerman, 28, is wearing a red and black fleece and his face and head are cleanly shaven. He appears well built, hardly the portly young man depicted in a 2005 mug shot that until a two days ago was the single image the media had of Zimmerman.
The initial police report noted that Zimmerman was bleeding from the back of the head and nose, and after medical attention it was decided that he was in good enough condition to travel in a police cruiser to the Sanford, Fla., police station for questioning.
His lawyer later insisted that Zimmerman’s nose had been broken in his scuffle with 17-year-old Martin.In the video an officer is seen pausing to look at the back of Zimmerman’s head, but no abrasions or blood can be seen in the video and he did not check into the emergency room following the police questioning.
Let’s just say this is…eyebrow raising…
Then surely Martin’s body showed signs of a struggle. Or did it?
The funeral director who prepared Trayvon Martin’s body for burial told HLN’s Nancy Grace Wednesday that he did not see any cuts or bruises on the teen’s hands that would have been indicative of a struggle with George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed the Florida teen.
Richard Kurtz of Roy Mizell and Kurtz Funeral Home in Fort Lauderdale said there appeared to be a gunshot wound in Martin’s upper chest area, but he received the body after the autopsy was completed so it was difficult to tell whether he had other injuries. He also could not determine the bullet’s entry or exit point.
“As for his hands and knuckles, I didn’t see any evidence he had been fighting anybody,” Kurtz said.
Citing police sources, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Zimmerman told investigators Martin punched him and slammed his head into the ground repeatedly before he fired the shot that killed the unarmed 17-year-old. He claimed he shot Martin in self-defense, and he has not been charged in the case at this point.
FOOTNOTE: In most cases if someone was punched hard in the nose you’d see it either on the nose or the face would be swollen. Even with not perfect lighting and camera angles you can say: there is no sign of that in this video. Or is this a case where blood and swelling (expected on Zimmerman if you believe his account) vanish and so do scratches on Martin’s body? Yes, there could be an explanation — but it’s clear this case raises a slew of questions..and some of them are likely to linger when it comes to its legal conclusion.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.