Trayvon Martin family attends star-studded New York vigil

Demonstrators symbolically wearing hoodies gathered in New York
and Florida on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of the shooting death
of unarmed black teenager Martin.

  Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, were joined by actor Jamie Foxx and a crowd of about 200 people on Tuesday evening in Manhattan’s Union Square Park. The 17-year-old unarmed Martin, who had been wearing a hooded sweatshirt, was killed by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman last year in a gated community in Florida.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tuesday, February 26, 2013, 11:11 PM

 NEW YORK — Trayvon Martin’s family marked the anniversary of his shooting death with a candlelight vigil in the city.

Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, were joined by actor Jamie Foxx and a crowd of about 200 people on Tuesday evening in Manhattan’s Union Square Park. They lit candles and held a moment of silence at 7:17 p.m., the time Martin was fatally shot on Feb. 26, 2012.

“I’m the mother of two boys,” Fulton said. “I have one son on earth and one son in heaven.”

The 17-year-old unarmed black teenager, who had been wearing a hooded sweatshirt, was killed by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman after the two got into a confrontation in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. Civil rights leaders said that if Martin had been white, Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother is Hispanic, would have been arrested immediately instead of weeks later.
Jacksonville prosecutor Angela Corey took over the investigation and filed second-degree murder charges against Zimmerman a month and a half after Martin’s shooting. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense, and his trial is set for June.

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