Trial Day 2 – HOA, Police Responders

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Don West, Florida, George Zimmerman, John Guy, Murder, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Sanford Florida, Trayvon Martin, trial

The prosecution called Donald O’Brien the president of the Homeowners Association at Twin Lakes. O’Brien said the neighborhood watch had nothing to do with the HOA, and Zimmerman started it on his own. O’Brien said the reason why Zimmerman was in charge of the neighborhood watch is, because he went to the police and organized it.

“Everybody was supposed to watch out for their neighbors. If they see something suspicious stay away and call the police,” said O’Brien.

Prosecutor Mantei asked O’Brien to tell jurors about how a man was caught breaking into a house in the neighborhood. O’Brien said some construction workers followed a suspicious person in the neighborhood and caught him breaking into the house. So he sent out an email to the community praising the construction workers.

O’Brien raised his voice while explaining that no one ever told the neighborhood watch volunteers to follow suspicious people.

The prosecution then called Sergeant Anthony Raimondo to the stand. He’s the training coordinator for the Sanford Police Department. He’s also on the Seminole County SWAT unit. He was a patrol sergeant the night Martin was shot.

Raimondo says he heard the call go out for a suspicious person. The call was later upgraded to shots fired. He arrived on scene within five minutes.

Prosecutor Guy showed Sgt. Raimondo a map of Zimmerman’s neighborhood. Raimondo shows jurors where he entered into the complex and where he parked. He says he angled his lights on the scene because lighting was poor. It was drizzling, according to Raimondo. He took Trayvon Martin’s pulse on his neck and says he didn’t find anything. He moved his body onto his back and tried for a pulse again and didn’t find anything. “I breathed for Mr. Martin – or I tried to, sir,” said Raimondo.

Standard Operating Producers require him to use a mask but he says he didn’t have one with him. He considered the situation to be an “extraordinary circumstance.” He later asked for and received a breathing mask.

Raimondo heard bubbling sounds from Martin’s chest. He asked the crowd for plastic wrap and Vaseline, which he would use to try and seal the chest wound. A bystander gave him a grocery bag. Raimondo raised Martin to a seated position so he could seal the exit wound on Martin’s back first. He couldn’t find an exit wound so he put Martin down on his back and continued CPR. When rescuers arrived, they hooked up an EKG machine to Martin. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Raimondo put an emergency blanket on Martin’s body out of respect for Martin and his family, and to preserve evidence.

The prosecution next called Diana Smith to the witness stand. She is a crime scene technician with the Sanford Police Department. Smith responded to the scene where Martin was shot at around 7:55 p.m. ET. The scene had been taped off and they were experiencing rain showers on and off. It had been raining prior to her arrival.

Smith said she starts by photographing a scene. She does it in stages – first without evidence markers and then with evidence markers. Some of her photos show how it was raining that night. Her diagram was used to make a computerized rendition of the crime scene.

Most of the remainder of questions for Smith were pretty dry. Mostly about evidence collection procedures, what type of swabs they use, who’s responsible for latent print and DNA analysis, measurements between evidence markers on the scene, etc.