'If Trayvon was white what would have happened?': Rachel Jeantel says jury cleared Zimmerman 'because of race' as protesters take to streets across America with violent clashes in LA and Oakland

Star witness Rachel Jeantel spoke publicly for first time since in court

Trayvon Martin's friend said that she was 'disappointed, angry, upset'

Jeantel said untreated underbite caused her to have difficulty speaking

Protests continue across U.S. after Zimmerman was acquitted of murder



Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel, revealed last night that she ‘had a feeling’ that the largely white-female jury would find George Zimmerman not guilty because of their race.



'If Trayvon was white and he had a hoodie on, would that have happened?' said Miss Jeantel, who was the last person to speak to the teen.



Meanwhile protests continued throughout the U.S. as thousands of people gathered in Atlanta, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama, as well as smaller crowds in New York City and Washington D.C.



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Her side: Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel said that she was 'disappointed' by the outcome and she believes that George Zimmerman thought Martin was a thug

Miss Jeantel said that she believed the jury misinterpreted much of her two days of testimony, saying that neither she nor Martin used the word 'cracka' as a racial slur.

Instead they consider it a common way to describe how a man like Zimmerman was acting at the time of the February 2012 incident, she added.

She defined the word as fitting 'a person who acts like they're like a police, a security guard acting like a police (officer)'.

She said she is certain that there was a struggle between Zimmerman and Martin because his Android phone went off by one of them touching the screen.

'What do you think was going through George's mind that night: "I'm finally going to get one,"' she said of what she thought the neighborhood watchman was looking - and hoping - for at the time given the spate of break ins.

Father and son: Jovan Blacknell (right) and his boy Justice attend a peaceful protest of the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, in Los Angeles, California, on Monday

Running: People jump on a car on Crenshaw Boulevard during a protest against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin trial in Los Angeles, California

On guard: Two men stand near a Los Angeles police officer during a protest against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin trial in Los Angeles, California

Masses: Demonstrators walk up Martin Luther King Jr. Drive as they march to downtown to protest George Zimmerman's not guilty verdict in the 2012 shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin in Atlanta, Georgia

Candles: Aaliyah Wright (centre), nine, participates in a vigil for Trayvon Martin, the teenager who was shot and killed in Florida last year, in New York City Pensive: A woman participates in a candle lit vigil for Trayvon Martin, the teenager who was shot and killed in Florida last year, in New York City

Miss Jeantel, who seemed much more confident on the CNN set next to her lawyer than she did on the witness stand, touched on a number of the criticisms that she faced both in the courtroom and on social media, including her attitude, choice of words, and her decision not to attend her friend's funeral.



'I didn't put Trayvon in that casket... I did not plan for that week to be at a funeral,' she said.

Juror B37 said that the way Miss Jeantel spoke and the phrases that she used caused some of her testimony to get lost in translation.

'I didn't think it was very credible but I felt very sorry for her... I think she felt inadequate in front of everyone because of her education and communication skills,' the juror told Mr Cooper.



When that quote was played for Miss Jeantel she said that she felt angry about the juror's comments, offering instead that generational differences caused bigger problems in terms of getting the point across.

'Well, the jury, they see their facts. My thoughts of the jury, they old, that's old school people. We in a new school, our generation, my generation.'



Miss Jeantel also used her CNN interview as a time to paint a different picture of her slain friend than the one that defense built, bringing up the fact that his bloodstream showed low amounts of marijuana.



She said that while she doesn't smoke marijuana, Martin did about twice a week- a practice that she feels is common in their area.

On the brink: Police cars were attacked in Oakland on the second night of protests following the acquittal

Mayhem: A group of protestors try to tear down a fence in Los Angeles where the demonstrations turned violent on Monday night and many were arrested

Damage: Rioters in Oakland wrecked storefronts after a protest turned chaotic

In his name: Martin's family have put out a statement urging protestors to remain non-violent (person pictured spray painting the victim's name in Oakland)



'Weed for Trayvon... it don't make him go crazy it just make him go hungry,' she said.

She vehemently denied Zimmerman's claims that Martin was peeking in the windows of houses on his walk home- which led the neighborhood watchman to believe he was going to rob a home in the area.

'Trayvon is not a thug, they need to know a definition of a thug to judge,' she said.

She told CBS Miami that told Martin to run on the night he died: 'I kept telling him to run, run, run. run.

Miss Jeantel said she had thought the sentence would be harsher.

'Because they had asked for manslaughter information, right? Clarification on it. So I was like ‘yeah, ok we gonna do it! We are getting justice! Oh, thank you Jesus’, and all that, she told the news channe. But she said she was let down by the verdict when it came in. “You want me to be honest? I was sleeping. Lying down because I knew what it was, I had a feeling. I was lying in my room. My auntie just came in my room and busted out crying and said ‘we didn’t get no justice. It’s like the old days, we just lost another child, we just lost Trayvon again’.' All over: The protests took place across the country, with a large crowd gathering in Minneapolis Monday

Ones in the fight: Jeantel felt Zimmerman (left) was looking for a fight when he followed Martin (right)

Courtroom confrontation: Jeantal, seen here on her second day of testimony, said that she did not 'cuss out' defense attorney Don West because she's 'a Christian'

In the third part of Pier Morgan asked his guest if there was anything she wished she’d said on the stand.

Miss Jeante answered with one word: 'Ni***.'



She told Morgan that 'the whole world say it’s a racist word' but the version of the word that she testified Martin had used in reference to Zimmerman which has an 'a' instead of an 'er' does not have a racist meaning.



When Morgan asked if it meant a 'black male,' Miss Jeantel said it meant any type of make including a 'Chinese' man.



'But n*****,' Jeantel said , stressing the 'er' part is a 'racist word.'

She told Morgan 'I’d advise you not to be by black people... because they’re not going to have it like that.'

The first juror to speak out following the acquittal of Zimmerman revealed that half of the jury wanted to convict him for killing Martin.

Three of the six female jurors believed he was innocent from the beginning of their deliberations, while one wanted to convict the neighborhood watchman of second degree murder and the other two wanted to find him guilty of manslaughter.

In the end they all found him innocent, but that did not make them feel any better, as all six of the women reportedly broke down in tears after submitting their final votes to the foreman on Saturday.

‘It's just hard thinking that somebody lost their life and there's nothing else that can be done about it,' the juror told Anderson Cooper.

'It's a tragedy this happened, but it happened. I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into. I think both of them could have walked away it just didn't happen.'

National issue: Demonstrators protested in Atlanta on Monday, two nights after the verdict was handed down Cause: Protestors in Birmingham, Alabama called for further action to be taken, which will likely come from the Justice Department as they continue an investigation into the possibility of a civil suit against Zimmerman for a potential hate crime Immediate: Jeantel said she had no idea how big the case would get (like the thousands of people who filled Manhattan's Times Square on Sunday night)

Making a statement: Activist Quanell X (right) leads a protest in Houston and they brought an empty casket along

Making a statement: Activist Quanell X (right) leads a protest in Houston and they brought an empty casket along