Justice Dept. won't charge Zimmerman in death

George Zimmerman, shown in November 2013, tells an Orlando TV station he is auctioning off the 9 mm handgun he used to shoot Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

(Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel file photo via AP)

ORLANDO, Florida -- George Zimmerman, who was found not guilty of murder in the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, is auctioning off the handgun involved in the incident, reports say.

Zimmerman tells Orlando TV station WOFL Channel 35 that he has put the 9 mm handgun up for sale in an online auction, which will go live at 11 a.m. Thursday. The opening bid is $5,000.

"I recently received it back from the Department of Justice. They took it after my trial, after I was exonerated," Zimmerman tells WOFL.

Zimmerman said he has received several death threats over the years and has received more since he decided to put the gun up for auction.

"What I've decided to do is not cower," Zimmerman says. "I'm a free American. I can do what I want with my possessions."

Martin's family declined to comment on the sale, but released a statement to the TV station:

"The Trayvon Martin Foundation is committed to its mission of ending senseless gun violence in the United States. This election season, we are laser focused on furthering that mission. As such, the foundation has no comment on the actions of that person."

Zimmerman shot Martin, 17, on Feb. 26, 2012, after confronting him in a gated community on a rainy night in Sanford, Fla. Defense attorneys said the case was classic self-defense, claiming Martin knocked Zimmerman down and was slamming the older man's head against the concrete sidewalk when Zimmerman fired his gun.

Prosecutors called Zimmerman a liar and portrayed him was a "wannabe cop" vigilante who had grown frustrated by break-ins in his neighborhood committed primarily by young black men. Zimmerman assumed Martin, who was unarmed, was up to no good and took the law into his own hands, prosecutors said.

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