Sybrina Fulton says she wants the president to 'at least investigate what happened.' Martin's mother turns to Obama

Trayvon Martin’s parents on Thursday asked President Barack Obama to go through the details of the shooting death of their son with a fine-tooth comb, saying that American teenagers don’t know how to behave in its wake.

Appearing on “CBS This Morning,” Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton, who appeared along with his father, Tracy Martin, was asked what she wanted the president to do.


“That’s pretty tough. To say the least, at least investigate what happened. At least go through it with a fine-tooth comb and just make sure all the T’s were crossed and all the I’s were dotted, because this is sending a terrible message,” Fulton said. “It’s sending out a terrible message to young teenagers. Trayvon was walking too slow, so should they be walking too fast? You know, so I don’t think teenagers in whole know exactly what to do now.”

(PHOTOS: Trayvon Martin rallies)

Thursday morning was the first time Martin’s parents gave television interviews since the verdict.

Obama released a statement urging calm after a Florida jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Martin last weekend, but he has not spoken publicly about the verdict. The Department of Justice is looking into whether it will bring a civil rights case against Zimmerman, but the White House has said Obama will stay out of the decision.

Martin’s family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said they were examining legal options about whether to bring a civil suit and were asking the Justice Department to weigh in.

“We’re asking the Department of Justice to answer that question for us,” Crump said. “Can a private citizen with a gun profile and follow our children home? Because the United States Supreme Court doesn’t even allow the police to profile people based on race, so this is an issue, we need to know because we got to know what to tell our children.”

Martin’s father said the case was clearly about race.

“Obviously, any time you have a person that makes an assumption that a person is up to no good, there’s some type of profiling there. Was he racially profiled? I think that if Trayvon had been white, this wouldn’t have ever happened. So obviously race played some type of role,” Tracy Martin said on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday.

They also urged those protesting the decision to remain peaceful.

“We have always maintained to do things decent and in order, and we think the protests should be peaceful protests,” Fulton said on NBC. “We’re not saying for them not to protest, because they have a right to protest, they have a right to be heard. But we just want to make sure that it is peaceful, that nobody gets hurt, that nobody gets arrested, that you don’t damage your own property.”

Martin’s parents also spoke more about the effects of the case on them emotionally, saying they were shocked by the verdict.

“As parents, understanding how they reached that verdict, I’ll never grasp that concept. … We feel that the verdict, we didn’t feel it was fair. And of course it’s devastating,” Tracy Martin said in another interview on “Good Morning America” Thursday.

Fulton said she was “stunned” by the verdict.

“I was in a bit of shock. I thought surely that he would be found guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter at the least, but I just knew that they would see that this was a teenager just trying to get home. This was no burglar, this was somebody’s son that was trying to get home,” Fulton said on CBS.

She also responded to one of the jurors, who spoke anonymously with CNN and placed some of the blame for Trayvon’s death on himself.

“I don’t think she knows Trayvon. Trayvon is not a confrontational person. So instead of placing the blame on the teenager, we need to place the blame on the responsible adult. There were two people involved. We had an adult that was chasing a kid, and we had the kid, who I feel was afraid,” Fulton said on CBS.

This article tagged under: Trayvon Martin

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