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Watching The Watchers: The Growing Privatization Of Criminal Law Enforcement And The Need For Limits On Neighborhood Watch Associations, Sharon Finegan

University of Massachusetts Law Review

On the night of February 26, 2012, George Zimmerman, a member of a neighborhood watch program, was patrolling his community in Sanford, Florida, when he spotted Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old Africa-American high school student, walking through the neighborhood. Zimmerman dialed 911 and indicated that he was following "a real suspicious guy". The police dispatcher requested that Zimmerman discontinue following Martin, but he ignored the request and approached the teenager. In the resulting confrontation, Zimmerman used his legally owned semi-automatic handgun to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin. Martin, who was unarmed, had been returning from a local convenience store. George Zimmerman …