{"id":22593,"date":"2013-07-18T15:41:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T19:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=22593"},"modified":"2013-07-18T16:04:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T20:04:42","slug":"naacp-petition-to-department-of-justice-has-1-million-signatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=22593","title":{"rendered":"NAACP Petition To Dept. Of Justice Has 1 Million Signatures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the NAACP is holding its Annual NationalConvention in Orlando. As of Tuesday morning, one million people had signed an NAACP petition asking the Department of Justice to pursue federal and civil rights charges against <strong>George Zimmerman <\/strong>after he was founded not guilty in the murder of <strong>Trayvon Martin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benjamin Jealous<\/strong>, National President and CEO of the NAACP said, \u201cI knew I was not alone in my outrage, anger, and heartbreak over this decision. When a teenager\u2019s life is taken, and there is no accountability for the man who killed him, nothing seems right in the world. But we cannot let these emotions rule us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first step is clear: we must make sure that <strong>George Zimmerman<\/strong> is held accountable for his actions. He further said that the trial judge\u2019s decision to discount debate about race or racial profiling in the courtroom leaves open questions about <strong>Zimmerman\u2019s <\/strong>motivation and intent.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Justice has the power to investigate whether <strong>Zimmerman\u2019s<\/strong> actions constitute a hate crime under federal law. The Department has closely monitored the case since March, and only put their investigation on hold to respect the state\u2019s trial. Anyone wishing to sign the NAACP\u2019s petition can visit the website at <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>www.naacp.org. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Holder Address Convention<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22595\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Eric-H.-Holder-Jr..gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22595\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-22595\" src=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Eric-H.-Holder-Jr.-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-22595\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric H. Holder, Jr.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>U. S. Attorney General <strong>Eric Holder, Jr<\/strong>. was among those who addressed the convention. <strong>Attorney General Holder<\/strong> said, \u201cEven as this convention proceeds, we are all mindful of the tragic and unnecessary shooting death of <strong>Trayvon Martin<\/strong> last year in Sanford, just a short distance from here, and the state trial that reached its conclusion last Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to join<strong> President (Barack) Obama<\/strong> in urging all Americans to recognize that \u2013 as he said \u2013 we are a nation of laws, and the jury has spoken. I know the NAACP and its members are deeply, and rightly, concerned about this case \u2013 as passionate civil rights leaders, as engaged citizens, and \u2013 most of all \u2013 as parents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis afternoon, I want to assure you of two things:\u00a0 I am concerned about this case and as we confirmed last spring, the Justice Department has an open investigation into it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the NAACP is holding its Annual NationalConvention in Orlando. As of Tuesday morning, one million people had signed an NAACP petition asking the Department of Justice to pursue federal and civil rights charges against George Zimmerman after he was founded not guilty in the murder of Trayvon Martin. Benjamin Jealous, National President and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}