In his first televised interview Wednesday evening, Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman told Fox News channel's Sean Hannity that he does not regret the events of that fateful night, calling it "all God's plan."
Zimmerman used the interview on Hannity as an opportunity to provide his version of what happened in the critical moments leading up to Trayvon's shooting. Flanked by his lawyer, Mark O’Mara, and speaking calmly, Zimmerman chronicled the sequence of events leading up to Trayvon's shooting, reiterating his previous claim that Trayvon was the initial aggresor, attacking him and "bashing [his] head into the concrete sidewalk.”
Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, released a statement in response to Zimmerman's via his attorney's Twitteraccount shortly after the interview, stating, “we must worship a different God because there is no way that MY GOD would have wanted George Zimmerman to KILL my teenage son.”
When asked what he would tell Trayvon's parents, Zimmerman said, "I'm sorry," adding that he is open to meeting with them. However, when asked by Hannity whether he held any lingering regrets about carrying a gun that night or getting out of his car, Zimmerman confidently replied, "no."
"I'm not a racist and I'm not a murderer," Zimmerman also told Hannity when asked what he wanted people to know about the case. Prosecutors in the case, as well as Trayvon's parents and their lawyers, have contended that the teenager was racially profiled by Zimmerman. Trayvon was Black. Zimmerman's father is white and his mother is Peruvian.
Later in the interview, Zimmerman attempted to clarify his previous statement regarding regrets saying that in hindsight he wishes there was something he could have done that "would have put [him] in the position where [he] didn’t have to take [Trayvon's] life."
Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting death of the 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. He has pleaded not guilty, saying he shot the teenager in self-defense. He invoked Florida’s controversial "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows citizens to use deadly force against another person if they consider themselves to be in danger.
During the interview he also addressed claims that he molested a female cousin and dispelled rumors that Hannity paid for his legal fees.
Meanwhile, earlier Wednesday, Mark O'Mara said he had no previous knowledge his client had collected money from an Internet site that was offering support.
The Miami Herald had previously reported that one of the recordings released by the prosecutors of George Zimmerman indicated the shooter had told a friend that his lawyer knew $37,000 was being transferred from one account to another.
O’Mara has long maintained he was unaware of the $130,000 that had been sent to Zimmerman’s website. It was a contention he has repeated for some time. The recordings, which were made when Zimmerman was in jail, offer a different point of view from Zimmerman.
Zimmerman was freed on $150,000 bond after his wife Shellie claimed that she and her husband were destitute. However, prosecutors later discovered that the Zimmermans had received more than $130,000 from his legal defense site. Zimmerman was ordered to return to jail and was later released on $1 million bond. Shellie was arrested and charged perjury.
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