A Taiwanese media company known for animating major international news events has created an animated reconstruction of the Trayvon Martin killing.
Next Media Animations created “Trayvon Martin Death: A Reconstruction,” which, according to the Taiwan-based company, serves to “explain the events leading up to and following Martin’s death from the accounts of Zimmerman and Martin’s girlfriend.”
The animated reconstruction includes excerpts from audio 911 recordings made the night of the shooting.
While the reconstruction is based only on the company’s depiction of the events that night, it does, perhaps for the first time, put in live motion what could have happened on Feb. 26, the night Martin was killed.
Martin, 17, was killed by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who said he shot the teen in self-defense. Just minutes before the shooting, Zimmerman called 911 and reported Martin as a “suspicious” person. The dispatcher told Zimmerman to stand down and to wait for police officers to arrive. But Zimmerman followed Martin, confronting him and eventually shooting him in the chest with a 9mm handgun. The details of the night vary widely, depending on who is recalling them.
The police said that Zimmerman told investigators that he followed the teen, and as he got out of his vehicle to note the nearest address to give to officers, Martin attacked him. But witness accounts and an account given to Martin’s lawyers by Martin’s 16-year-old girlfriend paint a different picture all together. The unidentified girl said that she was on the phone with Martin moments before he was killed. She said that Martin told her that he was being followed by a stranger. At one point she said that she heard a man asking Martin what he was doing there. Then she heard a scuffle, the phone fell to the ground, and the line went dead.
The police questioned Zimmerman but soon let him go, saying that they did not have enough evidence to charge him with a crime. Zimmerman remains free.
Martin’s killing has sparked national outrage and protests calling for Zimmerman’s arrest.