Trayvon Benjamin Martin was a 17-year-old African-American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic American.
47 Facts About Trayvon Martin
2.
Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Trayvon Martin and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious.
3.
Trayvon Martin said he shot Martin in self-defense and was not charged at the time.
4.
Also in March, the media coverage surrounding Trayvon Martin's death became the first story of 2012 to be featured more than the presidential race, which was underway at the time.
5.
The name Trayvon Martin was tweeted more than two million times in the 30 days following the shooting.
6.
Trayvon Martin was buried in Dade-Memorial Park, in Miami.
7.
Trayvon Martin was born in Miami, Florida, and attended both Norland Middle School and Highland Oaks Middle School, in north Miami-Dade County, Florida.
8.
Trayvon Martin attended Miami Carol City High School in Miami Gardens for his freshman and sophomore years.
9.
At the time of the shooting, Martin was a junior at Dr Michael M Krop Senior High School in north Miami-Dade.
10.
Trayvon Martin was born in 1995 in Miami, Florida, to Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Trayvon Martin, who divorced in 1999.
11.
At the time of the shooting, Fulton was a program coordinator for the Miami Dade Housing Authority, and Tracy Trayvon Martin was a truck driver; they lived near each other in Miami Gardens.
12.
Trayvon Martin's older maternal half-brother, Jahavaris Fulton, was a college student at the time.
13.
Trayvon Martin said that Trayvon was a kind and loving person, not a 'thug' as the media portrayed him.
14.
When Trayvon Martin was nine years old, he pulled his father, who had been immobilized by burns to the legs, out of a fire in their apartment, saving his life.
15.
Trayvon Martin washed cars, babysat, and cut grass to earn his own money.
16.
Trayvon Martin had played football at the park since he was five years old and his team was coached in part by his father.
17.
Trayvon Martin played for the Wolverines from ages 8 to 13, and sometimes sat out because his father benched him "because he messed up in school".
18.
Trayvon Martin's former football coach said he was a shy child and always walked with his hoodie and headphones on listening to music.
19.
Trayvon Martin recalled that Trayvon had been very skilled at assembling, repairing, and riding pocket bikes and dirt bikes.
20.
Trayvon Martin had wanted to fly or repair airplanes and in mid-2009, enrolled in "Experience Aviation", a seven-week program in Opa-locka, Florida, run by award-winning aviator Barrington Irving.
21.
When Trayvon Martin started high school, his goal of playing professional football was put aside in favor of a career working with airplanes.
22.
Trayvon Martin attended Carol City High School in Miami Gardens for his freshman year and most of his sophomore year, before he transferred to Krop High School in north Miami-Dade in 2011.
23.
Trayvon Martin's ninth-grade teacher, who taught him three classes of Aerospace Technology at the Baker Aviation School, said he was a normal student, well-behaved, who passed all his classes.
24.
Trayvon Martin had been suspended twice before, for tardiness and truancy and marking up a door with graffiti.
25.
The suspension for graffiti was in October 2011, when Trayvon Martin was observed by a school police officer on a security camera "hiding and being suspicious" in a restricted area of the school.
26.
When Trayvon Martin was asked by the officer if the jewelry belonged to his family or a girlfriend, he said a friend had given it to him.
27.
An attorney for Trayvon Martin's family said the parents did not know about the jewelry or screwdriver.
28.
Trayvon Martin was not charged with any crime related to these suspensions and did not have a juvenile record.
29.
Trayvon Martin, known on Twitter by the nickname "Slimm", posted thousands of tweets over a period of months, according to the Miami Herald.
30.
Trayvon Martin tweeted his last message two days before he was shot in February 2012.
31.
Trayvon Martin enjoyed making jokes on Twitter about street culture, and posted YouTube excerpts from films like Friday and Next Friday, which both made fun of street culture.
32.
Trayvon Martin liked rap music and tweeted about Tupac Shakur, DMX and Mystikal.
33.
Trayvon Martin often quoted explicit song lyrics in his tweets.
34.
Critics of Trayvon Martin had pointed out his tattoos, an empty marijuana bag, a photo of Trayvon Martin with gold grills, and texts from his cell phone to claim he had a violent nature and that there was an effort to keep this information from the public.
35.
Some cell phone texts the defense wanted to use showed Trayvon Martin had texted about his fights, marijuana use, and guns, and that he had described himself as "gangsta".
36.
Friends of Trayvon Martin, who had known him from Highland Oaks Middle School and Carol City High School and corresponded with him over Twitter, said Trayvon Martin was not prone to violence.
37.
At a banquet for Associated Press Broadcasters in Florida, Benjamin Crump, and Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's defense attorney, both said the role that social media played immediately following Trayvon Martin's death set a precedent.
38.
O'Mara said the misinformation that was tweeted following Trayvon Martin's death "caused a firestorm that wasn't a full picture".
39.
Tracy Trayvon Martin said he took his son to Sanford "to disconnect and get his priorities straight".
40.
Trayvon Martin had been to Twin Lakes several times before with his father, and sometimes played football with the kids in the neighborhood.
41.
Trayvon Martin went out, walking to a local 7-Eleven store where he bought Skittles candy and an Arizona watermelon drink.
42.
The Miami Herald reported that in the 30 days following the shooting, the name Trayvon Martin was tweeted more than two million times.
43.
Trayvon Martin thought Martin's death could be a similar situation where the death of one person could trigger a reevaluation of society, and revolutionize the justice system and the culture.
44.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism reported in March that media coverage of the Trayvon Martin case had become the first news story in 2012 to be reported on more than the presidential race.
45.
Trayvon Martin said that she was skeptical about the truthfulness of those claims and didn't know if they were real or not.
46.
Trayvon Martin just wanted the world to remember him "as just an average teenager, somebody that was struggling through life, but nevertheless had a life".
47.
On May 13,2017, Trayvon Martin posthumously received a bachelor's degree in aeronautical science from Florida Memorial University "in honor of the steps he took during his young life toward becoming a pilot".