UPDATE: 8:30 PM EST
Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin appeared on the Anderson Cooper show to tell the world that the acquittal of George Zimmerman “broke us down.”
Fulton told Cooper that she felt the need to sit through every day of George Zimmerman’s trial because her son was “not here to say anything for himself.”
She added that she needed to “show a face” for her son.
And his father, Tracy Martin, said that listening to the negative testimony about his son was difficult to hear.
“That wasn’t the Trayvon we raised,” he said.
Fulton and Tracy also talked about the conversation parents of black children should have, starting with law enforcement and how to interact with them. Fulton even added that she is afraid to let her older son, Jahvaris Fulton, go out of the house because of what happened to Trayvon.
“I’m very afraid right now because I don’t know to tell him.”
Watch a snippet of their emotional interview above.
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We’ve heard from George Zimmerman’s lawyers, his parents and his brother…and even Juror B37 on the verdict that shook the world.
Now, 17 months after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was gunned down, his parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, are speaking out about the acquittal of their son’s murderer on the Today show.
“We thought that the killer of our unarmed child would be convicted,” Martin said.
“I just didn’t understand how can you let the killer of an unarmed child go free? What would your verdict had been if it had been your child?”
Martin also said that despite the prosecution’s argument that the case wasn’t about race, it actually was.
“Obviously any time you have a person that makes an assumption that a person is up to no good, there is some type of profiling.”
“I think if Trayvon were white this would have never happened.”
After being asked a series of questions about Juror B37, the woman who sympathized with Zimmerman and said that Trayvon was the cause of his own death, Fulton had this to say:
“I don’t understand if they were looking at it from Trayvon’s point of view…But I just knew that they would see that this was a teenager just trying to get home. This was no burglar. This was somebody’s son that was trying to get home… I was stunned, absolutely. I couldn’t believe it.”
And about the justice system, which thousands of protestors are saying failed the teenager?
“I think it failed Trayvon to a certain degree,” said Fulton.
The family would like for the federal government to look into the case and weigh all the options. They are looking into the possibility of pursuing a civil suit.
To see what else Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin had to say about Zimmerman, Juror B37 and their son, watch the video above.
SOURCE: TODAY Show
