Didn't the Florida PD offer public statements to defend their position on releasing Zimmerman? Like, maybe, given the prevalence of the "stand your ground" law, they had no choice about whether to release him without any immediate evidence to contradict his story of being attacked?
I don't see anything on Wikipedia about what the Florida DA did or didn't do. The Sanford police chief and county state attorney apparently had charge of the investigation, and they didn't pursue the case. Public protests ensued, both men stepped down from the investigation, and then State Attorney Angela Corey took over the prosecution by the Florida governor's appt. If you want to claim that the police chief and the first attorney were racists because they didn't pursue Zimmerman, that's a possible argument. But I don't see how the arresting officers had any alternative but to let Zimmerman go under state law-- though none of that exculpates officers who have genuinely committed crimes against black persons, as in the cases of Sandra Bland and Freddie Grey.
I don't think stand your ground applied in this case and it wasn't brought up during the trial. But whats the real crux of the issue isn't what the law states at any given incident its that the gatekeepers and people in authority have defacto power in executing the law. And yes I'm claiming race played a factor in the police chief and first attorney determining to not pursue the case. If a black zimmerman killed a white trevor martin who was unarmed with junk food in his pockets we all know there wouldn't need to be an outcry months later for a further investigation of that incident. It would have happened regardless of the outcome.
