George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch captain, charged with second-degree murder for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford Florida on February 26, told police he was pursuing the teenager because of a rash of crime in the area, Headline News reported.
'I tried to defend myself," Zimmerman said during his first police interview the night of the shooting. "He just started punching me in the face and I started screaming for help. I couldn't see. I could breathe."
Zimmerman said there had been a lot of crime in the area and that he had started a neighborhood watch program. When he spotted Martin, who he thought look suspicious, he began to follow him.
At some point, Martin circled the night watchman's car as he followed him through the neighborhood, Zimmerman said, the teenager disappeared into the 'darkness.'
"The dispatcher told me 'Where are you?' and I said 'I am trying to find out where he went,' and he said, 'We don't need you to do that,' and I said 'OK," Zimmerman told the investigator.
"He [Martin] jumped out from the bushes, and he said 'What the [expletive] is your problem, homie?' And I got my cell phone out to call 911 this time, and I said, 'I don't have a problem.' And he goes, 'Now you have a problem,' and he punched me in the nose," Zimmerman told the investigator. The punch knocked him to the ground.
"He puts his hand on my nose and my mouth, and he says 'You are going to die tonight," said Zimmerman. "As he banged my head again, I just pulled out my firearm and shot him... He is mounted on top of me, and I just shot him, and he falls off. And he's, like, 'Alright you got it, you got it.'"
