Judge drops George Zimmerman suit against parents of Trayvon Martin almost exactly 10 years after killing

A Florida judge has dropped a lawsuit from George Zimmerman against the parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old boy the former neighbourhood watch volunteer fatally shot almost exactly 10 years ago, a killing that helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mr Zimmerman, who killed the unarmed teen on 26 February, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, filed a defamation and conspiracy lawsuit in 2019 against Martin’s parents Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, claiming that they, along with their book publishers HarperCollins, wrongly smeared him as a racist and sought to get him criminally charged.

On Monday, judge John Cooper of Tallahassee found the suit, which sought $100m damages, without merit.

“There can be no claim for conspiracy to defraud if there is no adequately stated claim for fraud,” Judge Cooper wrote in his ruling.

The Martin family has previously dismissed the legal action as a “shameless attempt to profit off the lives and grief of others”.

Mr Zimmerman had been studying law enforcement with the eventual hope of becoming a police officer, when he called Sanford police to report what he said he believed was a suspicious person in a hood.

"F***ing punks …These a**holes always get away,” the then 28-year-old insurance investigator told police on the phone, ignoring a directive to leave the boy alone until officers could arrive. Moments later, Trayvon, who had walked to a convenience store to buy Skittles and juice, was dead.

Mr Zimmerman, who claimed he fired in self-defence under Florida’s controversial “stand your ground law,” was acquitted on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter after police initially did not arrest him for the killing.

The killing, along with those of several other young people of colour, inspired thousands of protesters to take to the streets through the Black Lives Matter movement.

George Zimmerman continued to have trouble with the law following his trial, going into deep debt and using schemes like selling art and the gun that killed Trayvon Martin to raise money.