Outrage over the shooting death of 17-year-old Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has spread to Santa Monica, where dozens gathered Friday evening for a rally and vigil.
"Our readers are outraged," said Danny Bakewell, Jr., writer for the LA Sentinel and the LA Watts Times. "As a journalist it's my job to report the facts accurately. But as a human being, as an African-American man, I'm also a father, this is just outrageous."
Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, who claims the shooting was in self-defense in accordance with Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law.
Zimmerman has not been arrested, and that has fueled outrage across the country.
Friday's coastal rally comes on the heels of a demonstration in Leimert Park, where supporters gathered Thursday.
Hip-hop artist and activist Yolanda "YoYo" Whitaker used social media to draw friends and fans in LA to that rally for Trayvon.
"Had the young man been a white 17 year old, hooded in a community and the killer been a Black man 260 pounds, we wouldn't be having this discussion," she said.
Other prominent voices, including that from the most powerful man in the country, weighed in on the shooting, which has garnered heavy media attention.
"If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon," President Barack Obama said Friday. "I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and get the bottom of what happened."
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Federal and Florida prosecutors have launched investigations into the shooting death of Martin. But many are also calling for reforms, starting with the removal of the Sanford, Fla., police chief.
"The accountability got to start at the police station first because they botched the investigation," Gardena resident Wayne Weatherspoon said.
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