Saturday, April 14, 2012

Update: ‘Trayvon' shouted as group attacks Good Samaritan

‘Trayvon' shouted as group attacks Good Samaritan
What happened then for Babbs to get away?
Man beaten in purse snatching disputes crowd yelling ‘Trayvon'

A Gainesville Police Department report regarding a Wednesday night purse snatching downtown states that an officer heard members of a gathered crowd screaming "Sanford" and "Trayvon" as the officer responded to the scene and interviewed witnesses.

The shouts were in reference to Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager who was shot and killed in Sanford on Feb. 26.

A man who claims he was beaten in Wednesday's incident, however, says he did not hear such shouts and has questioned the Police Department's account.

In comments posted online Friday at www.gainesville.com and Facebook, a man who identified himself as Felipe Echeverri took issue with the accounting of the incident that described bystanders invoking the name of the 17-year-old Martin.

Trayvon was black. A member of the neighborhood's crime watch, George Zimmerman, has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Trayvon's death.

"No one shouted Trayvon. No one. In fact 5 people came to help me. All black. The white folks I was with … none of them showed up to do anything," Echeverri wrote. "So the story, instead of being about racial disharmony amongst Floridians, could have been a story about racial harmony and community."

Juan Felipe Echeverri, 33, and a friend, Tate Clair, 46, chased a black man later identified as Carl Milton Babb after he allegedly snatched the purse from a woman in the Bo Diddley Community Plaza, police recounted in a 10-page incident report released Friday to The Sun. Clair told police they caught Babb, who then punched Echeverri in the face and grabbed his hair, according to the report. Clair punched and kicked Babb to protect Echeverri and himself from additional harm, police reported.

More @ The Gainesville Sun


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