Police are investigating the “racially motivated” beating of a 27-year-old man who was walking home from midtown bars early Saturday when he said he was jumped by five to eight men who shouted “Trayvon” before the attack.
The exclamation was an apparent reference to Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old from Miami who was shot and killed in February walking back to his father’s girlfriend’s house in Sanford.
His shooter, George Zimmerman, has not been charged.
The case of Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was killed by a Hispanic crime-watch volunteer, has stirred conversations across the country about race, crime and profiling.
Investigators believe that case was the catalyst for the beating Saturday in Gainesville.
“We do believe that the crime was racially motivated,” Gainesville Police Department spokeswoman Cpl. Angelina Valuri said.
The assailants were black, while the victim is white, Valuri said.
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