U.S.

Anti-'Stand Your Ground' Ad Recreates Trayvon Martin's Murder

A new ad campaign against "Stand Your Ground" laws features a dramatic, stylized reenactment of the night Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by Sanford, Florida vigilante George Zimmerman. 

By Connor Simpson
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A new ad campaign against "Stand Your Ground" laws features a dramatic, stylized reenactment of the night Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by Sanford, Florida vigilante George Zimmerman. The clip from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, posted by Talking Points Memo, starts with a figure resembling Zimmerman watching someone in the distance, supposedly Martin, while audio of Zimmerman's 911 call from that night plays over the images. The video closes when the Zimmerman figure stands while a teenager in a black hoodie lies on the ground. The camera pans to find even more bodies, all wearing the same black hoodie, all labeled with other states that have "Stand Your Ground" laws.

Per the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence's press release, this is the ad's mission statement:

We hope our “Stand Your Ground” PSA will mobilize new activism on the issue and bring us to a point where our laws are acting to protect victims, as opposed to creating new ones.

Whether or not the ad will have its desired effect is up for some debate. Some think it crosses a line, others think it is appropriate. TPM's Hunter Walker describes the ad as "incredibly intense"; International Business Times' Alex Kaufman deems it "really disturbing." Others say the ad gave them chills and praise it for its honesty about what happened that night.

Here's the video so you can judge for yourself:

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.