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Moments before 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was overtaken by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman and shot dead, he was on the phone with a friend. The attorney for the Martin family made her story public yesterday, days into Trayvon’s controversial killing that has sparked national outrage. Trayvon’s 16-year-old friend, whose name is being withheld, said he told her on the phone that he was being followed by a man on the evening of February 26th as he returned to the home of his father’s fiance in a gated community in Sanford, Florida. The man was 28-year-old George Zimmerman, a resident of the area who frequently called 9-11 to report strangers he labeled suspicious. The young woman told ABC news yesterday that while on the phone she heard Trayvon ask Zimmerman “What are you following me for?” and that Zimmerman responded, “What are you doing here?” She told Trayvon to run away before the line went dead, presumably when Zimmerman wrestled with Martin before fatally shooting him. The Martin family Attorney Benjamin Crump told Reuters, “Her call connects the dots to completely destroy what Zimmerman said (to the police)… [Trayvon] was completely innocent.”

A community uproar over the shooting gained national attention after the Sanford police decided not to charge Zimmerman, finding that his actions were justified under Florida’s 2005 “Stand Your Ground” law. That law expanded a private citizen’s right to use deadly force whenever a person believes their life is in danger. Florida’s lax gun control laws also make it easy to obtain a conceal and carry permit. The St. Petersburg Times reported that 5 years after Stand Your Ground became law, the number of justifiable homicides logged in the state tripled, from under 40 in 2005 to over 100 in 2010. It has been used as a defense in over 90 cases, 65 of which involved a death, and the defense has been largely successful in the courtroom. The Martin case has brought international scrutiny to the law which has been adopted in similar forms in at least 16 other states. The Florida State Attorney announced yesterday that a grand jury would investigate the Sanford Police Department’s handling of the Martin case. It will also be reviewed by the FBI and the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

GUEST: Mychal Denzel Smith, a freelance writer and social commentator. His work on race, politics, social justice, pop culture, hip hop, mental health, feminism and black male identity has appeared in various publications, including The Guardian, Ebony, theGrio, the Root, Huffington Post and GOOD.

Click here for Smith’s article, ‘Justice for Trayvon Martin’ in the Nation.