National outrage spreads over neighborhood watch shooting
<p>Rev. Glenn Dames, senior pastor at St. James AME Church, leads people in a prayer at the Titusville Courthouse on Sunday, March 18, 2012, in Titusville, Fla. A rally was held demanding justice for Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager fatally shot by a white neighborhood watch volunteer. No charges have been filed in the February death. (AP Photo/Florida Today, Craig Rubadoux) NO SALES; MAGS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT: FLORIDATODAY.COM</p>
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) - An unarmed black teenager shot to death by a neighborhood watch captain told his girlfriend moments before he was killed that he was being followed, a lawyer said Tuesday as federal and state prosecutors announced they would investigate.
"'Oh he's right behind me, he's right behind me again,'" 17-year-old Trayvon Martin told his girlfriend on his cellphone, the Martin family's attorney said.
The girl later heard Martin say, "Why are you following me?" Another man asked, "What are you doing around here?'" attorney Benjamin Crump said.
The phone call that recorded Martin's final moments was disclosed as the U.S. Justice Department opened a federal civil rights probe into the Feb. 26 shooting and the local prosecutor convened a grand jury to investigate. A grand jury will meet April 10 to consider evidence in the case, said Seminole County State Attorney Norm Wolfinger.
The neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, has not been charged and said he shot Martin, who was returning to a gated community in Sanford after buying candy at a convenience store, in self-defense after Martin attacked him. Police say Zimmerman is white; his family says he is Hispanic.
"She absolutely blows Zimmerman's absurd self-defense claim out of the water," Crump said of Martin's girlfriend, whose name was withheld.
The case has ignited a furor against the local police department of this Orlando suburb of 53,500 people, sparking rallies and a protest in Gov. Rick Scott's office on Tuesday. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said it is sending its community relations service this week to Sanford to "address tension in the community."
At a town hall meeting on Tuesday, more than 350 people packed into the wood paneled sanctuary of the Allen Chapel AME Church, located in a traditionally black neighborhood of Sanford. A line flowed down steps with others trying to get in and hundreds more gathered outside.