Lynners discuss Trayvon Martin

LYNN – Nearly 100 residents and a smattering of city officials turned out for what turned into a passionate discussion on the Travyon Martin murder case laced with a good amount of levity. “It’s an issue that has affected everyone and it’s not unique to Florida. It could happen anywhere,” said community organizer Darrell Murkinson, who emceed the meeting.Travyon Martin was a 17-year-old African American visiting his father in Sanford, Fla. when he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 29-year-old neighborhood watch captain. Zimmerman was tried but found not guilty of murder.Murkinson, who co-sponsored the event along with Pamela Burton, executive director of Save our Souls, said he has heard a lot of chatter and wanted to give residents an outlet in which to discuss the case. He admitted after the two and a half hour event that the chatfest often went off track, but he said since it was focusing largely on how to prevent the same kind of incident from happening in Lynn, he let it go.After giving an overview of the case he posed several questions to the audience that included Police Chief Kevin Coppinger and Sgt. Thomas McDermott. He asked what is the life of a young black teenager worth? What can residents do locally to keep young people from being killed without consequences and thoughts on comments made post trial by a woman known only as Juror B-37.But discussion focused largely on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, inequity in the judicial system, parents leading by example and the need for the community to provide young African Americans with more opportunities.”Why are we still following a judicial system that’s old as hell?” asked Jessica French. “We see these flaws and tics but we’re not doing anything to change them.”French said as a half black, half white lesbian, she is a minority three times over and the system needs to be changed. Murkinson agreed that the law is not always equally applied.Pearl Brown, Barbara Walker and Ralph Tyler said children needed to be taught respect and a strong work ethic, and it should start at home.Hours before attending the meeting Walker, who transports children with special needs, said she was cursed at by a six-year-old.”When they tell you to ?go (expletive) yourself,’ you can’t tell me a six-year-old picks that up on the street,” she said. “They hear it from their parents.”Arthur Akers, however, said he works with many good, strong, respectful parents. He said it’s society that needs to step up and lead by example.”What Arthur said is powerful,” said Michael Ward. “When we were kids we had drop-in centers, the Leo Building ? jobs.”Bill Jones said giving a child an education is key but so is voting. He said it’s imperative to put the right people in the right places and what happened in Florida with the Martin case was an example of not having the right people in the right places.”We should not have to be nagged to get to the polls,” he said. “We should be standing in line waiting to get in.”John Hernandez said he isn’t convinced anything will change in America until African Americans and Hispanics get together “and tell the rest to shut up.”They say there is freedom for all but it’s not that way,” he said.Hernandez said he was a little disappointed with the meeting because it went off point, that Zimmerman walked away free after killing a young, unarmed boy. Murkinson, however, said people took hold of how the case is affecting Lynn and they discussed the need to protect the youth and provide them with jobs.”You have to let people drive the discussion and they got to vent,” he said. “They talked about jobs for youth and keeping them busy so they don’t find themselves in this situation, so I think that was a success.”