I thought he might never surface; I thought he was gone; but George Zimmerman has retained a lawyer who has given an interview to WOFL-Fox 35 in Florida. Oddly, the lawyer (Craig Sonner) says he is only Zimmerman's legal advisor, and he has not yet attended any of Zimmerman's interviews with law enforcement. Yes, Zimmerman is cooperating with the FDLE and other law enforcement agencies, according to Sonner, but Sonner does not know what the subject of these interviews has been. A strange kind of legal relationship, if you ask me ....
The lawyer definitely believes that George Zimmerman's life is in danger, given that the New Black Panther Party has been distributing 'Wanted Dead or Alive' posters with Zimmerman's photo on them. Mr. Sonner has advised Mr. Zimmerman to stay out of the public eye, and stated, "I don't know where he is -- I don't need to know."
Asked by a reporter what Zimmerman's frame of mind is, Sonner said that Zimmerman "is very concerned about the grave situation that he is in. Scary things are happening for him."
Sonner has not discussed with Zimmerman what happen the night of Trayvon Martin's murder, and he does not know who initiated the conflict that led to Trayvon's death. However, WOFL has located an eye witness to the fight between Zimmerman and Trayvon. The witness identifies himself only as John, and does not wish to be seen on camera, but he states in an audio interview that he saw Zimmerman and Trayvon fighting. "The guy on the bottom, who I believe had a red sweater on, was yelling to me - Help! Help!" By John's account, the voice we hear on the 911 recording screaming for help is the voice of George Zimmerman, who was wearing red that night. Continuing, John stated: "When I got upstairs and looked down, the person that was on top beating up the other guy was the one laying in the grass and I believe he was dead at that point." So John did not see the fatal shot being fired, but he did witness some of the struggle that preceded the shot.
Apparently, John's eyewitness account is the main piece of evidence that the Sanford Police Department relied upon to establish the veracity of Zimmerman's self defense claim. This would explain why the police report includes the statement by Zimmerman that "I was yelling for someone to help me, but no one would help me." It would explain why officers at the scene refused to give credence to the account of witnesses Mary Cutcher and Selma Mora Lamilla, who did not witness any fighting, and insisted that it was Trayvon Martin who was calling for help. As described to Anderson Cooper, Mary and Selma saw things quite differently than John did:
“So you saw Mr. Zimmerman on top of Trayvon Martin?” Cooper questioned.
“Trayvon, exactly,” Lamilla said.
“When you say on top of, how so?” the CNN anchor pressed.
“Straddling him,” Cutcher replied.
“His legs were straddling him?” Cooper followed up.
“One on each side, on his knees, with his hands on his back. I immediately thought, okay, obviously if it’s the shooter, he would have ran,” Cutcher detailed. “I thought he’s holding the wound, helping the guy taking a pulse, making sure he’s okay. When she called to him three times, everything okay, what’s going on? Each time he looked back, didn’t say anything and then the third time he finally said, ‘just call the police.’”
“But at that time it was so dark,” Lamilla added. “I just saw this person. When she started calling the police, I saw Zimmerman walking with — touching like his hair, like kind of like confused back and forth to the body.”
Lamilla and Cutcher described Zimmerman pacing around the body, following the shooting, and disputed that there was any indication of a fight.
As is often the case with witness accounts, there were differing perceptions of what had just transpired, and the Sanford police chose to believe only the version of events supplied by George Zimmerman and John, and completely dismissed any information provided by other witnesses that conflicted with those accounts.