Sanford

SANFORD, Fla. -- George Zimmerman, granted a $150,000 bond, surprised a packed Florida courtroom Friday when he took the witness stand to tell Trayvon Martin's parents he was sorry for the loss of their 17-year-old son.

Clean-shaven, handcuffed and wearing a charcoal suit, gray tie and shackles, the volunteer neighborhood watch captain faced Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin for the first time since he shot their son to death in a Feb. 26 encounter that set off a national debate about race, racial profiling and Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground self-defense law.

SANFORD, Fla. — The family of a neighborhood watch volunteer charged with killing Trayvon Martin asked a Florida judge Friday to let him out of jail while he awaits trial, and legal experts said he stands a good chance of being granted bail.

George Zimmerman’s parents and wife testified by phone in the hearing at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center, saying he is not a flight risk nor a threat to the community. Zimmerman’s family members were testifying by phone because they say they have been threatened.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- When racial tensions flared in Sanford, Fla., a league of secretive peacemakers reached out to the city's spiritual and civic leaders to help cool heated emotions after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- George Zimmerman handed out fliers at black Sanford churches a year ago, outraged that a white police lieutenant's son, captured on video sucker-punching a homeless black man, was not arrested on the spot, family members said.

The fliers urged blacks to go to a Sanford (Fla.) City Commission meeting to protest and demand that the police chief be held accountable.

SANFORD, Fla. -- Sunday evening, Feb. 26: It was raining in Central Florida while the NBA All Stars game and the Oscars were about to begin on TV.

A 17-year-old high school junior from Miami Gardens serving a 10-day suspension went to 7-Eleven to get candy. It was the third time Trayvon Martin was disciplined at school, so this time his parents sent him up to a quiet, racially mixed gated community in Sanford, Fla., with his dad to get his priorities straight. He was black and wore a hoodie.

George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer who routinely called police to report anything awry, had just made dinner and told his family he was headed to Target. He was Hispanic and wore a holstered Kel Tek 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

The brief encounter between the two at the Retreat at Twin Lakes community would leave one dead and the other in hiding, give rise to a social movement and, at least temporarily, cost the local police chief his job. In the next 30 days, the name "Trayvon" would be tweeted more than 2 million times.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- When he was shot, Trayvon Martin was not the baby-faced boy in the photo that has been on front pages across the country. And George Zimmerman wasn't the beefy-looking figure in the widely published mugshot.

Both photos are a few years old and no longer entirely accurate. Yet they may have helped shape initial public perceptions of the deadly shooting.