Thousands rally for teen

MIAMI – Political leaders, sport stars and entertainers were among several thousand people who gathered Sunday at a Miami rally to call for an arrest in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Florida teenager by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The rally in 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s hometown was one of the largest yet and drew basketball stars Alonzo Mourning and Isaiah Thomas, singers Chaka Khan and Betty Wright, politicians and civil rights leaders.

Martin’s father, speaking briefly, promised the crowd he would not stop fighting “for my Trayvon and for your Trayvon.”

“Each and every one of us feels the pain of this family simply because Trayvon Martin could have been one of all of us,” said Mourning, the former Miami Heat player.

The rally came a day after thousands marched through Sanford, the central Florida town where 28-year-old George Zimmerman shot and killed Martin in February. Martin was walking back from a convenience store, where he had gone to buy candy and iced tea, when he and Zimmerman got into an altercation. Zimmerman says he was attacked and has claimed self-defense; Martin’s family disputes his version of events.

The case has led to protests across the nation and spurred a debate about race and the laws of self-defense. Martin was black; Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic.

Speaking at the rally Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said the case was about ending all types of racial profiling – not just in criminal cases, but by banks, by insurance companies and in the job market.