George Zimmerna's trial is coming to a close, and Trayvon Martin's family members are already preparing for the potentially heated aftermath. INSIDE EDITION has the latest.
The verdict looms in the George Zimmerman trial, and already there are appeals for calm. At a meeting on July 9, Trayvon Martin's cousin made a plea for peace, whatever the jury's decision.
“If the case doesn't go how we want it to go, have a peace rally, have a prayer, something, but a riot? That's not what my family is about," she said.
Trayvon's aunt told the meeting that the dead teen's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, felt the same way. “We don't want any violence. None. And I'm speak for Tracy and Sybrina.”
The players on the champion Miami Heat have been asked to use their influence and take to social media to call for calm after the verdict.
CNN's Piers Morgan asked Zimmerman's lawyer, Mark O'Mara, what will likely happen if his client walks free. "There may possibly be riots. You will have read the same warnings about this. How concerned are you about that and about the safety of your client should he be declared an innocent man?"
"First of all, my client will never be safe because there are a percentage of the population who are angry. They're upset and they may well take it out on him, so he'll never be safe," said O'Mara.
We also caught up with Larry King who said, "Might there be a riot? There might, you know? You try to protect against that, but people react to jury verdicts they disagree with in an emotionally charged case, but the media has added to the emotion."
With the trial in it's closing days, the debate about the case's racial element is becoming intense. Mark Lamont Hill, Columbia University African American Studies Professor and TV host, spoke with INSIDE EDITION. He said, "As the trial begins to wind down, the stakes go higher because everybody's fighting to win and one of the ways that each side is trying to win is by leveraging race in a way that makes sense for them."
Both positions are being thrashed out on TV, as shown on Fox News when correspondents engaged in a heated debate.
Adding to the racial debate, there are photoshopped pictures that switch the ethnicity of Zimmerman and Martin. "They basically ask the question, what would happen if George Zimmerman were black and Trayvon Martin were white?" said Hill.
"Would we have a different outcome? Would we have a different kind of conversation going on?" he said. "To me, the answer is unmistakeably yes, there would be a different situation and a different outcome."
