Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) today removed his jacket, and pulled up the hood of his hoodie while speaking on the House floor to honor Trayvon Martin, and to make a point about racial profiling:
Just because someone wears a hoodie, (it) does not make them a hoodlum.
The action immediately prompted the acting speaker, Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), to begin shouting him down, all in the spirit of enforcing a House decorum rule concerning wearing headwear on the House floor.
Symbolism is an important catalyst for activist action, but it can be argued that politicians drawing attention to themselves — and away from the case — doesn’t help bring about an arrest of George Zimmerman.
Speaking of which, theGrio and NBC News reported this important update in the case today — the decision to release Trayvon’s killer was made on the spot, by the now-temporarily-suspended Sanford police chief:
A source with knowledge of the investigation into the shooting of Trayvon Martin tells theGrio that it was then Sanford police chief Bill Lee, along with Capt. Robert O’Connor, the investigations supervisor, who made the decision to release George Zimmerman on the night of February 26th, after consulting with State Attorney Norman Wolfinger — in person.
Wolfinger’s presence at the scene or at the police department in the night of a shooting would be unusual, according to the source.
ABC News today also released surveillance footage of Zimmerman from the night of the shooting, emerging handcuffed out of a police car prior to what theGrio reports happened to expedite his release. (I’ll add that Zimmerman claimed to have suffered a broken nose and cuts from his confrontation with Trayvon. Take a look at the video after the jump, and draw what conclusions you will.)
Jamil Smith