Chief Bill Lee

Sanford, Florida, police chief steps aside 'temporarily' in fallout from teen's death

Sanford, Florida (CNN) -- Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee announced Thursday he is stepping down "temporarily" as head of the department, which has been criticized for its handling of the shooting last month of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

"I am aware that my role as a leader of this agency has become a distraction from the investigation," he told reporters. "It is apparent that my involvement in this matter is overshadowing the process. Therefore, I have come to the decision that I must temporarily remove myself from the position."

He added, "I do this in the hopes of restoring some semblance of calm to the city, which has been in turmoil for several weeks."

Lee's decision came a day after the city commission voted 3-2 in favor of a nonbinding measure of no confidence.

City Manager Norton Bonaparte said Thursday that he would like an independent review of police action in the wake of the shooting.

Did shooter use a racial slur?

NAACP President Ben Jealous, however, was more forthright. Parents, he said, don't feel that their children will be safe with Lee heading the police department.

"He needs to go right now," Jealous said prior to Lee's announcement.

Lee's decision came as Justice Department officials met Thursday with the parents of Martin, who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in an Orlando suburb.

"During the course of this meeting, we listened carefully to the concerns of the family and their representatives," the Justice Department said in a statement. "Earlier this week, the Department of Justice announced the opening of a parallel investigation into the death of Trayvon Martin. That matter remains open at this time."

The case has riveted the nation. Martin's family asserts that race was a factor in the black teenager's death.

Martin was shot February 26 while walking to the house of his father's fiancee after a trip to a convenience store. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch leader, said he shot the 17-year-old in self-defense.

Case sparks dialogue on racial inequality

Zimmerman has not been arrested. A police report describes him as white; his family says that he is Hispanic and that he has wrongly been described as a racist.

The uproar over Martin's death has reverberated nationwide with demands for Zimmerman's arrest and scrutiny of police actions.

More than 1.2 million people have signed a petition on Change.org urging prosecution for Zimmerman. Thursday morning, the petition was getting 1,000 signatures per minute, said Noland Chambliss, communications manager for Change.org.

CNN has made numerous attempts to contact Zimmerman but has been unsuccessful.

A Seminole County grand jury will convene April 10 on the matter, State Attorney Norm Wolfinger said.

The Rev. Al Sharpton was planned to lead a rally Thursday night at a church in Sanford, a racially mixed city of about 50,000 people just north of Orlando.

Opinion: Where's white church outrage over Trayvon Martin?

On Wednesday night, demonstrators crowded New York's Union Square for a protest attended by Martin's parents. Many wore hoodies, the clothing Martin was wearing when he was shot, and carried Skittles, the candy he had bought from the convenience store the night he was killed.

"George Zimmerman took Trayvon's life for nothing," the teenager's father, Tracy Martin, said at the rally.

"Our son did not deserve to die. There's nothing that we can say that will bring him back, but I'm here today to assure that justice is served and that no other parents have to go through this again."

"Our son is your son," said Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton. "This is not about a black-and-white thing. This is about a right-and-wrong thing. Justice for Trayvon!"

Zimmerman, who was patrolling the neighborhood, saw Martin walking in his gated community. He called 911 and reported what he described as a suspicious person. Moments later, several neighbors called the emergency number to report a commotion outside.

The 911 tapes of neighbors' calls to emergency dispatchers picked up cries for help followed by the sound of a gunshot.
Neighbor: Shooting wasn't self defense
Why Trayvon's cell records matter
Friend defends George Zimmerman
NAACP President: No faith in this chief

"The time that we heard the whining and then the gunshot, we did not hear any wrestling, no punching, no fighting, nothing to make it sound like there was a fight," said Mary Cutcher, one of the callers.

Another caller, Selma Mora Lamilla, said she did not hear any altercation, but the teen cried and "whimpered" before the shooting.

Martin's girlfriend was on the phone with him during the incident and can help prove he was killed "in cold blood," said Benjamin Crump, the Martin family's attorney.

The girl connects the dots and "completely blows Zimmerman's absurd self-defense claim out of the water," Crump said.

Shortly before he was shot, the teen told his girlfriend that someone was following him and he was trying to get away, according to the lawyer. The girl, who did not want to be identified, said that during the call, she heard Martin ask why the person was following him.

She got the impression there was an altercation in which his cell phone earpiece fell out after he was pushed, and the connection went dead, Crump said. She did not hear gunfire, he said.

Zimmerman attended a four-month law-enforcement program in 2008 at the sheriff's office, said Kim Cannaday, spokeswoman for the Seminole County sheriff's office.

In his application for the course, Zimmerman wrote: "I hold law enforcement officers in the highest regard and I hope to one day become one."

Zimmerman's father, Robert, told a Florida newspaper that the 28-year-old had moved from the area after receiving death threats.

He was a student at Seminole State College, but the college said Thursday that it "taken the unusual but necessary step this week to withdraw" Zimmerman from enrollment. It cited the high-profile nature of the controversy and said the decision was based on concern for safety for Zimmerman and the students on campus.

Zimmerman's family has denied that race played a role, saying he has many minority relatives and friends.

"The portrayal of George Zimmerman in the media, as well as the series of events that led to the tragic shooting, are false and extremely misleading," his father wrote in a letter published in the Orlando Sentinel. "Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations have used this tragedy to further their own causes and agendas."

"George is a Spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends," Robert Zimmerman wrote. "He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever."

Heated debate has erupted over whether Zimmerman used a racial slur during the 911 call, a recording of which was released this week.

"We didn't hear it. However, I am not sure what was said," Sgt. David Morgenstern of the Sanford Police Department said.

"I have listened to the tapes, and I have not heard them use a racial slur," concurred City Manager Bonaparte.

A top CNN audio engineer enhanced the sound of the 911 call, and several members of CNN's editorial staff repeatedly reviewed the tape but could reach no consensus on whether Zimmerman used a racial slur.

Whether Zimmerman used such language prior to shooting Martin is key, according to CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

"It's extremely, extremely significant because the federal government is not allowed to prosecute just your ordinary, everyday murder," he said. "Two people fighting on the street is not a federal crime. However, if one person shoots another based on racial hostility, racial animus, that does become a federal crime."

Toobin said that if "very shortly before" the shooting, "Zimmerman used this racial epithet to refer to the person he openly shot, that very much puts it within the FBI's and the Justice Department's ambit of a case that they could prosecute."

Police say they have not charged Zimmerman because they have no evidence to contradict his story that he shot in self-defense.

The shooting has renewed a debate over a controversial state law and sparked calls for a review.

Florida's deadly force law, also called "stand your ground," allows people to meet "force with force" if they believe that there is danger of serious harm to themselves or someone else.