Trayvon Martin paid for Purple Drank by burglarizing

I have interrupted this blog for several months because I have been busy with some personal business. In the meantime, I am inserting four articles about the case of Trayvon Martin being killed by George Zimmerman in February 2012. In the first of the four articles, I described Martin's addiction to Purple Drank, an intoxicating concoction of codeine, juice and candy.

The most expensive ingredient was Promethazine Codeine. The cash price for a 240-millimeter bottle was around $23. The juice and candy to accompany such a bottle would raise the cost to, say, $30. So, sipping Purple Drank all day, every day, is a habit that costs some money.

Martin was a high-school student who did not have a known wage-earning job. Martin earned money by burglarizing homes. In late October 2011 -- the exact date is unknown -- he was detained because he had vandalized lockers in a restricted room in his high school. The School Resource Officer searched Martin's backpack and found at least 12 items of ladies jewelry, a man’s watch, and a flat-head screwdriver described as “a burglary tool”.

When Trayvon was questioned about who owned the jewelry and where it came from, he claimed he was just holding it for a “friend”, whom he would not name.

On October 21 -- before Martin was detained in the school -- a home was burglarized a few blocks from the high school. The items found in Martin's backpack, as described in School Police Report 2011-11477, match the items stolen from the home, as described in Miami-Dade Police Report PD111021-422483. The below image shows that the locations of the burglarized home and Martin's high school.

The red star is the location of Trayvon Martin's high school
The red line indicates the home that Martin burglarized.
The image can be seen at a larger size here. 

However, because the school district was trying to minimize the disciplining of African-American students, the school police report was not forwarded to the local police department. Instead, the items in Martin's backpack were classified as merely "found items" and were placed in a lost-and-found property room.

After Martin was killed in February 2012, the incident involving his backpack was investigated and was revealed to the public. Eventually the items found in Martin's backpack were located in the property room and returned to the family whose home had been burglarized.

This story is told in much more detail in this Conservative Tree House webpage.

My key points:

* Trayvon Martin was addicted to Purple Drank, a codeine concoction.

* One consequence of his addiction was that he became paranoid, which made him belligerent.

* Another consequence of his addiction was that he burglarized homes in order to earn the money to buy the Purple Drank ingredients.

* The final consequence of his addiction was his paranoia and belligerence caused him to attack George Zimmerman, who had noticed him casing homes to burglarize.