George Zimmerman Complains In Interview He’s Homeless And Has PTSD
An English translation of the interview that airs Sunday was released Saturday.
Special correspondent Ilia Calderón spoke at length to Zimmerman, who shot the 17-year-old Miami Gardens youth in February 2012 in Zimmerman’s gated community in Sanford.
In the interview, Zimmerman repeatedly declines to answer questions about the shooting, citing a still-pending federal civil-rights investigation.
However, he tells Calderón that his first reaction after firing the shot was concern that he had missed.
“I was afraid it had gone through his clothes and that it was going to go… get lost, and, um, you know, go into a house and — because the young man was still talking to me, as I have said. So I thought that it hadn’t…affected him, and I got worried, and I said, ‘I hope that it hasn’t — that the bullet hasn’t hit a neighbor,'” Zimmerman says. “But I only knew that the attack stopped.”
Zimmerman describes receiving death threats, which he attributes to the portrayal of the shooting in the media.
“You don’t think it’s because of the fact that you fired [a] gun?” Calderón asks.
“Correct. No, obviously not,” replies Zimmerman, noting that other shootings get less press attention…
Zimmerman goes on to say that he can’t have a “normal life,” wears a bulletproof vest when in public, and doesn’t have a permanent home. He says that his family helps him “a lot.”
“I’m totally homeless,” Zimmerman says. Later, Calderón asks how he has changed since the shooting: “I suffer from PTSD,” Zimmerman replies.
