George Zimmerman, the man who can’t seem to go a week without another outrageous headline, is making news again: He has reportedly been acting as an unpaid security guard for a Florida gun shop that was recently robbed.
Of course, it was Zimmerman’s role as an unpaid neighborhood watch patrolman that resulted in him killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin more than two years ago. Since he was acquitted in Martin’s death, Zimmerman has had numerous encounters with law enforcement, including last November when he was arrested following a domestic disturbance during which he allegedly pointed a shotgun at his former girlfriend, assaulted her and then barricaded himself inside their house. But none of the incidents apparently have been serious enough to keep him behind bars.
In this latest case, his name showed up on a police report over the weekend after an officer in the central Florida town of DeLand spotted him in a truck parked behind Pompano Pat’s, a motorcycle and firearm shop.
Fox News released the details of the report: “Dispatch informed me that the vehicle was registered to George Zimmerman out of Sanford. Zimmerman informed me that he was sitting behind the business with the permission of the owner, Pat Johnson. Zimmerman stated that he had been friends with Johnson for a period of time and was watching the business due to a recent burglary.”
Zimmerman and Johnson evidently became friends last summer after Zimmerman’s acquittal, when Johnson publicly offered Zimmerman a free gun after he found out police were not giving him back the gun he used to kill Martin.
Johnson told Orlando’s WKMG that while he didn’t hire Zimmerman as a security guard, the former neighborhood watch captain began patrolling the area around the store “on his own accord” since the robbery occurred earlier in July.
The video of the officer’s exchange with Zimmerman showed the following conversation:
“Did Pat’s hire you?” the officer asked him.
“No, no,” Zimmerman responded.
“You’re just doing this as a friend?” the officer asked Zimmerman.
“He’s a friend of mine,” he replied.
