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Dominique Clarke, 17 who knew him from Highland Oaks, said he was very quiet and kept to himself. The friends took Spanish together.
“He wasn’t perfect. But he was someone who was very respectful,” she said. “He did have a bright future and everyone who knew him liked him.’’
One day at Krop last year, Brian Paz, 16, opened the door by the vending machine and he saw Trayvon. They had been good friends at Highland Oaks, but went to separate high schools.
“I was like ‘What’s up man?’ I was happy to see him again,” Brian recalled.
They became close friends. When Brian’s mother, who is from Colombia, called her son, “he would say my name in a funny way. I’ll never forget the way he said it. ‘Brrrian,’ ’’ Brian remembered, rolling his ‘r’ and laughing at the memory before becoming more serious.
He wants people to know something about his childhood friend: “He wasn’t threatening. There was no reason for George Zimmerman to pull out a gun and kill him. He was too peaceful for that.”
Trayvon left the Sanford townhouse on a rainy Sunday night nearly a month ago to walk to a nearby convenience store. On his way back, candy and canned ice tea in hand, Zimmerman decided he looked suspicious. He called police who advised him not to follow the boy.
Questions remain about what happened next, but Trayvon was shot, his body found face down on the ground, 70 yards from the back door of the townhouse.
Zimmerman has not been charged.
He told police he felt threatened and that Trayvon jumped him. He responded, he said, by taking out a 9mm handgun and shooting in self-defense.
Trayvon was buried six days later.
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