THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012
COURT
PAGE 15
Zimmerman in safe house after posting bail for second time
ORLANDO, Fla. — The neighborhood watch leader charged with fatally shooting Trayvon Martin is in a safe house that is being protected by his security team.
George Zimmerman was
released Friday after posting bail for the second time on a second-degree murder charge. His attorney said Sunday he was in Seminole County in central Florida.
Some of Martin's supporters have been angry Zimmerman was not arrested until 46 days after the February shooting, and Zimmerman has received death threats.
He was released from jail after his defense fund helped him post 10 percent of the $1 million bond.
A judge revoked his previous $150,000 bond last month when prosecutors presented evidence that Zimmerman and his wife misled the court about how much money they had.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WEATHER
Storms cause damage to Tennessee parks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Workers clear storm damage from Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Saturday, July 7, 2012, near Townsend, Tenn., as rangers shifted their focus Saturday from rescue efforts to reopening the popular area to the public.
TOWNSEND, Tenn. — In a matter of minutes, a violent summer storm turned Ashley and Scott Hacker's idyllic trip to the Great Smoky Mountains into a terrifying scene.
The couple was teaching their son to fly fish Thursday when the winds suddenly picked up. The family jumped into their car for safety and as they started to drive away, trees began to popling around them. A large branch crashed through car's sun roof, narrowly missing the Hackers' 12-year-old son.
"All I know is that we were so lucky that day, because there were people who weren't as lucky," Ashley Hacker said. "It was fine, it was beautiful, and then it wasn't."
Two people inside the park were killed and two others died in Chattanooga when the winds overturned a double-decker pontoon boat on Chickamauga Lake. Several other people were injured.
Ashley Hacker was shaking as she retold her family's survival story. She said Noah had made his first cast when the winds began to howl. The family retreated to their car and they weren't more than 50 yards down the road when trees began to fall.
Officials reopened a main road and several campgrounds Saturday at the popular Cades Cove section of the park, which is located on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
The branch that crashed through the extended sun roof tore their son's T-shirt, but he was not hurt.
"The branches were up against our car and there was more falling and people were trying to get to us but they couldn't, so I kicked and I kicked until I got the door open. If nothing else, I had to get him out of there," Ashley Hacker said.
Two other nearby cars were hit by boulders and rocks, but no one inside the cars was hurt.
The Hackers said they had to gather firewood because the temperatures dropped after the storm passed.
After a deluge, the Hackers began walking up the road, but turned back when they heard someone say a motorcyclist had been killed up ahead. The other deaths in the park occurred when a tree fell into a swimming hole.
The dead included a 41-year-old Tennessee man.
"We went into survival mode," she said. "We gathered as much as we could ... and people all started coming to that area because they saw the fire. We had about 20 in that area all banded together."
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