Tonight on AC360 Anderson Cooper spoke exclusively to George Zimmerman trial Juror B37 about whether or not race played a role in the case.
The juror said she didn't think Zimmerman viewed Trayvon Martin as suspicious because he was an African-American. She said race did not come up as part of the jury's deliberation discussions. "I think he just profiled him because he was the neighborhood watch, and he profiled anybody that came in acting strange."
She said that if, for example, the person walking through the neighborhood was someone from a different race, "Spanish, white, Asian ... George would have reacted the exact same way."
Juror B37 thought the entire incident started because Zimmerman was trying to protect the neighborhood. "I just think circumstances caused George to think that he might be a robber or trying to do something bad in the neighborhood because of all that had gone on previously. There were an unbelievable number of robberies in the neighborhood."
The reason she said Zimmerman found Trayvon suspicious was because of George's description from the night of the shooting, he saw someone he did not recognize cutting through the back of the neighborhood in the rain. "He said he was looking in houses as he was walking down the road, kind of just not having a purpose to where he was going. He was stopping and starting. But I mean that’s George’s rendition of it. But I think the situation where Trayvon got into him being late at night, dark at night, raining ... Anybody would think anybody walking down the road stopping and turning and looking, if that’s exactly what happened, is suspicious."