USA TODAY, December 11, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

MIAMI — The closeness between Trayvon Martin and his father was always evident — even during times of trouble.

Public affection came easy — hugs after football games, a kiss on the cheek in photographs — but to those in their circle of influence, it was during more difficult days when Tracy Martin’s stern, yet loving attitude toward his sometimes-troubled son stood out.

Before the 17-year-old’s death in one of the most racially sensitive murder cases in decades made him a household name, there was the indelible image of Trayvon Martin being escorted off the football field by his dad.

Coach Jerome Horton said the young man was one of the best players on his recreational team — the Wolverines based at Forzano Park in Miramar, Fla. But Trayvon, who played for Horton from age eight to 13, would sometimes have to sit out because his father would bench him for mistakes made off the football field.

“I’ve watched his dad take him off the field because he messed up in school,” Horton said. “We’d beg and plead, but he (Tracy Martin) would just say, ‘No, he isn’t going to play.'”

In the weeks after Trayvon’s shooting death in Sanford, Fla., in late February, the nation — indeed, the world — heard details of a young life cut short. Whether he was a typical teen or troublemaker, an aggressor or a victim, often depended on who was speaking about Trayvon. Yet in the quiet months since neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman was charged in the killing, a clearer picture of the African-American teen is coming into focus. (more…)

USA TODAY, November 12, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

It was almost midnight when Ole Miss police officers came across a large crowd of students “shouting racial slurs and taunting other students with chants about the recent presidential election.”

Just minutes after President Obama was re-elected Tuesday, a crowd of 550 “agitated and angry” students and spectators gathered to not only attack his policies but shout about race, according to a University of Mississippi police report. More than 700 miles away in Virginia at Hampden-Sydney College, 40 students set off fireworks and broke bottles near the Minority Student Union house and yelled racial insults and threats at its residents.

How these students went from venting political frustrations to spewing racial epithets lies at the heart of American culture and ongoing issues of race despite having re-elected the nation’s first black president, school administrators and experts say. The incidents at both schools illustrate that though racial barriers at the White House may have been broken, discrimination that affects people’s daily lives remains.

“The anger wasn’t only about President Obama and his re-election,” said Keisha Bentley-Edwards, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies race, adolescence and academic and social development. “It was overall frustration at the emerging power of diverse people in this country.” (more…)

USA TODAY, November 7, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

DENVER — When Gina Hartley cast her ballot to re-elect President Obama her personal health insurance and the coffee shop she owns came to mind.

A year and a half ago, she was paying $400 more for health insurance because her pre-existing condition meant as a small business owner she paid $500 for insurance coverage and another $200 for medications each month.

Then came Obamacare.

“I’m in a better position now than I was four years ago,” she said. “If I have to go back to the price I was paying, I wouldn’t be able to keep my shop open.”

Voters like her, who pointed to Obama’s health-care policies, social stances and government spending to kick start the economy are why the president won this swing state Tuesday and its nine electoral votes. (more…)

USA TODAY, October 19, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

SANFORD, Fla. — A judge ruled Friday that Trayvon Martin’s school and social media records should be provided to attorneys defending the man accused of killing the teen, who they argue was the aggressor in the conflict and has a history of violence.

Judge Debra Nelson cited Florida’s self-defense law in her ruling and said attorneys for George Zimmerman have the right to determine whether Trayvon was the aggressor in the conflict and whether he had a history of violence. The records must remain private, however.

“I think you’re entitled to those records,” said Nelson, at the hearing that lasted about an hour and a half.

Social-media accounts on Facebook and Twitter for Trayvon and the friend who he was talking to shortly before the shooting can also be provided to Zimmerman’s attorneys, Nelson ruled. However, she added that she would entertain motions by both Twitter and Facebook if either company did not want to provide the records. (more…)

USA TODAY, October 17, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

Photo credit: David Manning for USA TODAY

SANFORD, FLA. — Artificial flowers. A ceramic angel. A 4-foot cross bearing the image of Trayvon Martin.

They were once part of a makeshift memorial for Trayvon, shot to death in one of the nation’s most sensational killings of 2012. Now the items sit in limbo in a storage room at the Sanford city museum after some residents of the gated community where he died grew tired of seeing them.

What to do next with the items confuses this city as it ponders how to remember Trayvon, 17, and a shooting that thrust Sanford and its 54,000 residents into the center of a national story.

“You have people who want it moved and people who want to keep it,” said Francis Oliver, a longtime Sanford resident who thinks the memorial should not have been touched. “There’s the part that wants to move on and forget Trayvon Martin. But there’s not going to be any getting past it until the trial is over.”

(more…)

USA TODAY, September 27, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

Photo credit: Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Asia Graves looks straight ahead as she calmly recalls the night a man paid $200 on a Boston street to have sex with her.

She was 16, homeless, and desperate for food, shelter and stability. He was the first of dozens of men who would buy her thin cashew-colored body from a human trafficker who exploited her vulnerabilities and made her a prisoner for years.

“If we didn’t call him daddy, he would slap us, beat us, choke us,” said Graves, 24, of the man who organized the deals. “It’s about love and thinking you’re part of a family and a team. I couldn’t leave because I thought he would kill me.”

By day, she was a school girl who saw her family occasionally. At night, she became a slave to men who said they loved her and convinced her to trade her beauty for quick cash that they pocketed. Sold from Boston to Miami and back, Graves was one of thousands of young girls sexually exploited across the United States, often in plain sight.

A plague more commonly associated with other countries has been taking young victims in the United States, one by one. Though the scope of the problem remains uncertain — no national statistics for the number of U.S. victims exist — the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says at least 100,000 children across the country are trafficked each year. (more…)

USA TODAY, September 17, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A crowd of 17,871 cheering fans. Six electrifying touchdowns. A moment of silence for hazing victims. And no Marching 100.

As Florida A&M University hosted its first football game without its renowned band, the school turned a page in its history and stepped into a challenging and uncertain future.

The band, whose more than 350 members played at college bowl games, Super Bowls and presidential inaugurations, has been suspended for a year in the aftermath of drum major Robert Champion Jr.’s death.

“This is an extreme time of crisis, and I don’t think anyone knows how this is going to play out,” said Joe Womack, a 2003 graduate who traveled from Atlanta for the game against Hampton University. “There is so much negativity out there. It’s important to keep the family together.” (more…)

USA TODAY, September 4, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor and Oren Dorell

Colin Goddard got $100,000 in victim compensation after being shot in the Virginia Tech massacre. A friend injured in the same classroom got much less.

Goddard doesn’t agree with the reasoning.

“She was right next to me. She was terrorized for the same amount of time,” said Goddard, 26, of the attack by Seung-Hui Cho that left 32 dead on April 16, 2007.

Such disparities are at the heart of a controversy seen almost as often as mass tragedies in America. Public donations for survivors, victims and their families often lead to contentious debates between the organizations entrusted with millions of dollars and the victims who want more say in how the money is distributed.

The latest example is the movie-house shooting in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead and 57 injured. Families of 11 victims who died called a news conference last week to criticize fundraisers for not giving them a voice in how $5 million in public donations will be administered. (more…)

USA TODAY, August  3, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor and William M. Welch

The night Ashley Moser was shot in the Century 16 Aurora movie theater, she lost her daughter, use of much of her body and the ability to be financially independent.

Like many victims, Moser, whose daughter was killed in the shooting and who suffered a miscarriage from her injuries, will face mental and physical trauma that will lead to a lifetime of medical costs. Her family and others will have to sort through dozens of victim funds and find their way through a maze of medical bills.

“It is going to cost a small fortune,” said Mary Ellen Hansen, Moser’s aunt. “She won’t be able to work anymore. Her entire lifestyle is going to change.” (more…)

USA TODAY, July 20, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

The tweets came in soon after a gunman opened fire in a crowded Colorado movie theater.

I’m safe. I survived. I made it out.

They’re the words of witnesses poured out over social-media sites telling the world in the quickest way possible that they were alive. As people continue to turn to such sites during emergencies, the potential for more organized methods of online conversations — such as 911 for Twitter — remains an area ripe for development, social-media experts said. (more…)

USA TODAY, June 27, 2012

By Yamiche Alcindor

Jonni McCoy saw flames in her rearview mirror as she drove away from her home and the fire that eventually consumed her Colorado Springs neighborhood.

She lost her home, her grandmother’s furniture and everything else she hadn’t stored across town when officials started warning her about the fires crisscrossing her state Saturday.

Officials don’t know how many houses have been destroyed in Colorado’s Waldo Canyon Fire, which has forced the mandatory evacuation of what the Associated Press reported was more than 32,000 people from the Colorado Springs area. They tell stories of hurried escapes, tall flames engulfing homes and thick smoke that makes breathing and seeing almost impossible. The anxiety is palpable, the sadness as widespread as the smoke.

(more…)