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The parents of Trayvon Martin, the black Florida teen who was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012 that helped inspire the Black Lives Matter movement, are mulling a run for political office and are setting their sights as far as the White House.

Speaking with USA Today's Susan Page, Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said that after years of anti-gun violence activism, they now want to be "a part of the change" as politicians, "instead of just telling somebody else."

At first, Fulton, and Martin's father Tracy Martin, said they might campaign for a position at the local level, including county commissioner or city council member.

Asked where it could all go, Fulton replied, "it could go all the way to the White House."

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"There's no limitations. I think once you embark on a journey, you don't minimize your goals, you want to maximize your goals," Martin added.

In February will be five-year anniversary of the Martin's shooting death at the hands of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. A jury found Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder the following summer.

Fulton endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during last year's election season, and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last summer.

Top Story

President Trump is set to announce his Supreme Court pick Thursday or maybe even earlier, if a rumor flying around Washington is to be believed. There have been reports that Trump, who during the campaign named 21 prospective nominees and promised his final choice would be one of them, has narrowed his options to three, all currently serving on federal courts of appeals: Neil Gorsuch from the 10th Circuit, Thomas Hardiman from the 3rd, and William Pryor from the 11th.

But there's also a feeling in Washington that some other player might still be in the mix.

01/30/17 12:53 AM

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Trayvon Martin's parents are considering running for office perhaps even the White House - Washington Examiner (blog)

In an exclusive interview with USA TODAYs Capital Download, the parents of Trayvon Martin tell Washington Bureau chief Susan Page that they are concerned President Trump will reverse the nations recent progress on racial justice. USA TODAY

Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton on the Forzano Park football field where their slain son Trayvon Martin played.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODA)

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. Trayvon Martin's parents aren't convinced much progress has been made on racial justice since the Florida teenager was killed five years ago in a shooting that helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement,but they say at least his death reignited a national conversation about it.

Now they fear President Trump will reverse whatever has been accomplished. Both are considering running for political office to "be part of the change" they say the nation needs.

"Since Trayvon's death, we saw how divided the country is on these issues and we saw how the country can come together," Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father, told Capital Download. "You have those that are for uniting the country and you have those that want to be apart. And what this new presidency does, it takes those that want to be apart and it puts them right in the position where they can say, 'We'll change the laws, and we'll make it tougher.'"

He worries that the new administration will make it easier for law enforcement officials and citizens to justify violence against minorities on the grounds they felt their safety was imperiled. At his trial for shooting Trayvon, George Zimmerman argued he felt threatened by the 17-year-old, whom he had followed in his car and then on foot.

In their new book,Rest in Power, being published Tuesday by Siegel & Grau, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin testify in alternating chapters how an explosive national controversy unfolded in their lives, from the shooting in 2012 to the protests in the street to the trial of his killer. The 331-page book ends with Zimmerman's acquittal in 2013 on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Now,in an interview with USA TODAY's video newsmaker series, Fulton and Martin say they are considering running for office, an idea they would have found laughable five years ago "before our life got interrupted," as she put it.

USA TODAY

Capital Download - Conversations with Washington's biggest newsmakers

"Before I was just comfortable with my average life, but now I feel like I'm just obligated to be part of the change," Fulton said. "The only way we can be part of the change is if we start with local government and we work our way up."

How far up?

"It could go all the way to the White House," she declared, though it would begin with a bid for, say, city or county commission.

"There's no limitations," Martin agreed. "I think once you embark on a journey, you don't minimize your goal; you want to maximize your goals. So you start on the local level and then you work your way up and hopefully it will take us to a place where we can help more than just local, more than just state. National. That would be the focus."

Civil rights leaders and residents of the city of Sanford attend a town hall meeting to discuss the death of Trayvon Martin on March 20, 2012, in Sanford, Fla.(Photo: Gerardo Mora, Getty Images)

They are distressed by thenew president's attitude, a sharp change from his predecessor. At one point, then-president Obama said, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon," urging Americans to give serious consideration to the issues behind his shooting. When Zimmerman was acquitted, a somber Obama said, "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago."

In contrast, on the day Trump was inaugurated this month, his administration posted a position paper on law-enforcement policy on the White House website, vowing change. "The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong," the statement said. "The Trump administration will end it."

"I think from the statements being made, we won't progress; we'll be going backwards," Martin said.

Fulton, who campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last year, said Trump's rhetoric against immigrants in general and Muslims in particular "fed into that division, they fed into that hatred." Now, she saidtheAfrican-American parents she talks to are increasingly concerned about their children's safety.

Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, introduces Hillary Clinton during a rally at CB Smith Park on Nov. 5, 2016, in Pembroke Pines, Fla.(Photo: Brendan Smialowski, AFP/Getty Images)

"Average citizens feel like their kids are not going to make it home safely, because we've had so many incidents where somebody is shot and killed and nobody is being held accountable," she said. "You have to bury a loved one, and on top of you burying a loved one, nobody is going to trial. Nobody is being arrested. Nobody is going to jail. And so it like adds insult to injury.

"Where is the justice system for some of these families? Where was the justice system for us?"

She can hardly believe that five years have passed since she got the shattering call that her son had been shot and killed when he ran out to a corner store to pick up a soft drink and some Skittles. The fatal shooting of the unarmed youth fueled a national debate over violence against unarmed minorities and transformed the lives of his parents. His parents say their son has become "asymbol, a beacon and a mirror" in the nation's debate over race and justice.

"It feels like it happened a few months ago," Fulton said. "The pain is still raw. The pain is still fresh. And I know I'm not going to ever get healed back to my original state, because he's not coming back."

'Rest in Power' by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin(Photo: Spiegel & Grau, publisher)

They are sitting in the modest offices of the Trayvon Martin Foundation, a nonprofit they founded to battle gun violence and help families and young people. On the wall just behind them, on the third floor of the Florida Memorial University library here, there is a five-foot-tall blow-up of what has become an iconic photo of their son in one of the hoodies he wore almost everywhere.

Fulton was one of the so-called Mothers of the Movement who helped solidify Clinton's support in the African-American community during last year's campaign. A week after the election, Clinton's staff arranged a conference call for Clinton and the informal group.

"Even now, it feels like you're still down and you're trying to get back up," Fulton says of what she calls a "devastating" defeat in November. Asked how she thinks Clinton is doing, she begins, "I think," then pauses. "She's very disappointed by what happened ... and I think that it's going to take a lot of time for her to get back up."

Fulton and Martin survey the familiar landscape at Forzano Park in Miramar, Fla., where Trayvon had played football and his father still coaches.

They are tall, sturdy, straightforward. They had gotten divorced when Trayvon was four years old but seem to have an easy friendship to this day. Martin works as a truck driver. Fulton had been a program manager for the Miami-Dade Housing Authority, though she left the job the day her son was killed and never returned. Both are wearing "I am Trayvon Martin" buttons, showing their son's face.

"I remember when he first started playing," Martin said, a smile spreading over his face. "He would sleep in his uniform. He'd put on his pants and his socks and he'd sleep in it. He's wake up in the morning, ready to go."

Trayvon Martin's parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, pose on the Forzano Park football field where their son played youth football.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)

Now Trayvon's blue and gold jersey is framed and hangs in the clubhouse. His number, 9, has been retired by the Wolverines, and the name scrawled on the cubby he used hasn't been repainted. "Lil Tray," it reads.

"He did get hurt one time and I was just like, Oh!," Fulton said, making a sound as though she had been kicked in the stomach. "But then when he got up and everybody started clapping, I was like, I don't know if I could do this football thing, you know. I think that's what all parents go through, especially when it's their child down. It's like, Oh! It just does something to you."

If he had lived, Trayvon would be turning 22 next Sunday.

"A lot of times in the national spotlight, they celebrate his death," Fulton said. (The fifth anniversary of that is later next month, on Feb. 26.) "But we don't see any importance in celebrating his death, and so we celebrate his birth. ...

"Every year, I always say that I'm not going to cry when they sing 'Happy Birthday,' and lo and behold, as a mother, you know, I cry every year. I tear up every year," she said. "Every year, it reminds me that we're missing him another year."

Parents of Trayvon Martin remember their son five years after his death. USA TODAY

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Trayvon Martin's parents, five years after his shooting, weigh political bids - USA TODAY

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) A woman whose conviction sparked a change in the states gun laws is now completely free and says she plans to run an organization to help victims of domestic violence caught up in the criminal justice system.

Marissa Alexander told The Florida Times-Union that she wants to help others because from what Ive been through I know a lot more about the system and how it fits together.

Ive been contained since 2011, Alexander said. But Im excited to have the chance to give back using whatever platform I have.

Alexander attracted national attention after she was sentenced in 2012 to 20 years in prison for firing a shot near her estranged husband during an altercation. She argued she had fired a warning shot and unsuccessfully tried to use Floridas stand your ground law as part of her defense.

Her husband denied abusing her and said she shot at him in anger after he insulted her former husband. Prosecutors insisted it wasnt a warning shot because it hit the wall behind Gray and not the ceiling.

Alexanders case became noticed because it was contrasted against what happened to George Zimmerman who was acquitted in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin after he said he shot an unarmed Martin in self-defense.

Alexanders conviction was thrown out on appeal and she reached a plea deal in 2014. Her case was cited by legislators when they altered Floridas mandatory sentencing law nearly three years ago.

Alexander was released from home detention this past week. She has begun the process of setting up the Marissa Alexander Justice Project which will not only focus on female victims of domestic violence but will be critical of minimum-mandatory sentences like the 20 years Alexander once faced after she was initially convicted.

She told the newspaper that her fame is still something she struggles with, rolling her eyes when a reporter tells her shes famous but also acknowledging the oddity that many people whove never met her are familiar with her case.

The surreal moment for me was getting mail from Great Britain and Australia, Alexander said.

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Jacksonville woman in 'warning shot' case free to help others - Wink News

'Right Behind You' by Lisa Gardner(Photo: Dutton)

USA TODAYs Jocelyn McClurg scopes out the hottest books on sale each week.

1. Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner (Dutton, fiction, on sale Jan. 31)

What its about:FBI profiler Pierce Quincy and partner Rainie Conner are called to the scene of a double murder at a gas station, and it appears the killer is the older brother of the teen girl they are about to adopt.

The buzz:Gardners Find Her reached No. 2 on USA TODAYs Best-Selling Books list last February.

2. Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martinby Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin (Spiegel & Grau, non-fiction, on sale Jan. 31)

What its about:A memoir by the parents of Trayvon Martin, who was 17 and unarmed when he was shot and killed by neighborhood watchdog George Zimmerman after an altercation in Florida in 2012.

The buzz:Remarkably candid and deeply affecting, says Booklist.

3. 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (Henry Holt, fiction, on sale Jan. 31)

What its about:Auster invents four alternative life paths and parallel narratives for a character named Archie Ferguson, born in 1947 in Newark, N.J.

The buzz: Satisfyingly rich in detail, says Publishers Weekly.

4. The Prisoner by Alex Berenson (Putnam, fiction, on sale Jan. 31)

What its about:In the latest in a thriller series, ex-CIA agent John Wells reluctantly pretends to be a jihadiin order to infiltrate ISIS.

The buzz:Fast-paced and believable, says Kirkus Reviews.

5. Bears in the Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia by Lisa Dickey (St. Martins Press, non-fiction, on sale Jan. 31)

What its about:Dickey reports on the lives of real Russians, based on her travels there on three occasions (1995, 2005 and 2015).

The buzz:With our new president and his controversial goodwill toward Vladimir Putin, the timing of this travelogueseems prescient.

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Books: New and noteworthy - USA TODAY

Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, introduced Senate File 292 in the Senate, but the original is a House of Representatives bill authored by Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, House File 238.

Rep. Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa, is one of the sponsors of the House version.

Although the formal title is the "Defense of Dwelling and Person Act", both Ruud and Heintzeman described it as a "Stand Your Ground" bill.

Stand Your Ground laws eliminate the legal expectation that people should try to get away when confronted with aggression outside the home, rather than use force. This expectation is called the "common-law duty to retreat" and is used to determine whether people truly were justified in using deadly force or not.

"Stand Your Ground" laws drew nationwide attention when Florida's version of the law played a role in the case of George Zimmerman after he shot black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012.

The existing law in Minnesota, which gives the right to use lethal force to prevent "great bodily harm or death," or within one's home in order to prevent a felony, is expanded to authorize lethal force under an additional circumstance.

Under the new proposed law, people would also be authorized to kill in order to stop what they reasonably believe is a "forcible felony" in most locations, even outside their home. The bill defines forcible felony as a crime punishable by a jail sentence of more than one year, and which includes the use or threat of force. It lists examples of offenses that fit under the criteria, ranging from first degree murder to crimes like arson and third degree assault.

The bill also lowers the threshold for killing to prevent "great bodily harm or death" to simply "substantial bodily harm." Under the definition of the term in a separate, existing Minnesota law, substantial bodily harm is "bodily injury which involves a temporary but substantial disfigurement, or which causes a temporary but substantial loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ, or which causes a fracture of any bodily member."

Duel in a parking garage

Heintzeman posed the hypothetical scenario of what someone is supposed to do if attacked outside their home.

"I think people are worried that if they're in a parking ramp and somebody approaches them with a knife or a weapon or a bottle or something, even a gun, are they within their right to defend themselves?" he said. "You tell me .... because Castle Doctrine can be interpreted at times (to say) no, you have an obligation to get away rather than defend yourself in that situation."

Heintzeman asked rhetorically where someone could flee to in a parking ramp.

"Do you risk going to jail and defend your family, or do you defend yourself in another way?" he said.

Crow Wing County Attorney Don Ryan brought up the same scenario of being attacked in a parking ramp to explain why he thought the bill was a bad idea. In Minnesota, people already have the right to use deadly force in self-defense outside the home if deadly force is being meted against them by their assailantbut they have a legal duty to try and get away first if they can.

"Let's say (you're) standing in a parking garage and there's someone 100 yards away, and they pull a knife and put it over their head," Ryan supposed. "They're saying 'I'm going to kill you' and they come running at you. You're right next your car where you can quickly open it up, close it, lock the car and start driving away. That would be a reasonable duty to escape, right? Under this bill, you could just pull out your gun and shoot them, because there's no duty to retreat anymore."

The Minnesota County Attorneys Association opposed a Stand Your Ground bill when it was introduced earlier in the decade and opposes it now, as it's come up in 2017, Ryan said.

"From my perspective, I don't see why this bill would enhance public safety," he said.

The bill removes objective standards surrounding self defense and forces law enforcement authorities to prove what people who used deadly force were thinking when they pulled the trigger, Ryan said. It also creates a presumption that people are automatically immune from prosecution if they act in self defense, he said.

"Now we've just got people running around with guns, and if they feel threatened, they get to shoot people," he said.

Not 'the Wild, Wild West'

Ruud said she doesn't expect the bill to pass this session, rather, she wants Minnesotans to know gun rights are still a priority to lawmakers. She also wants the initiative to get committee hearings so the new crop of freshman legislators know what's in it.

Although Ruud couldn't think of any specific instances of constituents telling her they weren't safe because of existing self defense law, she added that she's heard from those who wish for the elimination of the duty to retreat, inside their home or out.

Asked about the dissent against similar Stand Your Ground Laws, Ruud pointed out that the 2003 law that allowed Minnesotans to carry handguns in public was also met with fears of diminished public safety, which turned out to be overblown.

"I'm aware of the controversy, but I also know that when we passed the (Citizens') Personal Protection Act, everybody said it was going to be the Wild, Wild, West," she said. "In all these years since it passed, we have seen the exact opposite. There hasn't been anyone who has a permit that's really been convicted or used that gun in a crime. So, we think that putting forward good laws, and having people understand what it's all about, is the best way to go."

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Northern Minnesota legislators introduce 'Stand Your Ground' bill - Park Rapids Enterprise