Battery Brouhaha, Racial Slurs Prompted George Zimmerman’s Bar Bouncing: Deputies

SANFORD, FL — George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain who was catapulted into the news following the 2012 shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, is once again making headlines. This time he’s accused of slinging racial slurs, creating a brouhaha in a bar and saying a deputy was “under qualified to flip burgers.”

The incident that led to Zimmerman’s latest brush with law enforcement and his ultimate bouncing from the bar in question unfolded late Wednesday night at Sanford’s Corona Cigar Company. A deputy was called out to the 1130 Townpark Ave. bar just after 11 p.m. to investigate an unrelated battery, according to an offense report released by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.

As the deputy was investigating the battery, it seems a verbal spat broke out between Zimmerman and one of the bar’s employees. A female employee told the deputy she was attempting to collect the tab from Zimmerman’s group and was given a credit card, the report said. Zimmerman, the report noted, proceeded to yell at the woman “and forcefully took the credit card back out of her hand.”

See also: Man Who Shot George Zimmerman Gets 20 Years

The bar’s manager reportedly had had enough at that point. He asked the deputy to trespass Zimmerman from the establishment “due to several recent disturbances that he had initiated, and because of the current incident,” the report said.

As the deputy found himself juggling two cases and two sets of paperwork – the original battery and the request to trespass – Zimmerman reportedly approached him to issue a battery complaint of his own.

Zimmerman proceeded to accuse a man of battering him by attempting to shake his hand and then patting him twice on the shoulder, the report noted.

While all that was going on, the bar’s manager informed the deputy that Zimmerman had approached him and dropped the n-word. The man accused of battering Zimmerman also told the deputy he had been called the n-word and had “several other inappropriate racial slurs” slung at him, the report noted.

That’s about the time things became even more complicated for the deputy. The report noted Zimmerman went outside and proceeded to call the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office Communications Center. When 911 operators asked his name, “he advised that he was ‘John Doe’ and requested to speak with a supervisor.”

Sgt. Sean Coyle responded to the Corona and was able to calm Zimmerman down. At that point, the original deputy on the scene began to look into Zimmerman’s battery claim, the report noted.

The calm didn’t last long.

The deputy tried to get Zimmerman to fill out a formal statement, but “he became belligerent and refused to accept it,” the report noted. After some back and forth, Zimmerman filled out the form, but did it incorrectly, the report added. On his second attempt, Zimmerman “wrote the following on the statement portion of the form: ‘I want to press charges.’”

In the narrative section, Zimmerman wrote, “Officer Nickell is an incompetent officer under qualified to flip burgers,” the report said.

Zimmerman is also accused of threatening to sue the sheriff’s office. He was ultimately trespassed from the bar.

As for the man accused of battering Zimmerman, the report noted the video and Zimmerman’s version of events didn’t quite add up. “it appeared as if he was attempting to engage in a friendly gesture with Zimmerman as a reasonable person would do when approaching an acquaintance/friend to say hello.”

Zimmerman is the former Sanford neighborhood watch captain who fired the shot that killed Trayvon Martin, 17, in 2012. Martin was unarmed at the time.

The death of the unarmed, black teenager led to second-degree murder charges for Zimmerman. His 2013 acquittal sparked racial unrest in Florida and across the country.

Zimmerman has been in and out of the news since his acquittal. At one point, he blamed President Barack Obama for racial tensions that erupted following Martin’s death. He was also implicated in a road rage incident and had domestic violence allegations levied against him that were subsequently dropped.

Federal civil rights charges in the 17-year-old’s death loomed over Zimmerman for a while after the acquittal. The U.S. Justice Department cited “insufficient evidence” for its February 2015 decision against pursuing further action.

Zimmerman sparked renewed criticism and outrage when he auctioned off the gun he used to shoot Martin. His partnership last year with the owner of a gun shop who tried to declare his store a "Muslim-free zone" also raised eyebrows. That partnership involved the sale of Confederate flag prints created from a painting Zimmerman made. Money raised was reportedly being split between the shop's owner and Zimmerman to offset legal costs, among other expenses.