Apologies for killings are hard to accept

We know how they would answer: They didn’t accept the apology and don’t appear likely to.

Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin in a Sanford, Fla., gated community the night of Feb. 26.

Martin was only 17. He was also black. Zimmerman is half-white and half-Latino, so the incident has caused the racial imbroglio you’d expect it to cause.

For the past month or so, there have been rallies across the country demanding Zimmerman be charged in Martin’s death. Police in Sanford didn’t charge Zimmerman initially because he claimed self-defense under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

But the governor of Florida appointed a special prosecutor to look into the case. Angela Corey, the special prosecutor, charged Zimmerman two weeks ago. At his bail hearing, he took the stand and said this:

“I wanted to say I’m very sorry for the loss of your son. I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am, and I did not know if he was armed or not.”

Zimmerman’s apology went over like smothered pork chops at a bar mitzvah, at least with Martin’s family.

“[Zimmerman] had a Web page. Never apologized there,” said Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s father and mother.

“[Zimmerman] had the voice mails we’ve heard,” Crump continued. “Never apologized then. So we feel that you all can conclude for yourselves what motivations there are.”

Crump, Tracy Martin and Fulton are right to be leery about the timing of Zimmerman’s apology. And they were the ones in the courtroom. Only they can gauge how sincere Zimmerman was.

But were I in their place, I might have been inclined to accept the apology.

I don’t say that as some casual observer who has never lost a loved one to homicide. Truth is, I’ve lost two.

On Nov. 25, 1996, my youngest brother was fatally stabbed on an Easton, Md., drug corner. My brother had fought a crack habit for years, and he’d gotten into a fight with a fellow crack addict who was supposed to be his “friend.”

It was one of those silly beefs between two young black men that all too frequently end in the death of at least one of them. Those who have protested loud and long about Trayvon Martin’s death shouldn’t lose sight of that sobering fact.

For years, my brother’s killer, Anthony Tyrone Mills, contended that the slaying was an accident. Mills’ story was that during the fight my brother had stumbled backward and fallen. Mills said he stumbled forward and landed on top of my brother, and that his knife “accidentally” penetrated my brother’s heart.

I won’t describe what I wanted to do to Mills after he told his infuriating tale. But years later, at his post-conviction relief hearing, Mills stunned me.

He looked directly at me and said he was sorry for killing my brother.

Oh yes, he knew I was in the courtroom, because I’d made it a point to let Mills know that every time he appeared in court, I’d be there.

Mills, who was trying to get his 30-year sentence for second-degree murder reduced, had every bit a reason to offer up a self-serving apology as Zimmerman had. But it was his looking me in the face that left me convinced of his sincerity.

Who was Zimmerman looking at when he made his apology?

Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.