Zimmerman reported Martin with a non-emergency call.
Sanford police dispatcher:
Sanford Police Department. This line is being recorded. This is [name].
Sanford 911 dispatcher:
Nine one one. Do you need police, fire, or medical?
Records also identify Zimmerman's February 26 call as non-emergency. In the header for each record, after 'call source:', 911 calls have '911', non-emergency calls have 'TEL'.
The '911' meme made an early appearance, possibly the earliest, in a March 7 Reuters
report. No source was given.
As Trayvon returned to the townhome, Sanford police received a 911 call reporting a suspicious person.
The story behind that report was told in an April 3 Reuters
report. On March 5, [Martin attorney Natalie] Jackson brought in Ryan Julison, a publicist who had worked with her on a number of high-profile cases. . . . Julison pitched the story to a long list of media contacts. Eventually, on March 7, Reuters published a story titled "Family of Florida Boy Killed by Neighborhood Watch Seeks Arrest."
The March 7 report quoted Julison.
"If the 911 protocol across the country held to form here, they told him not to get involved. He disobeyed that order," said Ryan Julison, a spokesman for the family.
The Martins' publicist was promoting 'Zimmerman disobeyed the dispatcher's order' before the recording was released.
Reuters uncritically accepted Julison's speculation, and his uninformed assertions about '911 protocol across the country.' The report does not say if Reuters consulted anyone actually knowledgeable about 911 protocols, to determine whether a 911 dispatcher would normally give a citizen an 'order'.
