President Obama's statement on Trayvon Martin killing

President Obama spoke today about the killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL:

"When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids," Obama said in the Rose Garden. "I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this. And that everybody pull together."

"My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said. "All of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves."

"Obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through," Obama said. "All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how something like this has happened."

Trayvon Martin, a middle-class black teen with no history of trouble, was shot and killed in Sanford, Fla., a community just north of Orlando. His alleged assailant, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain and criminal justice student, apparently killed him on Feb. 26 as the 17-year-old walked home from a convenience store near his suburban neighborhood to his father's house a few blocks away.

Before the shooting, Zimmerman, who has a weapons permit, told a police dispatcher there was "a real suspicious guy" who looked "like he was up to no good or on drugs or something" and looked to have "something in his waistband." Although he was directly told not to follow Martin, Zimmerman chased Martin on foot and eventually shot him. Martin was unarmed, carrying only a bag of Skittles and an iced tea he had just purchased.