President Obama, having stirred up national interest in the Trayvon Martin case with his comments last month, has nothing more to say about the shooting of the black Florida teenager, his press secretary said Wednesday.
“I certainly don’t expect you’ll hear from him about an ongoing investigation,” spokesman Jay Carney said. “I think that he, and I and others, will refrain from commenting on it.”
A Florida special prosecutor is expected to announce as early as Wednesday that she is charging neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting death of the 17-year-old Martin. The teenager was shot and killed Feb. 26 by Mr. Zimmerman, who said he was acting in self-defense.
Police in Sanford, Fla., did not charge Mr. Zimmerman, citing the state’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law. The case has inflamed a national debate over racial profiling. The youth was black; Mr. Zimmerman is Hispanic.
On March 23, at a time the case was already under investigation by the FBI and Justice Department, Mr. Obama ventured into the controversy by calling the case a “tragedy” and saying if he had a son, “he’d look like Trayvon.”
The president said “all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen.”
But Mr. Carney cited the ongoing investigation several times Wednesday as the reason why the White House and Mr. Obama would not comment further on the case.
