♪ hello >> the songs, sensational collaborations, his daughter nicole and a country singer. my visit with a music icon. plus, arguably one of the worst decisions of all time, this is piers morgan tonight. good evening, trayvon martin shot at close rank. but was it self-defense? also, lionel richie, the pop icon joins me. he's back in the spotlight with a hit country album. ♪ ♪ hello is it me you're looking for ♪ >> but, first, a big story, trayvon martin and the night that he was killed. joining me are trayvon martin's parents and the family attorney, benjamin crumb. thank you so much for joining me. i send you my deepest condolences on the loss of your son. i can only imagine with the whole world scrutinizing everything that happened, the pain for you must just worsen and for that i just send my sincere sympathies. >> thank you. >> i know that you've seen this video in the last few minutes. it shows george zimmerman at the police station. what is your reaction to this video? >> we just looked at the video and we were just surprised of -- because, according to the police report, he sustained injuries but when we looked at the video, it was obvious that there were no visible injuries. there were no blood on his shirt. so we have concluded just by watching this video that there may not have been any injuries at all. >> i mean, what we don't know is exactly the time of this video. we don't know how many hours after the incident it was filmed. having said that, we can see democrat monday stra tifl, there are no serious injuries. he was alleged to have a broken nose and seems to be walking very freely. you can see him walking across without any problem. he doesn't look like somebody to a dispassionate observer who has been beaten up. >> it was if in fact he had a broken nose, how he continued to keep his head down and anyone that knows one who has had a broken nose, your nose will continue to bleed and bleed and bleed until it gets fixed. >> let me ask benjamin crumb, who's your lawyer, how significant is this from a legal point of view? >> piers, this is the smoking gun. this clearly shows that the police report was a smoking gun. you don't see any of that. and we're looking at this, obvious to us that there was something that night that they conspired to cover this up, to cover up the death of trayvon martin. now we are glad that all america could say because every night agonizing about the killing of their son, sleeping in their own bed, while their son was in the grave and the police forp doing whatever they can do to protect zimmerman. it just doesn't make sense that anybody. >> i want to play you a clip of george oliver, a friend of zimmerman. listen to what he had to say. >> sadly, for the martin family, it was trayvon that we lost. but we've also lost george, too. he will never be the same man. he will never be the kind, giving, caring human being. he is so distraught about this, he has been diagnosed with ptsd, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression. he can't sleep, he can't eat. he cried for days after this happened. >> sabrina, let me ask you for your reaction to that. >> >> it just shows that there is a human side contrary to what we believed but there is a human side to george zimmerman. we are crying, to. it just hurts deeply to hear this. and if i had shot and killed an individual, i'm sure i would be crying also and i would feel remorse and things like that, too, because i had taken a human life, a young human life. >> i mean, from everything that you have seen, that you've read, that you've heard, what do you believe is the most likely set of circumstances that led to your son being killed? >> i believe that george zimmerman hunted my son like an animal, tried to detain my son. my son tried to get away and because he could not detain my son, an altercation ensued and my son was shot and killed. >> and, tracy, do you believe that there was a racial element to this? because joe oliver, again, a clip from the interview that i won't tell you, he basically implied that george zimmerman didn't have a racist bone in his body. there certainly wouldn't have been any motive to done what he did. >> i almost certainly don't know zimmerman's character. i don't know his makeup. but what i do know is that my son was racially profiled. i know that. the whole world knows that. and as far as him being a racist, i really don't know him. i've never had an encounter with him so i can't speak on that matter. but i can speak on the facts and the facts are george zimmerman did racially profile trayvon martin. >> sybrina, do you believe if your son had been white and george zimmerman had been black, that he would have been arrested, george zimmerman? >> i absolutely believe that my son would have been arrested. it wouldn't have been an explanation that he could have given the sanford police department to ensure that he would not go to jail. they would not have listened to that. they would have arrested him and let them -- let him plead his case in a court of law. i don't believe that he could have shot someone if -- i don't believe he could have shot someone and went home that same night. >> let me turn to towards your lawyer, mr. krump. everyone is saying, look, we have to wait for the investigation to run its course before any arrest can be considered and, of course, the investigation was ee ffectively conducted on the night and we now know the lead investigator in the case recommended zimmerman be charged with manslaughter after the shooting but the state attorney's office overturned this, said there wasn't enough evidence. so the case was basically dust and dusted in a matter of hours. >> pierss, you know, we have the 911 tape that we hear with our ears, we have this video that we see with our eyes. we don't need anything else to know that there was some kind of conspiracy to sweep trayvon martin's death under the rug. it is real clear, we can believe our eyes and we can believe our ears now that the lead investigator was right when he said it doesn't added a up. he didn't think it was credible and for some reason the state attorney, the police chief and the chief who's acting sanford police department made a decision to ignore the evidence we see, ignore the evidence we hear, and to ignore commonsense. trayvon martin had a bag of skittles. george zimmerman, this armed vigilante, had a 9 millimeter gun. >> let me ask you, sybrina, as trayvon's mother, you've seen a lot of vigilante groups now. we've seen this group, the black panther party, putting a bounty out for george zimmerman. emotions are running high, temperatures are getting very dangerously high here. what is it, as his mother, that you would like to see happen next? >> i would like george zimmerman arrested immediately. that's the first and foremost thing that we want right here for this case, is we need an arrest. >> and do you believe that the video that's emerged tonight should lead to that arrest on the basis that the story that's been put out here in george zimmerman's defense, that he was beaten so badly that he feared for his life, cannot, as this video would suggest, be true? >> i believe that this video is the icing on the cake. this is not the first part of the evidence that they have had. they have had the 911 tapes and they have also have witnesses. this is in addition to what the sanford police department has always had. there is no problem with this case and he needs to be arrested. >> tracy, if you had the chance to speak to george zimmerman right now, what would you say to him? >> i would ask him why did he in fact pick out my son, what was going through his mind that night, do he realize he's destroyed an innocent child's life? my son had a future. my son was not one of these thugs in the night. i would ask him, why did he in fact take my son's life and how does he feel about taking my son's life? >> sybrina, many believe that you are suffering perhaps even more now since losing your son by the attempt of some people to assassinate his character, to bring out all of this stuff about his behavior which portrays him in a very damaging light. what would you say about that? >> it bothers me as a mother to hear all of those negative things about my son. i knew trayvon. i lived with trayvon. i know what he's capable of doing and i know what he's capable of not doing. it just hurts us to know that people are trying to damage his name. they murdered him. they are trying to murder his reputation. i've said that before. and it's just painful to me as a mother. >> well, sybrina, tracy, benjamin crump, thank you for joining us. i hope you find justice and peace. it must be an ongoing agony for you. our hearts go out to you. thank you for spending time with us this evening. >> thank you, piers. . >> the killing of trayvon martin has sparked national dialogue. beyond trayvon, race and justice in america, friday night at 8:00 eastern. coming up next, lionel richie is back. i heard they found energy here. it's good. we need the jobs. 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[ male announcer ] you plant. you mow. you grow. you dream. meet the new definition of durability: the john deere select series. with endless possibilities, what will you create? ♪ learn more about the new select series x310 with power steering at johndeere.com/x310. ♪ >> you know the song, the 1977 hit "easy." the man behind some of the best love songs, lionel richie. lionel is back and going country. lionel, welcome. >> you pronounced that perfectly. >> i did. you were in los angeles singing penny lover. >> whap kind of group was that? by the way, don't give up your job. stay right where you are. do not move. >> it wasn't that bad. fueled with jack daniels. >> i was going to say -- >> you're looking disgustingly in good shape. >> you know, as long as i can look disgustingly wonderful after what my children have done to me, i'm doing all right. trust me. >> before we come on to your remarkable twist, the country music and your incredible career, i wanted to get your reaction to the interview that i just conducted with trayvon martin's parents. what did you make of what they were saying? >> you know, i'm a parent. how i approach this is just everyone take the race car out. if you received a phone call saying your child was shot and killed because he looked it suspicious, armed with a cell phone and the other guy has a gun, the next thing is, did he have any kind of markings on him that said security so your kid thinks someone's chasing him. i mean, this is just how i feel. and then you can't really get an explanation as to what really happened. don't put a color on that. just imagine. and now the outrage that is happening is if this was just a one off situation, it would be wonderful. it would be something that we could investigate. this is a common occurrence in the black community and so i understand now the outrage of trying to find out how obvious what it is, we can't get them to say that. >> there are several issues at play here. one is the apparent race issue which i think may be a slightly miscued way of approaching this. >> right. >> because george zimmerman, you know, he's not a white guy. he's not a white man kill canning a black man. so in the conventional sort of incident, that doesn't quite work. what you have is an extraordinary law in florida, stand your ground, which entitles anybody, if they feel the life in danger is to shoot somebody. >> but do they have a stalking law? what i'm saying to you, the kid felt, i'm sure -- i don't know who this guy is that is following me. we don't know if he identified himself as a security guard. we don't know this. and so i can only say if it were my son, i would be terrified to think of what he went through. you know, i don't know the circumstances. we don't know. it's just one of those situations where every part in america, in the world would say, what happened? >> it's really important, it seems to me, that you have to allow the legal process to take its course. george zimmerman may well have been attacked. the video doesn't help his cause. people watching that video tonight, as i did, and as you did, i'm sure, are saying, where are these injuries that caused him to believe that he was being apparently his nose broken, head thrown on the floor. it doesn't look like that's happened. >> is it attacked or fighting for his life? we can skew it the other way. if someone pulls out a gun and you're not sure whether you're being mugged or whether you're being apprehended, we don't know this. and so i'm sure without the proper, you know, investigation, we will never really know what those few seconds were. >> doesn't the nature of stand your ground as a law just frighten you as an american? doesn't it make you think, this can't be right, this law? because it's so vague. the idea that george zimmerman wasn't even arrested on the night is what appauls people. >> we're bringing back the wild west. in other words, we have another going on right now to where fear, people don't trust, and all of a sudden you put on top of that stand your ground, which means you're saying in case you feel any fear at all, you can stand your ground and shoot someone else. i mean, if you have a gun, you can justifiably shoot someone and say, i was feeling fear. >> there are gang leaders now apparently who are using this as a legal way to get off gang members. >> this is ridiculous. >> i think we have to take nine steps back and go back to human. we have to use commonsense here, piers. and i'm telling you, as a a parent you've got to look at this, i wouldn't want my kid on the street anymore. what is suspicious? is that racial profiling? suspicious. what does that really mean? every kid i know in the world has a hoodie. you know, i go -- we walk in beverly hills every day. every kid in beverly hills has a hoodie. are they going to be deemed suspicious and what is that going to mean for this world? in florida that law should be thrown out without a shadow of the doubt. >> you grew up in the south. >> yeah. >> you've spoken before that your parents protected you from racism. tell me about that. >> it was interesting. i was born and raised on tus keeg gee campus. it's exactly 38 miles away from montgomery, alabama. but if the klan marched any night, they would put us to bed early. so we didn't really know what that felt like, at least my generation. and when you have people like the tuskogee airmen, that's where they were from. ph.d.s, doctors, lawyers, they trained us that everything was available to you. i did not know that we had a problem with where can we go to get a job? everything is available. whether it was a doctor, a lawyer, they were all there. because segregation made tuskogee, they were all little meccas of very intelligent people because segregation was in and no vob jobs were available outside of those little townships. >> when was the first time that you realized that there was racism? >> the first time i knew about it was when i was old enough to start that, because we had a college student living with us that went to that. i was too young to participate. but he would come back and tell me all about that and when you see these huge policemen with the dogs and the spray and the horses, and everyone is there, you know, unarmed, you know, and it was quite -- it was impactful to me. i remember as a kid i kept thinking, where are we going with this. and then i think when it really hit home for me was i had a chance to hear malcolm x speak on the campus and he dealt with the issue in a very fill soef cal way. i thought it was brilliant. he said, don't you think times are getting better and the answer was, if you stick a night in the man's side and you pull it out halfway, is it better? only until you pull the knife all the way out and the wound heals is it better. and i kept that as my mantra throughout my growing up. that all we're doing right now is rehashing exactly what my mom and dad went through, my mom and dad's parents went through, and now here we are with the next, next, next generation, talking about insensitivity, racial profiling, it's the same. it's the same identical story, just a new generation. >> let's take a break. i want to come back and talk a bit more about this. i want to see whether you think america is more or less racist since it got its first black president and also want to talk about whitney houston, your great friend who recently died. ok, guys-- what's next ? 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see our prices and theirs at sears.com/compare. ♪ i sometimes see you pass outside my door ♪ ♪ hello, is it me wrour you're looking for ♪ ♪ i can see it in your eyes, i can see ♪ >> piers, just stop. >> sing to me. i'm feeling it. >> security. security. >> it's me you're looking for. it's me. somebody just tweeted. red devil teeth, if lionel starts singing, for god sakes don't sing along. >> you'll have to be honest, we owe you a great debt of thanks and gratitude. >> i am here to help you. >> really? >> yes. >> you did more for our efforts to seduce women than any singer in my generational lifetime. >> i am going to tell you a fact, i get more compliments from men than i do women. and by the way, they don't talk. women will walk in and tell me, i was engaged, i fell in love, we had children, we got married. guys have one signal they give me. they go, lionel, you understand? that says it all. >> i understand. >> you understand me? and i tell them all the time when they come to the show, listen, i know -- i know this is a bit over your head, but lean over to your girlfriend and say, isn't he amazing? and then you, i -- i am going to sing to her. you are going to take her home. think of it, it's all over. did i get that right? that's good. >> it's moving me even now, though. >> am i moving you? >> you had all of the commadore stuff. >> i was going to retire. >> with the greatest body of work of seduction in all time and then you go on and explode to a higher plynthe of love poetry. >> surprisingly, i was thinking of the a