circumstances. >> and then, battered by personal tragedy, the redemption. a new man, a new life. stealing the show in "the hangover." mike tyson, raw and ready for the next round. a primetime exclusive. this is "piers morgan tonight." let's get straight to the big story, trayvon martin. an exclusive interview with robert zimmerman whose brother george killed trayvon in what he said was self-defense. robert thank you, for joining he mn't tonight. why are you here? why do you want to do this interview? >> i think the tide has turned. there's a lot of loose ends to this story. some of them have to do with the events of that night and an investigation. some of them have moved on to a lot of hate speech. people like the mcclain family having to flee their home. people taking really -- putting emotions ahead of fact and putting our family and other families in danger. >> have your family had death threats? >> oh, yes. yes. >> credible threats? >> credible threats, yes. they have. yeah. >> against more than one member? against more than george? against others? >> i'm really not at liberty to discuss exactly who was threatened or how they were threatened. but i can tell you that i myself have been contacted by law enforcement too because there was credible intelligence that could threaten me. so i look a lot like my brother. people can easily confuse us. and in this misinformation that's been going on, that's been a constant fear of mine, that i would be -- >> nobody has heard from your brother, and therefore a mythology has built up about him. he is at the moment one of the most hated people in america. and we don't know anything about him. tell me about your brother. tell me what you want to say about him that can be his defense, if you like. >> yeah. i agree. it is a mythology that's been built up. and it's not because no one has had anything to say about george or because his family doesn't love him or support him. or not because he doesn't have supporters. it's been because the people who love and support george, his family namely, also respect the system, the judicial system, and the legal system that we have in america and that we don't have sadly sometimes the opportunity to comment when there are investigations going forth to respect the integrity of that actual investigation. but as far as george goes, he's a neighbor that everybody would want to have. he's the kind of guy that sees somebody struggling with changing a tire and stops to help them or helps older people with their groceries. he goes out of his way to help people. he always has. that's the kind of guy he is. >> i mean, people watching this saying, sure, maybe he was, maybe that is what he did. then why would somebody like that, why would somebody kind to the neighbors, wanting to do the right thing, do the decent thing, why would somebody like that get into some kind of altercation with a young 17-year-old boy, defy instructions he's given from a 911 operator, chase after him, some altercation clearly appears to have happened, and then your brother pulls out a gun and shoots him? why would your brother do that? >> well, you know, taking from what you said, when you say chasing after and getting into an altercation, there's a lot of ways that people get into altercations. i believe that if you wanted to reach over this table and assault me badly enough you could be armed with chapstick and a toothpick and still put me in fear of my -- reasonable fear of my life. he didn't get into an altercation. people don't just get into altercations. there are aggressors -- >> when did you first hear from george after this incident, you personally? >> me personally, i heard immediately after the incident. by immediately -- >> within an hour? >> i would say within 24 hours. >> within 24 hours. so the next day. >> would be the closest i'm willing to narrow the window down of exactly when george spoke. yeah. it would be within the next 24 hours. >> and what exactly did he tell you about what happened? >> well, some of the details have come out. you know, unfortunately, miss corey's investigation has been compromised. some details have been leaked. and that's why we can talk as the family more about -- now, what george told us was the truth. this fantasy, or this mythology that he chased a person is just absolutely false. he didn't chase anyone. >> on the 911 call he says that he's seen somebody suspicious who is running, and he says he's pursuing him, and he's told, police don't do that. >> and he says okay. and anything past that point is conjecture by the media. >> let's listen to this crucial bit of tape. this is from the 911 call. >> he's running. >> he's running? which way is he running? >> down towards the other entrance of the neighborhood. >> okay. which entrance is that that he's heading toward? >> the back entrance. >> are you following him? >> yeah. >> okay. we don't need you to do that. >> so the dispatcher says okay. >> right. george says okay. he says we don't need to you do that. and then george does stop following that individual. i believe, actually -- i believe he may have actually lost sight of that individual. >> when you say he stopped following, how do you know that? >> i believe that's what george -- and that's what's in the police reports and that's what has been leaked. >> the police report would be based on what george told the police on the night. wouldn't it? >> right. >> there's been no actual eyewitness to this. it's only george's word, isn't it? >> correct. it is only george's word. at this point. there was an eyewitness or two to the actual assault. but to the part where you're talking about where he followed or did not follow, he did not follow, nor did he ever catch up to mr. martin. mr. martin allegedly was close to his home, yet found himself so far from the front door. i guess unable to find his way home. you know, if he were really being pursued, i don't know how he couldn't make it home. >> what did george tell you trayvon martin allegedly did to him? >> what has come out that i can talk about today is that trayvon martin somehow snuck up on him. and according to mr. crump, an attorney, he was on -- we don't know if this is verifiable information, but he was on the phone with his girlfriend. i don't know if that's a police source. but i know his attorney at least holds up the girlfriend as a source and says trayvon told him no, i'm not running, i'm going to walk real slow. and trayvon went up to george and said the first thing to george. and there's some discussion about did he say "do you have a problem? do you have a problem? are you following me? why are you following me" -- >> what did george tell you he said? >> one of those things. do you have a problem with me? following me? why are you following me? something like that. my brother drew back to grab his phone in retreat to call again 911 and say, well, now this person who i lost sight of and was not pursuing has now confronted me. that's what he did. he never got to make that call because he was attacked by mr. martin. >> and when you say attacked, what did george tell you trayvon did to him? >> well, i don't know -- i believe that at the time george knew he had sustained some kind of injury to his face or his nose. i don't know that he knew it was broken. >> you see, here's the weird thing. how do you explain as a family the video that came out last night with your brother within not much time after this incident walking around unaided, perfectly okay with no apparent markings to his face. i mean, if you get a broken nose or the kind of head injury sustainable from having your head smashed on a concrete floor, you're going to have blood everywhere. you're going to have visible injuries. there is nothing. i mean, we're looking at the images now. there's no visible sign of any attack. how do you explain that? >> we're confident the medical records are going to explain all of george's medical history, both how he was treated at the scene and how he was not -- to me his nose looks swollen in that video. i'm his brother. so to me -- >> have you talked to george about the video since it came out? >> i'm really not at liberty to say. that particular piece of information about the video or about how he thinks his appearance may or may not be. what i think i see is a swollen nose. now, i'm not a physician. you're not a physician. a lot of these injuries take time, 24 hours, 36 hours, to show the bruising. sometimes the bone breaks and the blood is swallowed. like in the case of, for example, if your hand would be on someone's nose or mouth preventing them from -- >> does he have any injuries now? >> his nose is still broken. >> it's still broken? >> his nose is still broken. yeah. >> a month later it's still brokeen? >> his nose, yeah. i don't know about the back of his head. i mean, his nose is still healing. it's not healed. he's not a -- he has very severe emotional injuries. he has -- he's been diagnosed with prophet traumatic stress disorder. he was not right from the moment it happened. he didn't call his family and express anything but, you know, sadness. it was just a darkness. he had changed. he wasn't the same. he would never be the same. he was very disappointed that none of the neighbors had come out and helped, that the whole situation potentially could have been avoided by just someone coming out and saying, hey, what's going on out there? or -- >> let me ask you a difficult question, robert. >> sure. >> and you're not on trial for anything here. you're not the accused. but you are the brother of george. if we reversed the situation and it was your brother who had been gunned down in exactly the same set of circumstances and the worst that had happened as far as his behavior was that he had been followed and he'd gotten into an altercation and he was unarmed, he just had a bag of skittles on him and a guy who was much older, swwho followed m in the street pulled out a gun and shot him dead. would you not at the very least if you're honest and candid about this, would you not have expected that person to at least be arrested, to at least perhaps face some kind of trial where the full evidence could come out? >> well, i take -- i take pause to that whole, you know, conjecture again of pulled out a gun and shot him. that's absolutely not fact. it's -- >> it is what happened, though. >> no, it is not what happened. >> he did pull out a gun and shoot him, right? >> well, he stopped someone from disarming him and shooting him. he didn't pull out a gun and shoot him. george showed tremendous restraint. >> but he had the gun on him, right? >> he had a permit to carry that gun. >> where was the gun? >> the gun i believe was in his -- inside, tucked inside his pant waist. in a waist holster. >> right. so he has pulled it out, and he has fired it. >> well, he has taken control of his firearm. he prevented his firearm from being taken from him and used against him. and that's called saving your life. >> right. so you believe as a family -- is this what george told you the next day? that trayvon was trying to grab his gun to use against him? >> my father also is on record yesterday night saying that. and again, what trayvon said was either to the effect of i believe "this is going to be easy. you die tonight or you have a piece you die tonight." and then attempted to disarm him. so when you say have a bag of skittles and an iced tea, nobody just stood there with a bag of skit sxlz an i skittles and an iced tea. you return force with force when somebody assaults you. george was out of breath. he was barely conscious. his last thing he remembers doing was moving his head from the concrete to the grass so that if he was banged one more time he wouldn't be, you know, wearing diapers for the rest of his life and being spoon-fed by his brother. and there would have been george dead had he not acted decisively and instantaneously in that moment when he was being disarmed -- >> i mean, there are people watching this saying, well, the family would say this. they're protecting their brother. he may well have invented this whole story once he realized what he'd done. he may have just thought the only way i can get out of this is to use this stand your ground law, under florida law, and just invent this whole story. he may have even inflicted the injuries himself. we don't know, do we? nobody actually knows. >> well, the eyewitness that was there actually saw -- i don't think his face has been revealed. i know that the police have his testimony. i know that media ain florida have gone to his house and he doesn't want to open the door. but he did apparently see the whole thing from the first blow. >> hold that thought, robert. we'll come back after a short break and discuss this more. >> thanks. your finances can't manage themselves. but that doesn't mean they won't try. bring all your finances together with the help of the one person who can. a certified financial planner professional. cfp. let's make a plan. so i used my citi thank you card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates. ewill be giving awayuse for passafree copiesrline, of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. do you need police, fire, or medical? >> maybe both. i'm not sure. there's just someone screaming outside. [ screams ] >> so you think he's yelling "help"? >> yes. >> okay, what is your -- >> there's gunshots. >> you just heard gunshots? >> yes. >> how many? >> just one. >> the chilling 911 call as the shooting of trayvon martin was taking place. back with me now is robert zimmerman. his brother, george, killed trayvon martin. who was screaming there, robert? >> that's my brother. >> how can you be so sure? because trayvon's family are equally adamant it is their boy. >> you know, that's a very sensitive thing to talk about. i don't blame them for being as equally adamant. i don't blame anybody whose family member they believe or perceive that they hear on the tape for as being as equally adamant. i would expect nothing less, actually. i know that that's george. i know that one of the -- the saddest things for him in this whole thing is that despite those screams no one came to his aid. those screams could have avoided, you know, what eventually george had to do to defend his life. if someone had, you know, heard them, come out, shined a light on the situation, said, get out of here, what are you guys doing? because of that pain he felt in particular, that he was screaming out so many times, i know that that's his voice. it sounds just like my voice. i mean, he's my brother. that's what i sound like if i yell. but, you know, there are hopefully technological means to sort all that out. >> the other technological means that are being deployed on tape are the reference that your brother makes under his breath, which appears to be the racial term that the people have deduced it was. i'm not going to repeat it now. >> i've heard it, yes. >> you know what it is. i mean, cnn got that slowed down, replayed it ten times. i heard it. i'm pretty sure what i heard. i'm pretty sure it was a racial slur. what else could it have been? >> it could have been anything. if we slowed -- >> you know your brother, and you look like him, you sound like him. >> right. he speaks two languages fluently. >> what do you think he's saying? >> that part -- that tape, it's my understanding, is not actually in the original 911 tapes. it's after media outlets have slowed down, buffed up, redone, retouched, reconditioned -- >> but it exists. >> well, it does not exist after as it exists. it is a reconditioned piece of audio to satisfy whatever you want anybody to hear in that tape. i don't -- >> well, i don't think it is. i mean, i think that, to be factual, that part of the tape is under his breath. the police missed it first time around. they've accepted that. the question becomes, what is your brother saying? as i say, when i heard it, i believe i heard a racial slur. what do you think you heard? >> right, i believe -- >> or what do you think those two words were? >> again, i just -- i don't believe that, first of all, that they're words. i don't think that when someone is running and making, you know, utterances, not necessarily words, but utterances from strain under their breath, you can take any of that -- >> but what do you believe he was saying? >> i have no idea that he was even saying anything. that's what i'm trying to say. >> well, he clearly is saying something. i mean, he's clearly saying two words. >> i don't know that that's the case, piers. i -- >> the reason that i'm asking is if he's saying what i and many others believe him to be saying, it adds a racial element to this. it adds fuel to the fire that this was a case of racial profiling, that your brother saw a young black boy in a hoodie and decided he had to deal with him. >> right. well, that whole hoodie thing, that's another -- a hoodie is a description. you know, you're a man wearing a black suit and a red tie. that doesn't mean that if you commit a crime we should all go out and march in black suits and red ties. that was just simply how someone was described. that's not what made him -- >> have you ever heard your brother utter a racist remark about anybody? >> no. and certainly that word is not even in his vocabulary. of all words to say this was a racial slur, i'm a little bit older, you know, i was kind of familiar with it, that it was used in literature, you know, things like that, and that it was a word much more prevalent before. you know, something kind of you're exposed to in school growing up reading, but -- >> let me ask you this. why was your brother walking around this neighborhood anyway? he didn't have his neighborhood watch stuff on. nothing to identify him as any kind of neighborhood watch operative or security guy. so if you're trayvon martin, 17 years old, you're a boy, you're going to your father's girlfriend's house, you've been to a store, you've bought some skittles, and there's this big guy who is following you, it's scary, isn't it? i mean, you can't blame trayvon martin for wondering what the hell this guy's doing or who he is? >> well, you know, sadly, even your statements now are just a product of conjecture. saying that he was patrolling a neighborhood is absolutely false. he was not patrolling the neighborhood. he was going to a store, target. there was someone in the rain. according to even mr. crump, the family's attorney, taking shelter, what he calls taking shelter in other buildings. so george just saw simply, someone, who everyone lives in florida knows when it rains, it pours. people take shelter in their home or they see that it's raining and they wait ten minutes and then they go out. george saw mr. martin suspicious in context of what has been happening in his community, not just -- >> well, george found him suspicious. >> george found him suspicious. >> i mean, trayvon martin would argue he wasn't being suspicious at all. he was just walking to a house. >> right. and the police are the people who, you know, would have made that determination ultimately. >> how do you feel, personally, that your brother has killed somebody in these circumstances? >> no matter what, you know, i try to think of what if this were me? what if this were someone who had broken into my home and i had to defend myself or some other situation, where self-defense fits the mold more and it's easy, we can understand, oh, yeah, that's clearly self-defense because there's no room for conjecture. this wa