No victory here - Boston Herald

Curiously enough it was the preternaturally divisive Rev. Al Sharpton — at the urging, we assume, of Trayvon Martin's parents — who managed to sum up the feelings of many Americans after the arrest of the man who shot Martin, killing him, six weeks ago.

"We don't want anybody high-fiving tonight," Sharpton said Wednesday, alongside Martin's parents, who have pleaded with authorities to arrest the admitted shooter, George Zimmerman. "There's no victory here. There are no winners here. They've lost their son."

No winners.

Not the parents forced to bury their 17-year-old child, shot to death, unarmed, as he walked home from a convenience store inside the gated community where he was a guest.

Not the relatives of George Zimmerman, who feared for his life in the weeks before his arrest, given the overwhelming public cry for justice in the case.

Not the people of Sanford, Fla., a racially diverse community that has been portrayed as a haven for intolerance; where someone shot up an unoccupied police car on Tuesday outside the neighborhood where Martin was killed.

No, "victory," for lack of a better word, will come only when justice has been served in this case. That is, when prosecutors present the evidence that compelled them to charge Zimmerman with second-degree murder; when Zimmerman's lawyers present his defense, sure to center around Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law; and when a jury of Zimmerman's peers has delivered a verdict (or Zimmerman agrees to plead guilty).

Of course, Florida law is on trial here, too. The first, crucial decision that sparked a national outcry was when police let Zimmerman walk on the night of the shooting — instead of arresting him for killing an unarmed man, and leaving it to prosecutors to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to move forward with the case.

But the police believed the "stand your ground" law tied their hands. If Florida is going to keep that law on its books, at a minimum, it owes its own law enforcement community better guidance.

Martin's parents have, to their credit, never demanded a conviction in the case. They realize there are no guarantees. What they wanted was for Zimmerman to be held officially accountable for shooting their unarmed son. The arrest is the necessary first step.