Trayvon Benjamin Martin was a 17-year-old African-American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic American. Martin had accompanied his father to visit his father's fiancée at her townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford. On the evening of February 26, Martin was walking back to the fiancée's house from a nearby convenience store. Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Martin and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious. Several minutes later, an altercation happened and Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

Miami Gardens is a city in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is located 16 miles (26 km) north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its west, and from the Broward County line to its north to 151st Street to its south. The city's name originated from Florida State Road 860, a major roadway through the area also known as Miami Gardens Drive. Miami Gardens had a population of 111,640 as of 2020. It is Florida's most populous city with a majority African American population and also home to the largest percentage of African Americans of any city in Florida, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It is a principal city in the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida, which is the nation's ninth-largest, and world's 65th-largest metropolitan area with a population of 6.158 million people as of 2020. Miami Gardens is the home of Hard Rock Stadium, a 64,767 capacity multi-purpose stadium that serves as the home field for both the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League and the Miami Hurricanes, the University of Miami's NCAA Division I college football team, which has won five national championships since 1983.