One of Zimmerman’s few supporters, Taaffe is a solid man of middle age who stands at about six feet tall. While imposing, Taaffe maintains a youthful air with a cleanly cropped goatee and buoyant spirit. In speaking to theGrio, Taaffe praised Zimmerman for his willingness to serve their besieged hamlet. This willingness seemed to overshadow the repercussions of Zimmerman’s reckless actions.
“He stepped up and said, ‘I’ve got this guys. I’ll take care of the community,’” Taaffe said of Zimmerman choosing to oversee security at the complex. “At that point, nobody gave him any argument, because it required daily patrols at night, on your own volition, taken out of your time. Heat, cold, rain, whatever the case is. George stepped up to the plate. And we as residents found that to be very admirable.”
Taaffe came to know Zimmerman intimately while acting as a watch block captain under George, who was captain of the neighborhood watch. Taaffe claims he saw the real Zimmerman — and that he is not a racist.
“He went around and did introduce himself to a few of the neighbors,” Frank remembered about his buddy, “As a matter of fact, there’s an African-American couple that lives next door to me that he introduced himself [to], and they didn’t find him racist at all.”
Taaffe trailed off before alluding to Trayvon’s “suspicious” appearance — then took up the subject directly.
“What if it was your neighborhood? And you had been phased by all the criminal activities that had transpired in your neighborhood?,” Taaffe elaborated, “and after eight burglaries — and they were all [done] by the same group of individuals, young black males, documented, that perpetrated these crimes — how would you feel if somebody walked through your neighborhood that more or less was within that scope? Would you not confront them and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Where are you going? What’s up?’ I know I would do the same thing. And I have done it.”