'$10,000 for Zimmerman's head' before verdict

Now that George Zimmerman has been found not guilty in the murder trial of black teenager Trayvon Martin, threats that some may take "justice" – or vengeance as the case may be – into their own hands become cause for concern.

New York Giants footballer Victor Cruz, for example, tweeted after the verdict was announced, "Zimmerman doesn't last a year before the hood catches up to him."

Atlanta Falcons footballer Roddy White followed up with a similar tweet, "All them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid."

Though both players later apologized, the tweets reflect upon the words of black activist Mikhail Muhammad, who claimed last year he had professional athletes' and celebrities' financial backing in putting a $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman's head.

While distributing "wanted dead or alive" posters at a press conference in Jacksonville, Fla., Muhammad, the southern regional director of the New Black Panther Party, stated, "The heat is on [Zimmerman]. He's never going to be able to sleep peacefully. The family of George Zimmerman must understand, a life for a life, a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. If you kill my damn baby, we're going to kill your damn baby."

Muhammad also launched into a tirade of racial epithets directed at Zimmerman.

"We investigated and we found out the facts that Trayvon had been assassinated by a wicked, white beast, who today is talking about he's a Hispanic. And so we're not going to go along with that. We don't care 'cause his father's a Jew. He's a no good Jew," Muhammad said. "To sit before the world, George Zimmerman, and try to justify the brutal assassination and murder of Trayvon Martin, an innocent 17-year-old, and for white America to be upset about the involvement of the New Black Panther Party, so we put this $10,000 bounty reward on the head of George Zimmerman to force the United Snakes, it's the snakes government, to do their job. And since they don't wanna do their job, we're mobilizing 10,000 men, black men in tri-states of Georgia, Florida and Alabama. We want justice for Trayvon; that's all we came for."

Video of the conference can be seen above.

As WND reported, the national chairman of the New Black Panthers, Malik Zulu Shabazz, has further declared the Zimmerman verdict a declaration of "war" and urged followers to "take to the streets [and] stay there."

In messages on the NBPP Twitter feed, Shabazz slammed what he called the "white mans (sic) justice system," claiming the courts base their law on "the white is right theory."

"Only a devil would applaud that verdict. Only natural born devil. By applauding that verdict you in fact admit that you are a devil," wrote Shabbazz.

See the NBPP tweet stream for yourself below:

The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism.

The NBPP's official platform states, "White man has kept us deaf, dumb and blind," refers to the "white racist government of America," demands black people be exempt from military service and uses the word "Jew" repeatedly in quotation marks.

When Shabazz was denied entry to Canada in May 2008 while trying to speak at a black action event, he blamed Jewish groups and claimed Canada "is run from Israel."

Canadian officials justified the action stating he has an "anti-Semitic" and "anti-police" record, but some reports blamed what was termed a minor criminal history for the decision to deny him entry.

Muhammad was arrested earlier this year on charges of resisting an officer without violence after police responded to claims he was holding his wife captive against her will.

According to a WJXX-TV report, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office found Muhammad's wife mouthing the words, "Help me," and indicating she wanted to leave the home with a friend. When officers began to walk into the house to collect her belongings, Muhammad resisted and was placed under arrest.