'If he was white he'd still be alive', Trayvon Martin's dad, Tracy Martin, says The parents of Trayvon Martin, mother Sybrina Fulton, left, and father Tracy Martin. RACE was a factor in the death of an unarmed black US teen by a volunteer watchman recently acquitted in his killing, the victim's father said. Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was fatally shot on the rainy night of February 26, 2012, as he walked through a quiet Florida community. His shooter, self-appointed neighbourhood watchman George Zimmerman, said he acted in self-defence. A jury acquitted him this past weekend. The case, which sparked protests, is widely regarded as the most racially sensitive issue in the United States since President Barack Obama entered the White House. "I think that, if Trayvon had been white, this wouldn't have happened," the teen's father Tracy Martin said in an interview on NBC's Today show. So, obviously, race played some type of role. "We felt in our hearts that we were going to get a conviction," Martin said. We felt that the killer of our unarmed child was going to be convicted of the crime he committed. Sybrina Fulton questioned whether jurors looked at the shooting from her son's point of view. In March in New York a rally is held seekinjg justice for Trayvon Martin. He was a teenager. He was scared. He did run," Ms Fulton said, who added that she believes the justice system failed her son. We didn't get the verdict we wanted because we wanted him to be (held) accountable. Martin's father, Tracy Martin, expressed disbelief in the verdict handed down Saturday by a six-woman jury following a three-week trial in central Florida. On US ABC's Good Morning America, Tracy Martin said he felt the jury did not get a chance to get to know the teen. "They didn't know him as a human being," he said. Martin's parents said they still believe Mr Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, racially profiled their son. "Obviously, any time you have a person that makes an assumption that a person is up to no good, that's some kind of profiling," Mr Martin said. George Zimmerman listens during his trial over the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin. Martin's parents said they support the federal government looking into the case. The Justice Department announced on Sunday it plans to review the case to determine whether federal prosecutors should file criminal civil rights charges now that Mr Zimmerman has been acquitted. Mr Zimmerman, who was charged with second-degree murder, claimed he shot Martin in self-defence. Martin's mother said she believes the verdict sends a "terrible message to other little black and brown boys." They can't walk fast. They can't walk slow. How do they get home without people assuming you are doing something wrong?," Ms Fulton said. Ms Fulton told CBS This Morning her son was not a burglar. "He simply went to the store and was headed back home," she said. And for somebody to look at him and perceive that he was a burglar, that was the problem that initiated everything.