I'm not questioning Zimmerman's claim of reaching for his phone and I'm not saying he was really reaching for his gun. I'm taking Zimmerman's claim at face value. What I am saying is that Trayvon could not know what Zimmerman was reaching for and that it would have been reasonable for Trayvon to assume Zimmerman was reaching for a weapon given Trayvon was merely heading back to his residence after buying candy from 7-11 when he found a stranger following him for no apparent reason, in the dark, in the rain, first by car and then by foot.
Oh I totally get what you're saying, but most of that is based on your feelings and emotionally charged speculation. Now before you get offended, please let me explain why. In the 9-11 call, Zimmerman is not describing Trayvon as just strolling down the street with a bag of skittles and a can of ice tea, he's describing him as looking in houses and acting like he is high or something. Zimmerman was not patrolling the neighborhood armed, looking for a black kid to report to the police. He was on his way to the grocery store and Trayvon apparently was doing something that caught his eye enough to call him in as a suspicious person. Now let's remember Trayvons gf is on the phone with him, and she said he told her he was going to find shelter from the rain. There goes the reason he is appearing suspicious to Zimmerman right there. Follow me? Trayvon isn't actually casing houses, but trying to get out of the rain for a minute or two while he talks to his girlfriend, probably waiting for the rain to die down or preparing to make fast dash to his dad's girlfriends' home. I can relate, I lived in Seattle for awhile and did the same thing frequently when rain came hard and fast unexpectedly. So Tray is probably pacing and talking to his girl on his head set. That's how Zimmerman gets the impression he's high, he can't see Tray's headset because his hood is up. See what I'm saying? Zimmerman gets out and that's when Tray notices he's being followed for sure, and starts looking Zimm over. At the same time, as his girlfriend said, he tells her some dude is following him, she tells him to run, he says he'll just walk fast. He's a 17 year old young man, so he's going to act like he's not scared when talking to his girl. He notices Zimms picking up his pace and takes off running. Now we don't know exactly what happened after that, ezcept Zimmerman says he lost sight of Trayvon, talks to the dispatcher about a meeting place then decides to just have them call him and he'd tell them where he will be. Zimm hangs up with the dispatcher, and according to him he heads back to his vehicle, not that he was right next to the vehicle...
In my opinion, Trayvon was the one acting in self defense, not Zimmerman. Zimmerman is the one who put himself into a precarious situation he shouldn't have and is now crying self defense because he was getting his ass kicked for it.