The impact of the jury’s decision to clear George Zimmerman of all charges in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin has gone far beyond the courtroom in Florida. 

Whether people agree or disagree with the verdict, it’s an issue much of America is talking about right now. 

Pocatello City Councilman Roger Bray is attending an event in Orlando, Fla., in the same facility where the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is holding its national convention. And he said he’s heard some talk about the case at the convention center and on the shuttle ride to and from the building. 

“We come and go together. I haven’t been in their meetings, but I hear a little overspill,” Bray said. “I know a couple of people have said that the whole incident is evidence of the brokeness of America — when two people get together and one dies.”

Although Bray said he hasn’t witnessed many outward signs of protest, he can sense that some there are disappointed in the verdict of the trial. 

“(It seems they would have) felt like justice would have been served if there had been some sort of conviction,” Bray said. 

Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP Salt Lake Branch, expressed that exact thought on Monday. 

“(The jury) came back with not even manslaughter,” Williams said, adding that she completely disagrees with the jury’s findings, especially since members acquitted Zimmerman of both second-degree murder and the lesser charge. 

She’s not alone. 

Thousands of demonstrators from across the country — chanting, praying and fighting tears — have protested the jury’s decision, and organizers say they’ll try to maintain the momentum with vigils next weekend.

Rallies on Sunday were largely peaceful as demonstrators voiced their support for Martin’s family and decried the verdict. Police in Los Angeles said they arrested six people, mostly for failure to disperse, after about 80 protesters gathered in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard and an unlawful assembly was declared. New York police said at least a dozen people were arrested on disorderly conduct charges during a rally in Times Square.

In Oakland, Calif., during protests that began late Saturday night, some angry demonstrators broke windows, burned U.S. flags, vandalized a police squad car and spray-painted anti-police graffiti.

Like many of the protestors, NAACP officials say they are “outraged and heartbroken” by the jury’s verdict in the case, but they encourage people not to react violently to the situation. 

“We stand with Trayvon Martin’s family as they continue to grieve and we ask everyone that there be no violence in anyway,” according to a news release. 

In a peaceful protest of its own, the NAACP has posted a petition on its website, asking Attorney General Eric Holder to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman. More than 350,000 people had signed the petition by Sunday morning, Williams said. 

“A large number of folks (have signed the petition), and it grows everyday,” she said. 

On Monday, the Department of Justice issued a statement on the fact that it continues to investigate the death of Martin. 

“The Department of Justice's Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continue to evaluate the evidence generated during the federal investigation, as well as the evidence and testimony from the state trial,” according to the statement. “Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction, and whether federal prosecution is appropriate in accordance with the department's policy governing successive federal prosecution following a state trial.”

Following the verdict in the case, the NAACP has also vowed to “continue our fight to outlaw racial profiling, whether it comes at the hands of law enforcement professionals or armed citizens,” according to a news release. 

Those in Sanford, a mostly middle-class suburb of Orlando, where the shooting took place, have reacted somberly — and peacefully — to the verdict. The city was mostly silent the morning after the verdict, in contrast to the rallies that drew thousands not long after the shooting.

Only a few people went past the permanent memorial built in the city’s historically black Goldsboro neighborhood to honor the Miami teen.

Standing in front of the memorial, Venitta Robinson, the minister at Allen Chapel, said she hopes the black community doesn’t dwell on the verdict.

“It’s a little disheartening, but that was the process we go through as far as having a jury, and that’s the verdict that they had, and we have to respect that,” said Robinson, who is black. “We don’t necessarily have to like it, but we have to respect it.”