When all was said and done, the Sanford jury reached a modest conclusion: The state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that George Zimmerman was guilty of a crime in the tragic killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Not that the state didn’t try. When local police and a local prosecutor found little evidence against Zimmerman, Florida’s governor appointed a state attorney who ultimately charged him with second-degree murder. And when prosecutors saw their case collapsing, they desperately sought other, lesser charges: anything for a conviction.

If some are now outraged by the jury’s acquittal, perhaps it’s because they were fed a steady political narrative about race when the evidence did not support it. One press outlet coined the term “white Hispanic” to describe Zimmerman. Another doctored a tape of Zimmerman’s 911 call, making him sound racist when he wasn’t. And now this city’s mayoral candidates are chiming in to second-guess the jury and fan the flames.

The six jurors who heard all the evidence did not call George Zimmerman a hero. All they did was conclude he is not a criminal. How much better we — and the heartbroken family of Trayvon Martin — would have been if this case had not from the start been drafted into the service of other, more political agendas.