On Thursday, George Zimmerman, the person accused of the controversial racially motivated murder of an innocent African American teenager that also brought President Obama into the fray calling for justice – sued NBC, and a vital fact surfaced.
Apparently, according to the lawsuit, it was NBC’s editing of George Zimmerman’s 911 call that had demonized him and made him look like a racist murderer.
The lawsuit filed in Seminole County mentions that the 911 call broadcast across the nation by NBC in February, the call that built up a frenzy across the nation to get justice for Trayvon Martin, was edited in a manner that did injustice to Zimmerman.
All of us remember the 911 call by Zimmerman, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
Read, or heard straight, any reasonable person would conclude that the person on the phone was associating the fact of being black, with the fact of being “up to no good.” However, the lawsuit filed by Zimmerman shows a shocking deletion of fact.
When releasing the tape of the 911 call to the public, NBC deleted a portion that came before the sentence “He looks black.”
And that vital portion that NBC deleted shows that Zimmerman’s comment was in response to the 911 support staff asking Zimmerman to tell him whether the suspicious person was “black, white or Hispanic,” to which Zimmerman had replied, “He looks black.”
NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown has said that NBC strongly disagreed with accusations in the lawsuit which mention “NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create a myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain.”
NBC said, “There was no intent to portray Mr. Zimmerman unfairly … We intend to vigorously defend our position in court.”