Elderly couple abandons their home after address is posted on Twitter as that of George Zimmerman
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-27/news/os-trayvon-martin-wrong-zimmerman-20120327_1_tweets-heart-condition-twitter
The original tweeter deserves a big share of the blame for this but Lee, being a celebrity and thus having a large following, should have been more careful.
Even if it had been the right address, it’s hard to see this as not being a call for a lynching.
That whole ugly situation just gets worse and worse. A teenage boy is dead already, and threats and harassment aren’t going to bring him back to life or speed up whatever action might be taken against the “real” Zimmerman.
Even if it was the shooter’s family, they’re not to blame for what happened.
I hope they’re able to take legal action against the original twit, and as for Spike Lee being involved… if he was stupid enough to do this I hope this ends up being one of those stupid little career-destroying mistakes.
The son’s comment
is what I hope people listen to.
Tweeting the correct address would be horrendous. Tweeting the incorrect one is worse.
Looks like Marcus Davonne Higgins sent out the same tweet to many celebrities, but Lee took the bait Elderly Couple In Fear Over Spike Lee Tweet | The Smoking Gun
Paging Bricker - is this prosecutable? Because it really, really should be. Zimmerman needs to be legally held accountable for his actions, and so does Spike Lee.
From your link:
They should just call his son John in New York. He’ll fix things.
Yippie Kay Ay, Mister Higgins.
Back in 2010, after the Health Care Act passage, some tea party activists tried to give out the address of Tom Perriello, Congressman from Virginia. They screwed up and gave out his brother’s address by mistake. A little while later, his brother’s gas lines had been cut which, if it hadn’t been detected, could have meant a tragic end for the family.
I thought it was a stupid and petty thing to do then, and a stupid and petty thing to do now. In that, I’m including the giving out of the address, the giving out of the *wrong *address, and the harrassment and threats to people, regardless of their state of innocence.
I’m sorry, but while I think Spike’s actions were foolish, I’m not aware of his breaking any law. He didn’t encourage any illegal actions be taken against the residents of that address.
They might be able to sue him – some kind of a false light claim, maybe – but as far as a prosecution for some sort of crime… there is no crime in mistakenly tweeting an address for a person, unless you combine it with some kind of message that proposes imminent harm. Which Mr. Lee did not do.
Now, the same may not be true for Marcus Davonne Higgins, the man who allegedly tweeted the erroneous information to Lee, since Higgins’ tweet is reported to have contained the phrase, “Feel free to reach out and touch him.”
+1
Somebody needs to step and be a bigger man. This just adds to the stupidity and tragedy.
This is why criminals’ full names are used in the press, so the wrong Mark Chapman or John Gacy or whoever doesn’t get targeted. And whether it’s the right house or not, no one exactly digs being the neighbor of someone notorious at a time like this. Anyone who lived on Bundy Drive in 1994/5, for instance.
You trust him to be impartial? Didn’t you see that footage from Harlem when he was wearing a racist billboard? And then he had the audacity to later say that he wasn’t racist because he “has two or three black friends” (is he counting Argyle?).
Spike Lee needs to realize that he’s a director, and hasn’t made a decent film in a decade or something. So get back on that. Go make a thinly-veiled allegory to Martin/Zimmerman if you want, where “Mike Lee” solves the case.
So there were 40 no-takers and a fool, huh?
Trayvon Martin: Couple who fled home after Spike Lee tweet hires Morgan firm
Since I see Morgan and Morgan ads on TV in Orlando all the time, this seems almost inevitable.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-trayvon-martin-lee-settlement-20120329,0,7063902.story
**
Trayvon Martin: Spike Lee settles with family forced to flee home**
There are sometimes men like Dr. King, who give their lives for a great and just cause. We never have enough of such men. And then there are others who exploit a great and just cause to their own advantage. One is too many of those.
I’m glad to see they worked this out so fast.
Some of the comments on that article - wow!
That must be why Sharpton got away with inciting that resulted in death a few years back… at least legally. Why he still has a publice voice (MSNBC show) is quite another.
How about offering bounties … is there anything illegal about that?
Only in the NFL.
And today Spike Lee compounds his heinous act by Tweeting, "Leave the McClain’**s alone," misusing a possessive apostrophe.