George Zimmerman’s lawsuit against NBC has been revived, with a notice of appeal appearing this past Tuesday in the case file in Sanford.
In a related report by The Inquisitr , with the anniversary of the Zimmerman trial verdict just having passed, some people fear the recent protests over gun control laws may evolve into a Trayvon Martin riot .
In his defamation lawsuit, George Zimmerman claims NBC employees purposefully edited the audio recordings of him talking to the 911 dispatcher in order to make it sound like he was racially profiling Trayvon. The lawsuit also claims NBC falsely reported that Zimmerman used a racial epithet during the phone call.
For those who do not recall, this is how the original recording went. Zimmermen said, “…he looks like he’s up to no good.” Then the dispatcher asked, “Would you say he’s black, white, or hispanic?” In response, Zimmerman said, “He looks black.” In March of 2012, NBC’s broadcast edited Zimmerman’s two sentences together to make him say, “He looks like he’s up to no good, he looks black.”
But on June 30 George Zimmerman’s lawsuit was thrown out completely by Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson . She acknowledged that NBC editors did shorten four of the reports on Zimmerman’s 911 call, but she argued the deletions were insignificant. Nelson also claims Zimmerman could not prove NBC had falsely reported him using a racist word since a team of audio experts from the FBI could not identify the word at issue when they studied the 911 recording.
Zimmerman’s lawyer, James Beasley Jr. of Philadelphia, argued the media reports managed to portray Zimmerman as a racist. It’s assumed the appeal for the libel suit hopes to end in a large cash settlement, which George Zimmerman needs since he’s also reported to be broke and homeless .
George Zimmerman Racist?
The question over whether or not Zimmerman did in fact racially profile Trayvon Martin continues to be a recurring argument, one which has the civil rights movement up in arms. President Obama famously said, “ Trayvon Martin could have been me ,” which had some people upset, while others claimed Trayvon was the real racist for calling Zimmerman “creepy ass cracker.” At the same time, you have former friends of Zimmerman claiming he did in fact racially profile Trayvon although the FBI said George Zimmerman is not racist .
But what is the truth? Reports often list Zimmerman as Hispanic but he also has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather. He was raised in a racially integrated household and grew up with two African-American girls who were considered part of the household. Before the shooting of Trayvon took place, Zimmerman was one of the few non-black people who helped protest the beating of a black homeless man in the Sanford area. Ironically, Zimmerman tried to enlist the help of a local branch of the NAACP, but they did not want to help so he printed his own fliers and distributed them at black churches in the area.
When Zimmerman protested the racial violence at the time, this is what he said:
“I would just like to state that the law is written in black and white. It should not and cannot be enforced in the gray for those that are in the thin blue line.”
Do you think George Zimmerman should win his libel lawsuit against NBC?
