As if the Trayvon Martin shooting couldn't get any more tragic or weird, there's an @KillZimmerman Twitter handle that hasn't yet been removed after 5 days.
But @RealFerrellWill? Well, Twitter had to suspend that after the impersonator of the actor tweeted, among other things "R.I.P. Trayvon Martin... For every R-T this tweet gets, $1 will be donated to the #TrayvonMartin Foundation, which helps counteract racism.”
Also, Trayvon's alleged Twitter handle, @NO_LIMIT_NIGGA, has also been removed. It had fairly typical rap-fueled, mysogynistic tweets for a Miami urban teen.
Conservative websites and commentators from The Daily Caller to Michelle Malkin have questioned why the @KillZimmerman is up and and tweeted about it rather extensively. Yet it remains.
“This Page Is 4 Da Ppl Who Believe Zimmerman Should Be Shot Dead In The Street," the page reads, replete with a Public Enemy-esque pic of Zimmerman with a rifle scope trained on his mug. The first tweet: "No Justice No Peace!!!!!!!!!! #KILLZIMMERMAN #KILLZIMMERMAN #KILLZIMMERMAN.”
Meantime, a group that calls itself the New Black Panther Party has called for a $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman. (In a somewhat ironic twist, a head of the organization was recently arrested in Georgia on gun charges) Someone, under the name of the party, posted a dead-or-alive bounty poster of Zimmerman. Gov. Rick Scott condemned the apparent call to violence. And so did Trayvon's parents.
Trayvon's parents and their lawyer condemned violence of the sort suggested by the New Black Panthers, which had posted a $10,000 bounty for the "capture" of George Zimmerman.
"We want you to protest, we want you to rally," Trayvon's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said Tuesday at a press conference in Washington D.C. "But we want to make sure that it's peaceful."
"We don't condone anything of violence or anything of the sort," said the family lawyer, Ben Crump. "We don't want anyone making an arrest of George Zimmerman but the lawful authorities." His parents "only want justice. No less no more," Crump said.
Some will doubtless suggest some or all of this is the work of agents provocateurs, those who would infiltrate a movement and purposely undermine it by getting it to spin out of control. But, in trolling the internet, it seems there are some way-too-angry people out there who are looking to shoot first and use race as an excuse.
Some aren't even on the internet. They might be walking around a gated community near you right now.
Comments