On Monday evening, the NBC News website led with a dramatically misleading headline: “Father: 911 screams are Trayvon Martin.” While Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, did testify in court that the screams heard on the 911 call containing audio from the fight between Martin and George Zimmerman, as well as Zimmerman shooting Martin, the real story was that he essentially called both the police and the prosecution liars, and apparently changed his story in order to do so. That little fact was relegated to the abstract.
Originally, when Tracy Martin met with police, he flatly denied that the voice screaming on the 911 call was his son, according to two police officers including the lead investigator in the case. Asked whether the voice on the tape was his son, Martin said “no,” according to both officers. But on the stand, Martin testified that he had said that he didn’t know if it was his son, despite the officers’ testimony. This also contradicted the case made by the prosecution that when Martin said “no,” he was simply expressing disbelief that his son had been shot.
NBC News is the same outlet that selectively edited the original Zimmerman 911 call to make Zimmerman sound racist. NBC News sliced and diced the tape to sound as though Zimmerman, unsolicited, gave Martin’s race: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” In reality, Zimmerman said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something and he’s just walking around, looking about.” The 911 operator then asked Zimmerman for Martin’s race.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.