George Zimmerman claims that retweeting a photo of the body of Trayvon Martin -- the unarmed black teen he fatally shot in February 2012 -- was an accident, and that he has “nothing to apologize for.”
He retweeted the photo, which was posted by Twitter user @SeriousSlav with the caption “Z-Man is a one man army,” on Sept. 27. Twitter swiftly deleted the tweet, and @SeriousSlav’s account has since been suspended, though it’s unclear if this was a result of the photo or something else.
After the photo incited a massive backlash, Zimmerman tweeted a letter on Sunday stating that he retweeted @SeriousSlav without seeing the photo:
The original poster of the image had voluntarily selected to have all of his twitter images flagged as potentially sensitive months ago. The image of the body was blocked on my twitter feed and all twitter feeds. Until the user chose to click on the blocked image warning it does not show the image. I did not click on the blocked image and preview it prior to retweeting it.
A Twitter spokesperson told The Daily Dot that Zimmerman's explanation was plausible.
Zimmerman did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment about the retweet in September. In the letter he posted this weekend, he blames the media for “sensationalizing” the tweet and notes that he does not “owe” the media anything:
I did not publicly address the issue on the day the media chose to sensationalize the re-tweet. I do not now the media nor the radical vocal minority anything, neither do my supporters. I am now, for my supporters that are looking for the truth, assuring them I did nothing wrong and they, nor I have anything to apologize for.
Read the whole letter (story continues below):
Zimmerman, whom a jury acquitted of second-degree murder in Martin’s death, made no mention of his many other unsettling tweets, including one in which he states “Cops lives matter, black slime doesn’t [sic],” and another in which he calls President Barack Obama an “ignorant baboon.”
The day after he posted his non-apology letter, Zimmerman called for a boycott of retail website RedBubble.com, citing Black Lives Matter T-shirts the website is selling.
Zimmerman’s brother, Robert Zimmerman, confirmed to HuffPost in September that George Zimmerman’s Twitter account is authentic, but opted not to comment on its content.
Contact the author of this article at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com
Earlier on HuffPost: