ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.
The former neighborhood watch
volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money in
Seminole County, outside Orlando. Also named in the complaint were three
reporters covering the story for NBC or an NBC-owned television
station.
The complaint said the airing of
the edited call has inflicted emotional distress on Zimmerman, making
him fear for his life and causing him to suffer nausea, insomnia and
anxiety.
The lawsuit claims NBC edited his
phone call to a dispatcher last February. In the call, Zimmerman
describes following Martin in the gated community where he lived, just
moments before he fatally shot the 17-year-old teen during a
confrontation.
"NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an
opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create a myth that
George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain," the lawsuit
claims.NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown didn't immediately return a phone call. Three employees of the network or its Miami affiliate lost their jobs because of the changes.
Zimmerman is charged with
second-degree murder but has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense
under Florida's "stand your ground law."
The call viewers heard was
trimmed to suggest that Zimmerman volunteered to police, with no
prompting, that Martin was black: "This guy looks like he's up to no
good. He looks black."
But the portion of the tape that
was deleted had the 911 dispatcher asking Zimmerman if the person who
had raised his suspicion was "black, white or Hispanic," to which
Zimmerman responded, "He looks black."
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