George Zimmerman, the man from the infamous Trayvon Martin case, made headlines again recently after ending up in court with his wife, Shellie Zimmerman. His wife reported that Mr. Zimmerman was threatening her and her father David Dean with a gun.
“He’s just threatening all of us with his firearm and he’s gonna shoot us. He punched my dad in the nose. My dad has a mark on his face,” Mrs. Zimmerman said in a 911 call.
Initially, Mrs. Zimmerman reported that she had video evidence of Mr. Zimmerman’s attack on her iPad; however, the iPad was destroyed during their confrontation and the police have not been able to recover the video.
Mrs. Zimmerman has since changed her story, stating that she did not see a gun on her husband, but believed that he was carrying one and felt threatened, but both her and her father have decided not to press charges.
Mrs. Zimmerman has recently filed for divorce.
What gave this story the headlines the media needed to sensationalize this turn of events was the series of emails leaked by website ThinkProgress between Steve Bracknell, chief of the Lake Mary Police Department and a concerned citizen. Bracknell has since verified these emails to be real and during the online conversation he noted that he feels the citizen’s worries about Zimmerman becoming the next Sandy Hook killer are accurate.
In an MSNBC interview, Bracknell responded to questions about the emails by stating that he is off-put by the recurring theme of Zimmerman ending up in court and news headlines due to gun violence. The Lake Mary police have issued a statement claiming that they will not file any charges without reviewing the contents of the iPad.
Regarding the case and divorce, Mrs. Zimmerman’s lawyer claimed that Mrs. Zimmerman simply wants to be as far away from Mr. Zimmerman as possible, and that she had hoped that they could rebuild their marriage after the events of the Trayvon Martin trial, but Zimmerman had only been home about three or four times since the verdict. This more recent altercation made up her mind about what she wanted to do.
The question many news sources are asking involves the degree of George Zimmerman’s liability. Is he an innocent, law abiding citizen, always at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a continuously lucky, unstable individual with violent tendencies? You’re likely to meet people in each of these camps of thought, and many with far removed, or somewhere in-between interpretations.
An even bigger question, perhaps, is what does George Zimmerman represent in American society? Does the fascination with him exist simply due to his role in the Trayvon Martin case, or is there something more to it?
There seems to be a strange sense of media sources trying to get the public to hold their breath, waiting anxiously for his next move. But is his next move anything to hold your breath over? Does a domestic dispute warrant national news? Or does gossip mixed with fear combined with a well-known face generate easy views?