Since he shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year, George Zimmerman has been trying to convince the public that he was not acting simply out of racist aggression but because Martin attacked him. Zimmerman’s brother, Robert Zimmerman Jr, is not helping his cause. On Saturday, Zimmerman went on a Twitter tirade against “black teens,” equating the boy killed by his brother with De’Marquise Elkins, the 17-year-old suspect in the murder of a Georgia infant.
As highlighted by Mediaite, Zimmerman tweeted a photo comparison between Elkins and Martin flipping their middle fingers with the caption, “A picture speaks a thousand words…Any questions?”
Zimmerman tweeted the photo at Michael Moore, the NAACP, the NRA, and a Breitbart.com editor. He followed it up with another comparison between the two, tweeting “Teen to West: “Do you want me to shoot your baby?” #TrayvonMartin to #GeorgeZimmerman: You’re gonna die tonight Motherf**ker.”
In case the reason for his comparison of the two young black men was unclear, Zimmerman later tweeted:
https://twitter.com/rzimmermanjr/status/315866249928245248
Trayvon Martin was unarmed when Zimmerman allegedly followed him and shot him. He had no criminal record. Zimmerman had a history of calling the police to report suspicious black individuals, one as young as 7–9 years old. By his brother’s logic, this frequent suspicion of black people was not due to prejudice but because black people pose a genuine and constant threat to everyone around them.
Zimmerman’s trial is scheduled for June 10.