ABC News doctors Zimmerman video to peddle false story in Trayvon Martin case

Written By: Bob - Mar• 29•12

The Daily Caller has investigated the ABC News claim that police closed circuit television of George Zimmerman being brought to the Sanford, FL police station shows no sign of injury, in what appears to be an intentional effort by the network to cast doubt on Zimmerman’s accounting of events. Zimmerman claims he was forced to shoot high school football player Trayvon Martin after Martin knocked him down and began slamming his head into the ground.

ABC News blatantly lied about what the video showed.

“A police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman,” ABC News reporter Matt Gutman wrote, noting that Zimmerman told police “he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.”

ABC News reported that Zimmerman appears uninjured in the video. But a still image from the video indicates what appears to be a vertical laceration or scar several inches long.

In fact, not one but both camera views showed that Zimmerman has a laceration several inches long on the back of his head. Any blood had been cleaned up by the Fire Dept assets that had treated Zimmerman at the scene. Bruising would not have shown on the low-resolution video.

More disgusting is the obvious fact that ABC News used a strategically placed chyron (graphic) to cover up the back of Zimmerman’s head for their broadcast, covering up the video evidence that would have disproven their story. View the video at the Daily Caller, and you’ll note that they did not even need a chyron, as there was no need to transmit any additional visual data to explain the story. The only logical reason the chyron exists is to cover-up Zimmerman’s wounds.

ABC News doctored the video to sell a false narrative, in a dishonest attempt to brand a man a murderer. I’d be very interested to know if Zimmerman can pursue legal action against ABC for constructing this false narrative.

Update: Cleaned up the mangled prose. Don’t blog on less than two hours of sleep.