Geraldo: MSNBC, Sharpton Pressured Prosecutors To Charge Zimmerman With Murder (VIDEO)

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Television personality Geraldo Rivera contended Friday that state prosecutors in Florida were pressured by MSNBC host Al Sharpton to pursue murder charges against George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

“This was a case brought because of political pressure — race politics in this country —I hate to say it, I hold Rev. Al Sharpton in much higher regard than many of my colleagues, I won’t speak for any of you presently, but I think I do,” Rivera told the hosts of “Fox & Friends.” “But I strongly believe that the Rev. Al is the catalyst behind the murder-two charge, six weeks after the incident. I believe the original prosecutor got it right. I think it is a self-defense situation, a classic self-defense when you strip it of all the trappings.”

Sharpton took a very public role last year in calling for Zimmerman’s arrest and frequently appeared alongside Martin’s parents at rallies and news conferences.

Rivera then took his argument a step further in asserting that the six female jurors likely empathize with the defendant, saying that “if they were armed, they would have shot and killed Trayvon Martin a lot sooner than George Zimmerman did.”

“I see those six ladies putting themselves on that rainy night, in that housing complex that has just been burglarized by three or four different groups of black youngsters from the adjacent community,” Rivera said. “So it’s a dark night, a six-foot-two inch, hoodie-wearing stranger is in the immediate housing complex. How would the ladies of that jury have reacted? I submit, that if they were armed, they would have shot and killed Trayvon Martin a lot sooner than George Zimmerman did.”  

Rivera, of course, drew an avalanche of criticism last year when he said that Martin wouldn’t have been killed if he hadn’t been wearing a hoodie.

 

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: